President's Message

Welcome to the 50th anniversary year edition of the Communique. First of all, I would like to thank the Committee Chairs, Dr. Tayler Nichols, Shaylah Turk, and Tucker Grimshaw for putting this together. They have been doing an amazing job at not only creating this special edition, but developing creative ideas as to how CAPED can make the Communique more engaging and beneficial for our members. We are in an age where most people no longer read articles unless the headlines and summaries are catchy and compact, hooking them into the main content. They also work on identifying new ways to engage our members through social media. If you do not yet follow us on Facebook or Instagram, I encourage you to do so. The pictures and the links are a great way to catch up and find useful resources. 

Since this is my second year as CAPED President, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support. While I am certainly ready to pass the torch on to Dr. Adam Gottdank, I am pleased with the work we completed during my presidency.

We ensured that the organization is in good financial shape. After several months of often exasperating work, we re-established our non-profit status with the State of California, gained access to our accounts that were blocked as a result of personnel change, and filed our taxes in a timely manner. None of this could have happened without the dedication and passion of Dr. Dawn Decker and Magaly Rojas-Gonzalez. 

We established strong collaborations with several stakeholder organizations. We are now a well-recognized affiliate of AHEAD as they invited us to work together on several nationally impactful activities, such as the Judy Heumann Tribute, Payan and Mason vs LAUSD case, and the DOJ Title II regulation changes. Our collaboration with the DSPS Unit of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office strengthened as we hosted several workshops together, and Mia Keeley and Jennifer Tabb remained staunch supporters of the CAPED Mentorship Program (CMP). Our Legislative Committee, led by Laurie Vasquez, worked closely with the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges (FACCC), the Student Senate of the California Community Colleges (SSCCC) and the DSPS Statewide Advisory on several key legislation, such as AB 1705, AB 1885 and AB 2821. Those bills will shape the opportunities of students with disabilities in the State of California. 

We established the Website Task Force as we understand the need to revamp our current website, making it more engaging and more accessible. While the new website is not yet ready to be launched, the work is underway and will soon be available. The website, along with the revamped Communique, will likely generate more interest and help us recruit more members. In addition to the new website, we also secured a new email domain under Google. This will allow key contracted personnel and officers to use CAPED email accounts as they deal with business related to the organization. This also allows us to have shared Google drives with easy access to our essential documents. 

While there is work to do, as always, we are moving in the right direction. The Futures Committee has great ideas on how to recruit student members and how to engage more disability professionals in CAPED. We need the voice of students to guide our work and certainly more active members to spread the responsibilities. The future leaders can build on the foundational work of the last two years. During this anniversary convention, we will host the first Strategic Partnership Meeting with our key stakeholders, including representatives from the University of California and the California State University systems. This event will shape the direction disability services will take not only in community colleges but in all higher education institutions in California.  

In closing, thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve. I hope to see you in San Diego where we will have the opportunity to honor our past, celebrate our present accomplishments and shape the future of CAPED. Together.