The Ceremony - University of La Verne

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION & ORGANIzATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Continued from 14
Delgado’s other big challenge is the Head
Start program.
“L.A. County has the largest Head Start
program in the nation. We are expanding
programs and trying to get kids ready
for school, especially in poor areas. There
is a great opportunity for doing some good
things. Already, I’m excited,” he said.
Delgado said one of his top goals is to take
a look within the organization and streamline
it. That will allow the county to be better
positioned to respond to needs, he said.
He will undoubtedly tap into the foundation
he received at La Verne to do that.
His education at La Verne helped him discover
his own leadership style, he said.
“You learn to build bridges and listen and
hear perspectives about education and organization
and leadership. Working together
with people with different styles was a big
help,” Delgado said. “You discover your own
style through that process.”
Thomas agreed. He also earned his master’s
degree at La Verne.
“I was really looking for a program that
recognized that people who were working
full-time would need flexibility,” he said. “La
Verne just had a very accommodating model
which allowed me to do my job as well as get
my course work done. That degree and administrative
credential helped me secure my
first administrative position.”
The degrees at La Verne prepared Thomas for
managing schools and districts and becoming a
strong leader. “In addition, I would say in the
doctoral program, we did a lot with emerging
technologies, which was extremely helpful.”
Thomas began his career in 1979 as a junior
high social studies teacher in the Charter
Oak Unified School District. That wasn’t
exactly what he had planned. He had aspired
to teach high school but was told he was too
young; he was only 22.
“I ended up in junior high. I swore I
would never teach junior high and I spent
my entire teaching career there,” he said. “I
just remember how I was when I was a junior
high kid and I didn’t want to deal with that.”
He spent some time thinking about the
middle school teachers he’d had and tried to
emulate what they did in the classroom. That
proved to be successful, he said. He realized he
needed to have respect for the age group, set
guidelines and rules for students and then fol-
16 VOICE Summer/Fall 2011
low through with enforcing the rules. He also
knew to make the classroom environment fun.
When Thomas first began teaching, educators
and students were not facing the same pressures
they are today. “We have a larger array of
indicators people watch to determine whether
there is success,” he said. “The formulas and
things people have used have changed.”
Thomas said he has seen a deterioration of
support for public education. Class sizes are
larger than they have ever been, schools have
skeleton support staff and it has been difficult
for schools to obtain the material and
equipment they need.
Despite all of that, “We have still seen
an increase in student achievements,” said
Thomas, whose county serves about 417,000
students in 538 schools. “Teachers in the
“I ended up in junior high. I
swore I would never teach
junior high and I spent
my entire teaching career
there. I just remember how
I was when I was a junior
high kid and I didn’t want
to deal with that.”
— Gary Thomas
San Bernardino County
Superintendent of Schools
classrooms as well as principals are doing an
extraordinary job given the reduction of resources
that we have had.”
Thomas, who has held numerous administrative
positions and who served as superintendent
of the Silver Valley Unified School
District and the Lucerne Valley Unified
School District, began his first full four-year
term in January; he had spent the previous
two years filling out the term of the former
superintendent. His priorities include closing
the access and achievement gap, improving
dropout and graduation rates and preparing
students for college and careers. He
is particularly passionate about a program
designed to increase college-readiness.
The Early Assessment Program (EAP)
is a collaborative effort between the California
Department of Education (CDE),
the California State University (CSU),
and the State Board of Education (SBE)
to avoid incoming CSU students’ need for
remediation in English and mathematics.
Students take a voluntary test in the 11th
grade; the results give them an idea of their
college readiness in English and math. Students
with acceptable scores on the EAP who
are admitted into the CSU system can enroll
in college credit-bearing courses in those
subjects as entering freshman without taking
remedial courses. If a student does not pass
the EAP, that student can be offered solutions
in his or her senior year.
“What we are really trying to do is move the
remediation to the K-12 side,” Thomas said.
The San Bernardino County Superintendent’s
office, working with Cal State San
Bernardino and the Chaffey Joint Union
High School District, has developed a pilot
where Cal State San Bernardino will
provide a guarantee of admission for all
graduating Chaffey seniors who successfully
complete CSU entry requirements
and achieve passing rates on the EAP.
Three community colleges — Chaffey, Crafton
Hills and Victor Valley — also have
agreed to accept EAP scores and UC Riverside
has agreed to look at the program,
Thomas said.
“We are really pushing to get as many
partners as we can in the pilot,” he said.
“The effort here is to see that EAP students
are coming into college successfully prepared
for college-level coursework, to align high
school coursework and college-entrance requirements,
and to reduce higher education
remediation costs.”
For Delgado and Thomas, the most rewarding
part of their jobs is seeing the impact
– in the short-term and over the longterm
– of education.
“You are really transforming lives — anything
from that first-grader who all of sudden
discovers he can read, to a high school student
who finally works out algebra or geometry, to
the first time a kid has an opportunity to perform
on a live stage,” Thomas said.
“The artistry that comes out of youth is
amazing. I think opening minds of people
about the possibilities that there are, that is
really exciting about education.”
Related story: Read about the College of
Education & Organizational
Leadership’s recent accreditation at:
http://laverne.edu/voice/2011/11/ceol
A Work
In Progress
After earning four academic degrees and a
42-year career as librarian, Marlin Heckman
is most excited about what’s yet to come.
By Mark Vidal
If there is one thing Marlin Heckman lacked when he retired after
31 years as head librarian, it was the mentality of slowing down.
He didn’t have it then, and he doesn’t have it now. Between prepping
for his upcoming books, attending book signings, traveling the
world and working on his iPad, Marlin has lived up to the mission he
shares with the University of La Verne: lifelong learning.
“I read about a book a week, usually have two or three going sometimes.
I read you have to keep your brain active,” Heckman said. “Too
many people sit down in front of the TV and never move again.”
For Heckman, a resident of Hillcrest Retirement Community in
La Verne, being on the move is as important
to staying active as it is to lifelong
learning. He is adamant about going on
Lifelong Learning
daily walks, he practices Pilates and enjoys aerobic exercises in the
pool. He also spends time raising turnips, tomatoes and cucumbers
in his garden, and shooting nature photographs with his Nikon D40.
Although he admits, he’s still learning.
But if Heckman is spotted sitting on the couch, especially recently,
he is likely to have a mountain of postcards by his side and his Flip-
Pal portable scanner on his lap. He’s working on what he plans to call
“California at Night from Sunset to Sunrise” — one of several books
he has composed entirely out of antique postcards.
“I call postcards the e-mail of that day,” Heckman said, referring
to circa 1890 – 1915, when postcards grew to prominence. Since
1990 Heckman has accumulated thousands of postcards from antique
shows, shops, yard sales and gifts. “You never know what you’re
going to find.”
Postcard books are Heckman’s way of documenting California’s
history. Once he has identified a theme, such as California scenes
depicted at night, he’s ready to start planning for a book.
Why the portable scanner? Heckman is also the designer of his
books. Using self-publishing services available on the Internet, specifically
MyPublisher.com and Blurb.com, he uploads scanned images
of the postcards and strategically lays them out on pages. He writes
his own captions and selects the appropriate stock for each project.
It’s an efficient and cost-effective process that gives Heckman design
and production control, though it wasn’t always like this.
The majority of his earlier books were published the traditional way
ALUMNI
An author and photographer, former University of La Verne
librarian Marlin Heckman once wrote a book about front doors.
Mark Vidal image
with Arcadia Publishing, based in Chicago. “Lordsburg/La Verne,”
“Santa Barbara,” “Long Beach,” “Santa Catalina Island,” “Pasadena,” and
“Santa Monica,” make up the heart of his vintage postcard history series.
“I chose areas that would be of interest. Someone vacationing in
Santa Barbara might want something to take home,” Heckman said.
To this day he still receives royalty checks for his vintage postcard
history series.
For Heckman, the perks of being an author and a self-publisher are
spontaneously pleasant.
“Last summer, I got a call from a publisher saying there’s a new
bookstore that moved to Belmont shores in Long Beach and he wondered
if I would come and do a book signing. This is for a book
(“Long Beach”) I published 10 years ago,” Heckman shared. “I came
and signed them all.”
He received another special call last summer, this time from a lady
who read in the paper that he would be doing a book signing in Long
Beach. She had an old picnic basket full of vintage postcards she had
accumulated and she wanted to donate them to Heckman.
Thanks to a kind lady’s generosity and Heckman’s creative edge, he is
equipped to create a short series of postcard books that will feature California
in winter, at nighttime and in classic sunshine in the near future.
Read the expanded version of Mark Vidal’s story
about Marlin Heckman in the Voice Online. Visit:
http://laverne.edu/voice/2011/11/heckman
Summer/Fall 2011 VOICE 17