New VP fills vacant position; sees potential for COS

     During the past spring semester, the Vice President of Academic Services position at COS was vacant.  This vacancy may have gone unnoticed to the students due to the absorption of responsibilities the other administrators took on. However, this semester, Duncan Graham has been hired to take the spot.

     Duncan Graham has been uprooted from his Dean of Fine Arts job at Foothill College and now is settling into his new position and life here in Visalia. Foothill is a community college located in the Bay Area; an area in which Graham faced a 45 min commute even though he only lived 15 miles from the campus.

     “Now I leave the office and I am home and changed in ten minutes.”

     A more serious change, he noted, is in the social demographic differences between the two schools. Foothill College is set in a more affluent area with far less students linked to financial aid. Also, twenty-six percent of the campus is composed of students already certificated with a bachelor’s degree or higher. 

     “COS definitely has a younger population,” said Graham.

     Graham sees these differences in a positive light, consistently talking about the potential of each student and the potential COS has to assist them.

     Graham received his own education from a community college in the San Jose area, and then transferred to Santa Clara University. He later receives his master’s degree in Theater Arts at San Jose State University. He worked as a stage manager for fifteen years and taught Drama and Theater classes between three colleges before finding himself in an administration position.

     In a staff message sent out by President Scroggins, he expressed his enthusiasm of Graham joining the “COS family,” describing Graham as “knowledgeable, accessible, and passionate.”

     Graham said his “mantra belief is that every conversation should start with ‘It would be best for out students if we…’ then fill in from there.”
 

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Eduardo Rufeisen

Mon Nov 9 2009 13:21

Congratulations Duncan!!!
Keep in touch and don't hesitate to contact me if you ever need anything.
Eduardo Rufeisen
Director of the Motion Pictures and Television Department
Academy of Art University

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