CR's August 22, 2025 Times Standard Article - Welcoming in a New Academic Year

Published on Aug 19 2025

College of the Redwoods faculty and staff gathered this week to welcome the start of a new academic year. The beginning of the year is a special time on our campuses when we have a chance to rekindle relationships and engage in exciting new conversations after the summer months. 

As we turn our attention to the future, it is important to acknowledge that last year was one that we will not forget. We saw enrollments continue to drop for many California colleges, though thankfully not for CR. We saw attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech. We saw a marked rise in bigotry, intolerance, and incivility. We saw the escalation of anxiety in our immigrant, marginalized, and LGBTQ communities.  

We also saw a strengthening of the connection with our community and a continued investment in positioning CR for future success. 

While many of our sister community colleges are struggling to stave off enrollment declines, CR’s enrollment has steadily increased since the pandemic. Thanks to the hard work of our administrators, faculty, and staff, and the trust of the community, we saw a 12% increase in enrollment over the previous year, and we surpassed our overall enrollment target by 2%. However, this is not the end point. We are working hard to further increase our enrollment by 2-3 % over the next four years to ensure that we have the funding needed to support new and existing programs, serve students, and contribute to the economic vitality of the region. 

Critical to our enrollment growth has been the increase in the number of student-athletes attending CR. We had 253 student-athletes competing in our athletic program in 2024-25 compared to 241 in 2023-24. Thanks to our outstanding coaches, the growth in men’s and women's wrestling, softball, and the addition of rodeo, we will enroll 308 student-athletes this academic year. 

To support our enrollment growth, we must attract and support the best and brightest faculty and staff.  We added six new faculty and 16 new classified staff to our college community last year. And we are in the process of hiring seven additional instructional faculty in critical areas including business, accounting, biology, welding, fire technology, paramedicine, and forestry. 

We committed to collaborate with several local healthcare leaders to add five new healthcare related degrees, healthcare navigation, psychiatric technician, radiology technician, respiratory technician, and surgical technician, to our curriculum offerings over the next two years. 

This past year we received a $1 million donation from the Del Norte Healthcare District to equip a new healthcare education center on our Del Norte Campus with advanced training technology. This gift will allow us to provide state-of-the-art, hands-on training for students so that they are prepared for immediate employment in local healthcare facilities.

Our capital projects also moved forward last year. Our new Creative Arts complex was completed, we broke ground on our new PE/Fieldhouse project, we submitted the final design of our new Eureka Campus residence hall to the state for approval, and we installed a new artificial turf football field and track as part of Phase I of the community stadium upgrade project. We also expanded our downtown campus site to support the growth of our adult and community education program. 

Our dream of creating a Humboldt healthcare education training hub in partnership with Cal Poly Humboldt took a significant step forward and we are on track to offer classes in the new “Hub" in the fall of 2027.   

Thanks to so many people, our 120-million-dollar Measure I bond passed last year. The bond will allow us to continue to modernize our Eureka and Del Norte Campuses. We hope to begin building new affordable student housing, softball and baseball fields on the Eureka Campus, and the state-of-the-art healthcare training center on our Del Norte Campus within the next year.  

Although this is all good news for us, we know that CR does not exist in a bubble. We cannot and will not be insulated from the world around us. We are acutely aware that the national problems that we saw unfold at the end of the last academic year will escalate this year. Our Board of Trustees, faculty, and staff are united in the belief that we must address the divisive issues we see happening around us constructively, and with an unyielding commitment to academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the pursuit of truth.

College of the Redwoods has an amazing capacity for innovation and collaboration. Despite the uncertainty surrounding us, I believe that we will come out the other side of this stronger if we learn to embrace ambiguity and discomfort, continue to listen to each other, and show others grace. I am honored to be a part of this remarkable and talented college community and am looking very much forward to the year ahead.