The Contra Costa Community College District recently announced its newest addition to the leadership staff, Jennifer Ortega, who will be taking over as the Director of Communications and Community Relations. The community will be able to witness her experience and extensive skill set in mass communication in action as she works to further promote all of the opportunities that the colleges within the district have to offer. 

What does it mean to be director of communications and community relations? 

What it means is that I will be assisting our Chancellor, Mojdeh Mehdizadeh, and her cabinet of leaders in advising on communication strategies and connecting with members of our Contra Costa community to tell the story of the district. So, as you know, we have three colleges, five campuses, and about 45,000 students. And even though the district and Contra Costa College have been around for 75 years, many people don’t have a good understanding of how many wonderful programs and opportunities colleges offer.

We have the early college credit for high school students, the free tuition for full-time students, and many others. We have career pathways and certifications and just so many incredible opportunities. I think the role of the director of communications and community relations is to spread the word and to elevate the profile of the district and the community. It’s also an opportunity to advocate for state funding and for policies at the state and federal level that will benefit our students and our colleges. 

What kind of work do you do?  

My primary role is external and internal communication. And so I do this in a number of ways using a number of channels. In addition to pitching a news story to a media outlet, I would also respond to media inquiries along with developing content for public presentations. Our chancellor gives an annual state of the district presentation every year – which kind of just shares with people where we are and where we’re headed. Another big thing that we’re doing right now is we are updating our strategic plan as a district. And so that happens every five years. We’re in the process of that and it’s on track to be finalized by the end of June. So then kind of getting the word out that; ‘like hey, we’ve updated our strategic plan and here’s what it looks like and here are our goals for the next five years.’ 

What programs do you have in specific that you’re pushing more towards right now?

Well, I’m really in the learning phase right now, and so I’m trying to understand the different programs but also kind of what the district has in addition to that. And so for an example, our Vice Chancellor of Human Resources just began offering a monthly webinar for people to understand how to apply for jobs with the Contra Costa Community College District.

So he’s doing those on a monthly basis, the first Monday of the month, and that’s an example of the kind of thing that we wanna get the word out on. It’s kind of a district thing, it’s not really at the college level as far as specific programs, but of course anybody who wants to get a job working for one of our colleges would certainly be encouraged to participate so they can understand the application process.

What work have you done in the past that you believe qualifies you for your current position? 

I’ve had an interesting career that I’ve really enjoyed. I have, most recently I was working in community relations for the city of Concord, so I was there essentially doing very similar work to what I’m doing now; external and internal communication, connecting with the community, making sure that they understood the programs and projects and initiatives of the city, responding to media inquiries, overseeing the website and social media, that sort of thing. 

So that was really similar. Prior to that I did communications for Carondelet High School in Concord. And so that enabled me again to do communications and PR marketing as well, but also gave me the ability to work with some students, which I really enjoyed – and to just be in the world of education. What prepared me for that, specifically, is that I had done advocacy work in the education realm as well. So advocating for programs that keep kids and youth on the right track and preparing for high-skill, high-wage careers. 

How has the transition been for you so far? Especially with the whole learning period? 

So far I feel like I’ve had a good balance of sort of these quieter days in the office when I can read and meet with colleagues here and think through what the big issues are and what my goals are and just kind of lay it all out. And other days, like last week for example, I had an event at Los Medanos and another event at Diablo Valley College back to back. I was out and about all day long meeting people, touring the campus, it was just very exciting to be on the ground and interacting with faculty and students and kind of just seeing what a day in the life is like at our colleges. So a goal for me is to be able to kind of keep that balance of this time in the office with time on the campuses. 

What goals do you have for the department now that you’re director? 

I think my overarching goal is to really increase the visibility of the district and our colleges and to enhance our reputation in the community. I believe that our colleges already have a great reputation among the people who know them, who’ve had experience with them and who’ve taken classes. But I think there are others in our community who may not know, they may never have interacted with us and they maybe don’t have an understanding of the number of programs and opportunities that our colleges and our district provide.

So I think, from a prospective student standpoint, looking at people who might wanna take a class or enroll and not just students coming out of high school, but also people who are looking to switch careers or enhance their resumes by learning a new skill. Then also on the business side, businesses who are looking for talented and skilled workers, we want to be able to create more connections between our schools and our employers and just make sure that our classes are preparing students for high-wage jobs. 

Do you have a specific way you’re planning on reaching out to these people? 

Writing a press release, pitching a story, posting it on social media, those are all good communications tools. I think one of the things that I’m really looking forward to is making personal connections with people and figuring out where we can plug into community events that are already happening so that we can literally just have that visibility. And then in addition to that, building connections among people in the community, business leaders, chambers of commerce, policy makers, so that they have a real understanding of, you know, who we are, what we’re doing, what our goals are, and then trying to figure out, you know, how we can help each other.

If there’s ways for these businesses, for example, to plug into what some of our colleges and departments are doing so that they can help inform us and tell us, hey look, we need a bunch of employees in this sector and here are the skills we’re looking for. So that then our colleges can create programs that are helping students to develop those specific skills that are needed in the workforce. 

Any closing messages? 

I can tell you that I’m super grateful to have been selected for this role. I am very committed to working hard on behalf of our students and our current students, our future students, our faculty, our staff and our community. And so I think what’s so exciting for me at this point is just being in this period of time where I’m trying to learn and read and absorb as much information as I can and meet people and just kind of really ramp up so that I can do my job to the best of my ability. Like I said, I’m still in a learning phase. And so I guess what I would add is, you know, if anyone, students, faculty, whoever’s reading this advice for me they can feel free to reach out to me.