Tag archives: education
We are most honored to have spent time doing an in-depth interview with Eik Kahng PhD, Deputy Director, and Chief Curator of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA). Preferring to concentrate on work minus the accolades, she graciously accepted to do it between curation, establishing new high-caliber art education programming for our town at […]
Continued education and understanding of cultural groups are needed across our community. Last month, anti-Semitic flyers were dispersed across the Mesa on the first day of Hanukkah. This was a coordinated effort that occurred in the Second District that Laura Capps represents and is compounded by the horrific displays of anti-Semitism across the country. Like […]
Westmont hosted a community event with education and financial representatives exploring the best ways low-income students can fund a college education on November 15. About 100 underprivileged high school students and their families attended “Affording Your Dream College,” which was held in partnership with several county education initiatives. “Education is the most powerful and transformative […]
Lots of positive news is coming out of Montecito’s Cold Spring Elementary this month, including recognition for being ranked the top-performing district in the State of California in both English Language Arts and Mathematics (nearby Montecito Union School ranked #2). In a recent article on edsource.org, data analysts report that students in California performed significantly […]
There are a number of reading programs for students in Santa Barbara, including several administered by nonprofits. Tina Hansen McEnroe is absolutely clear about what makes the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic at the Gevirtz School at the University of California, Santa Barbara, stand out from all the rest. “How are we different? It’s […]
Happy new school year! From interviewing people for this column, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a young person, and I have learned a lot of what it means to be a student. In honor of the new academic year, this edition of Dear Montecito is for the new college […]
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, questions concerning “education accessibility” become central to our discussion about school. But as the team at Cal-SOAP Santa Barbara knows, barriers to education did not simply appear with the pandemic lockdowns. At California Student Opportunity and Access Program (Cal-SOAP), they ask: What is keeping students out of higher […]
New national rankings and economic indicators establish Westmont as one of the top Christian liberal arts colleges in the U.S. once again. Westmont, in its 85th anniversary year, improved its overall score and rose in five other ranking categories to remain in the top tier of the 2023 U.S. News & World Report’s National Liberal […]
Five new accomplished, tenure-track professors have joined the Westmont faculty this fall. Isaac Gomez (kinesiology), Jennifer Ito (physics), Ruth Lin (music), Siegwart “Zig” Reichwald (music), and Guang Song (computer science) each bring a deep Christian faith and a love for teaching to Westmont. Gomez, a local resident who graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, […]
It is well known that most industrialized countries have universal healthcare, good public transit, and free public college education. Why doesn’t the U.S. have these things? A hundred years ago socialism was seen positively in much of the world as a way to share in the productivity of modern industrialization. President Franklin Roosevelt and his […]
About 320 first-year students and a record-setting 70 transfers begin arriving at Westmont for Orientation (August 25-28) and the start of the fall semester (August 29). “We’re thrilled to welcome the class of 2026 and the largest group of transfer students in Westmont’s 85-year history,” says Irene Neller, Vice President for Enrollment, Marketing and Communications. […]
Pedro Paz has been named executive director of the Santa Barbara Education Foundation. Paz joins the organization after working for the Santa Barbara Foundation as Director of Policy and External Affairs, and First 5 in Santa Barbara and Merced counties. Raised in our Eden by the Beach and attending Dos Pueblos High, he holds a […]
A tight-knit cohort of five Westmont student teachers shared inspirational stories about their experiences in the classroom at an emotional Celebration of Teaching April 28 on campus. Linda Ngo, Sam Cordes, Hannah Boelter, Simon Janzen, and Shae Caragher,who all earned California Preliminary Credentials, spoke at the event, held for the first time since 2019. “Teaching is […]
Westmont alumnus Ramon Gupta (’94), a corporate attorney with an active practice in Santa Barbara, has joined the Westmont Board of Trustees. A partner with Mullen & Henzell LLP, Business & Real Estate Group, since 1999, Gupta has taught business law at his alma mater since 2014. He will begin a three-year term at his […]
Two Westmont graduates and Augustinian Scholars, John Corbett (’22) and Kyle Mayl (’21), have won Fulbright Scholarships to teach English outside the United States. Corbett will serve in the Czech Republic while Kyle Mayl will be in Spain. The award is particularly meaningful for Corbett, whose grandfather was born in the Czech Republic. “I grew […]
Our town’s schools held their 2022 graduation ceremonies from May 29 through June 10. The eight school graduations are covered in order of occurrence with part one in the previous issue (Vol. 28, Iss. 23, June 9) and this issue including El Montecito Early School with 20 grads, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School with […]
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” Shakespeare employed that now famous line in his play Romeo and Juliet to imply that the naming of things is irrelevant. The Riviera Ridge School might beg to differ. The highly-esteemed independent educational institution that serves […]
Our town’s schools held their 2022 graduation ceremonies from May 29 through June 10. The eight local school graduations are covered in order of occurrence, in two news reports, part one today and part two on June 16. This issue has Cate School with 66 grads, Montecito YMCA Preschool with 14 grads, Cold Spring School […]
Last week the Cold Spring School District celebrated its building project with an enthusiastic groundbreaking ceremony. “It brings me great joy to see the hard work and dedication from the past and current Board and Administration finally come to fruition. It has taken the District sixteen years to get to this point,” said superintendent Dr. […]
