FROM PRAIRIE DOGS TO PRACTICUMS: Community College of Aurora turns 40

AURORA | The Community College of Aurora’s future looks a lot like its past.

Forty years after the first class of Community College of Aurora students donned caps and gowns and walked for their degrees, CCA President Mordecai Brownlee emulates the same spirit that made it all possible.

“I see every challenge as an opportunity,” Brownlee told the Sentinel after his appointment as president about 18 months ago. “The challenge is ensuring the Community College of Aurora is seen as a primary factor of empowerment economically within our community.”

Mostly clad in a bow tie and also wearing an infectious smile, Brownlee and his family have become a primary factor in just about every aspect of Aurora community life, especially educational life.

“I am passionate about student success and I am passionate about bow ties,” Brownlee said when he accepted the position.

That passion for education is what sold him to local officials searching for the next college leader.

“We wanted someone with an entrepreneurial spirit who would expand CCA’s reach and partnerships, and experience in strategic enrollment management who will be able to reverse the declines in students and revenues facing the institution during these challenging times,” system Chancellor Joe Garcia said about Brownlee’s selection. “CCCS’s goals of diversity, equity and inclusion also called for someone who will champion learning environments that promote student success for Aurora’s growing and increasingly diverse communities.”

That’s the same determination that breathed life into the college in 1983 when former Gov. Richard Lamm signed the state act creating the school. The moment came after decades of all levels of city and community leaders pushing for an independent school in Aurora that focused on the people who lived here.

The Sentinel, then the Aurora Sun and the Aurora Advocate, were staunch champions of creating the college, but the biggest push came from one generation of city council members to the next.

While the school has made huge strides in becoming a state gem in higher education — the college’s film school has more than once been tabbed by national experts as one of the top in the nation — supporters say it has not only remained true to its mission: providing education for those who want and need it, but building on that with Brownlee’s enthusiasm.

“He’s going to be able to take the college where we need to go,” former past CCA president Betsy Oudenhoven said when he was appointed. “He is the person that will take us to the next chapter.”

Read on to see what some of that next chapter will be, as well as look back at the moments that filled the four-decades of history of the Community College of Aurora.

CCA 30 years ago, encapsulated

A mask. A bottle of hand sanitizer. A Baby Yoda figurine. A fact sheet of information about Elijah McClain, accompanied by a miniature violin.

Those were some of the objects that the Community College of Aurora chose to represent 2020 for a time capsule that will be opened 30 years from now. The capsule will replace one from 1991, which was opened last year after 29 years.

The time capsule was the brainchild of then-college president Larry Carter. Installed on July 11, 1991, the contents were put in place in the ground outside the college’s classroom building, under a plaque instructing “to be opened in 2020.” Little did anyone know at the time what kind of year that would turn out to be.

Retired facilities manager Larry Steele, who helped create the capsule, did the honors of unveiling the contents. (The concrete seal, which took quite a bit of work to crack, was opened in advance by college facilities staff.)

The items from 1991 included a VHS tape with information about the college, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figurine, a plaque from the first graduating class in 1981, a graduation tassel, a copy of the college’s old student newspaper, the Highline Chronicle, and several print class schedules.

In 1991 the college was only about a decade old and had a fraction of the population it does now. History instructors Paul Langston and Brandon Williams provided some context for what life was like in 1991 and how things have changed over the subsequent 29 years.

In 1991, the first Gulf War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved, Langston said. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela became president of the African National Congress after being released from prison for fighting apartheid. In Los Angeles, Rodney King was beaten by LAPD officers, an assault that sparked mass protests and riots the following year when none of the officers were charged.

The New York Giants won the Super Bowl, The Silence of the Lambs and Beauty and the Beast came out in theaters, and Cheers and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air were on TV.

The events that took place between 1991 and 2020 show us that “things indeed change but they also stay the same,” Williams said.

The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War ushered in a new era of peace, but under Vladimir Putin Russian aggression is again on the rise. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 led to the war in Afghanistan, which has been underway for 19 of the 29 years the time capsule has been buried.

And just as people took to the streets after the Rodney King verdict, the deaths of George Floyd and Elijah McClain led to sweeping protests against police brutality.

Though it’s easy to be discouraged by how little things have changed in some ways, it’s important to remember that the path towards racial equality is not linear, Williams said.

And despite the current chaos, the past three decades have created monumental changes as well, such as the election of Barack Obama, nationwide legalization of gay marriage and the rise of social media.

“It may not feel like it, but this is the most peaceful century in human existence,” Williams said.

After the capsule was opened, HR director Cindy Hesse displayed the items that will be placed in the new time capsule, which will be opened in 2050. Community members were asked to weigh in on what should be put in the capsule to represent 2020, with masks being the overwhelming top choice.

A CCA-branded mask along with hand sanitizer will be placed in, along with printouts of emails from college president Betsy Oudenhoven during the beginning of the pandemic when things were changing day-to-day.

“Clorox wipes are too valuable,” Hesse joked, saying the college couldn’t spare any for the future.

Opening the time capsule brought back a lot of memories for Steele, who said that though the college’s programming and enrollment have changed dramatically the campus still looks very similar. One thing that’s changed are the campus’ trees, which are much bigger than they were in the early 90s.

“This place has a lot of meaning for me,” he said.

— Sentinel Staff Writer

CCA students reflect on Aurora theater shooting

It started with a few simple words, words that had changed with the charge of violence and tragedy.

In the weeks and months after July 20, 2012, they were words that helped reform Stacey D’Angelo’s plans for the fall semester at the Community College of Aurora. They made D’Angelo, the college’s theater director, rethink how she would approach her craft and communicate with her students. As the toll of the shootings at the Century Aurora 16 theater became clear, they turned into words with the potential to heal a battered community.

“A couple of months ago, if you heard the words ‘theater’ and ‘Aurora,’ your mind would go to one place,” said D’Angelo, who had originally planned to stage an original production about military veterans. “I immediately said I can’t do a piece about war and post-traumatic stress disorder … I felt charged to do something, I felt that this department (was) called to do something.”

“Glimpses – The Rising Dawn” is a bid to reclaim those words by D’Angelo and her students. The original stage production that will debut next week is a collective response to a community tragedy, a production that tackles deep-seated fears and wounds with candid expression and heartfelt confession. The idea for the show stemmed from the tragedy that claimed 12 lives and injured dozens, but its final form will touch on more universal themes.

“It’s not about the tragedy, it’s about healing,” said Aisha Spencer, a CCA drama student who wrote segments for the piece and who will star in the production. “It’s moments in our lives that have made us become a better person. It’s our fears, our dreams. It’s a way to show that we are strong as humans and we will find hope and strength no matter what.”

D’Angelo and the students took their cues for the show from a similar stage project from 2008, a production titled “Glimpses” that drew on personal, firsthand input and anecdotes from students. The show combined the firsthand stories in a single format, testimonials that touched on similar themes.

“When we did ‘Glimpses’ the first time, it was a community coming together, sharing their stories,”

D’Angelo said. “They took the directions of going to the depths of who we are and what we strive to be, what we’re confused about, what our fears are … It did for the community then what we really needed now.”

“We’re trying to heal the word ‘theater,’” said James Brunt, a CCA drama student whose past stage work was limited to short, one-act pieces. The format and freedom of the new version of “Glimpses” has been both demanding and liberating for Brunt, he said, but the show’s mission is unique. “Now, when people hear the word ‘theater,’ they think of shootings. We’re trying reclaim our theater. This is what we do. This is what we do for a living is put on a performance. We don’t people to be terrified of going to a simple play. We want to show them that it’s OK, that they can feel comfortable and show them that this is a community. We can heal together. We can still enjoy things.”

The format was similar to the structure of “The Laramie Project,” the drama by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project that came as a reaction to the brutal murder of Andrew Shepard in 1998. According to Therese Jones, a director at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the Anschutz Medical Campus, the approach hearkens back to the ancient history of the art form.

“For the ancient Greeks, theater became this public and communal form. I think that something like ‘Glimpses’ works in that traditional form of theater,” said Jones, who studied the theater community’s response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. “Theater has its basis in religious ceremony. For the people who attend ‘Glimpses,’ they will be a part of this communal ritual of healing.”

That kind of catharsis is a central part of the production, D’Angelo said, an approach that seeks reinvention through pain and stark truths. Hopefully, that kind of brutal honesty will leave an imprint on audience members and the wider community.

“Maybe when they leave they’ll hear the words ‘theater’ and ‘Aurora’ and they’ll think of community and love and sharing and togetherness,” D’Angelo said. “They’ll not think about ugliness and fear and panic.”

— Sentinel Staff Writer, November 2012

A higher degree of learning: CCA students honored for overcoming dramatic obstacles on the way to learning

None of the hardships were slight. None of the impediments were ordinary.

Regularly, the Sentinel and other media feature graduating students who have extraordinary stories about their journey to get a cap and gown. This Sentinel feature from 2012 reflects not the just the spirit of many students, but of the mission of the college, too.

There was the former convict who had served more than six years in prison. With the help of a director from a local police academy, he carved out a route toward an associate degree and a career as a personal trainer. A couple from North Sudan in Africa who had come to Colorado knowing only a few words of English are both fluent and training for work in engineering and auto repair. A drama student who worked even harder to perfect her craft and create new work after discovered she had lymphoma.

Such were the stories on display during the Community College of Aurora’s Student Success Awards ceremony held at the school’s CentreTech campus on Dec. 7, 2012. A group of 22 students from the college accepted honors from their professors and their peers. Each had been nominated for their academic achievements, but the recognition went deeper. Every one of the honorees had faced particular hardships, challenges that seem insurmountable on their surface.

Take Jack Howard, who went to high school in Colorado but failed to receive a diploma after moving to California. Howard fell in with the wrong crowd. He spent more than six years in prison, where he received his GED and started to consider a new direction.

“When I was younger, I used to dream about stuff like this, any kind of recognition. It means a lot to me,” said Howard, 45, after receiving very public praise from CCA’s Michael Carter and other faculty. He compared his future to the rough path he’d faced as a younger man with no high school diploma and little direction. “It was a dead end, all dead ends. I’d been on the side of the road and seen how people really live.”

A fresh start came in working with faculty like Carter, the director of the school’s Police Academy program who encouraged Howard in more ways than one. With the help of Carter and other faculty, Howard made his way through the school’s Personal Trainer Academy and now works part-time at the CCA gym, guiding students bound for careers as police officers.

“We had to go through some struggles to get me in to a job here,” Howard said. “Giving people with my background a second chance means a whole lot.”

During the ceremony on Dec. 7, Carter sang his student’s praises, insisting that “it doesn’t matter what you’ve been, it’s what you’ve become.”

The rest of the honorees faced different kinds of struggles. Anxiety disorders. An adolescence spent between group homes, foster homes and jail. Life as a single parent. These were the obstacles faced by just a few of the students who accepted awards last week. What’s more Jennifer Bird, Bethany Even, Michelle Twaddell and James Fountain received scholarships worth $500.

For the professors who nominated the honorees and told their stories to an audience that included CCA President Alton Scales, Commerce Bank Chairman Jim Lewien and published poet and retired English professor Wayne Gilbert, the tales of hardship and determination perfectly summed up the mission of the Community College of Aurora.

“This is an example of how CCA works,” Carter said. “We transform lives.”

—Sentinel Staff, December 2012

THAT’S A TAKE: Film school gives Aurora refugee students a chance to showcase their story through DAVA project

Hafsa Ali’s first meal in the U.S. was about as stereotypically American as it gets: McDonald’s french fries and a paper cup of crimson ketchup.

“We were just sitting there all huddled up together and this guy from Somalia (who) worked at the airport started speaking Somali and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you guys must be hungry,’” said Ali, a 17-year-old student at Aurora West College Preparatory Academy and Junior Staff at Downtown Aurora Visual Arts. “And he just went and came back, and then got us some fries and talked to my mom and stayed with my mom until we had to go to the airplane, and then come to Denver.”

That memorable first bite of food on U.S. soil happened at a New York airport about six years ago, which was when Ali, along with her 13-year-old sister, Halima, arrived in the country after spending seven years as refugees in Uganda. Born is Somalia, Hafsa fled her native country when she was 4 years old. The journey to Uganda was harrowing, and involved goats — lots of goats.

“The only way to escape was through a truck full of goats … I was four, but I don’t think I would have liked it now,” Hafsa said, chuckling. “And then we were in the truck for a long while and we went to Uganda.”

That tale of Somalian exodus is one of several featured in “Coming to America,” a film Hafsa and three of her peers at DAVA — Falastin Khalif, Nasra Hussein and Benita Deragli — created in about two weeks this summer at the annual Colorado Film School’s Film Camp for Kids. The program grants about two dozen DAVA students access to the CFS facilities on the nearby Community College of Aurora at Lowry campus every summer.

This year, the “Coming to America” crew was tabbed for a “silver key” award from the Colorado Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, joining two other films created by DAVA students in this year’s crop of winners.

Hafsa’s sister Halima, along with students Katherine Quiche and Melissa Caudillo, won an honorable mention for their short film “Finding Our Way Home,” and Marco Benitez won a “gold key” prize for his animation “Bob and the Eraser.” The gold key designation earns Benitez, an eighth-grader at the Denver School of Science and Technology’s Conservatory Green Middle School, a chance to win an additional national award later this year.

Selected from a pool of more than 5,000 submissions, several hundred students from across Colorado were named Scholastic Art and Writing Award winners this year in categories ranging from filmmaking to studio art to jewelry.

Students from DAVA have had their films shown at the annual premier for several consecutive years, which is largely due to the partnership the local arts organization started with the Colorado Film School nearly a decade ago, according to Susan Jenson, executive director at DAVA. 

— Sentinel Staff, February 2017

POWER OF 3: CCA grad says turbulent career start, high school career won’t dissuade her from goal of law school

Ryan Manzanares kept turning the small wooden block over in her hand as she talked about the power of three.

She’d just received the patterned piece of wood as a graduation gift from a fellow student at the Community College of Aurora, a mentor who insisted that the object was a talisman bearing an important message. The simple shapes carved into the wood held symbolic meaning, Manzanares explained as she sat on a bench at CCA’s CentreTech Campus a few days before her graduation. The engraved circles and lines spoke to a common pattern behind life’s most major upsets and victories.

“Everything happens in threes,” Manzanares said, before applying the rule to the most important recent events in her own life. She ticked off a list of two defeats and a major victory: dropping out of high school, going through a traumatic stint working at a major corporation and, finally, graduating from CCA. “Now I’m back up to the top. That’s the big picture.”

Manzanares, then 25, kept that big picture in mind as she walked across the stage along with 238 fellow CCA graduates during the school’s graduation ceremony on May 11. It’s a larger perspective that helped her make the transition from a shy and quiet freshman still scarred by past trauma to an outspoken activist at the top of her outgoing class. It helped pull her through the stress and strain of losing her mother, of having to be the live-in caretaker for her father.

“I was so nervous about school. It was really big for me,” Manzanares said, recalling the first classes she took more than two years ago. “I’m the first person in my family to start (college).”

Being the first family member to attend college wasn’t the only source of stress when Manzanares signed up for her first CCA courses. She’d already been through the toll of dropping out of high school, a decision that forced her to look for steady and reliable work as a teenager. The job she found quickly turned traumatic. She was sexually harassed on the job, and the culprit initially went unpunished. After a lengthy legal battle, her harasser was fired and she came away with a settlement that barred her from mentioning the name of her former employer.

She’d been vindicated in a legal sense, but Manzanares was left with no job and no income. The decision to sign up for classes at CCA came after plenty of emotional trauma.

“I was like, ‘What do I do now?’ I was 22, I’d been in machine operating,” she said. “I was really nervous and really quiet. I used to wear all black. I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

It was the school’s faculty that helped bring her out of her shell, and in a big way. With encouragement from teachers and CCA staff like Director of Student Life Angie Tiedeman, Manzanares found her niche at the school. She started participating in student government. She joined the honor society Phi Theta Kappa. In her role as vice chair for the Student Advisory Council, Manzanares spoke on behalf of her fellow students during debates about Senate Bill 165, which would have allowed community colleges to grant four-year degrees.

That kind of activism, developed in political science classes at CCA, didn’t end with Manzanares’ graduation earlier this month. She’s planning on starting at the University of Denver in the fall for her bachelor’s degree. She wants to move on to law school after that, and eventually find a job in law. Ultimately, she wants to start her own homeless rehabilitation center.

In order to realize those goals, Manzanares knows she’ll have to keep the bigger perspective in mind. As she pulled the small wooden talisman from her purse, she framed her ambitions in terms of three.

Manzanares went on to obtain a degree from Denver University and work in criminal justice system in the region.

— Sentinel Staff, May 2013

Many years at CCA, all of them great

Signed maroon and yellow pennants line a wall in Valerie Sangiuliano’s office — memories of colleagues and friends that walked through the Community College of Aurora’s registrar office. Sangiuliano is one of the few people left from her generation.

Sanguiliano first stepped onto the CCA campus as a young adult in 1992. 

“I took a year off after high school, and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life,” Sangiuliano said. Her mom has talked with people who worked at the college and they recommended she attend Aurora’s “home school.” 

“I had a conversation with my mom, the next thing I know, August of 1992, I started my classes on the CCA campus,” she said. Sangiuliano graduated in 1995 with an Associates of Arts degree, becoming the first person in her family to get college credentials. 

Sangiuliano’s first job on campus was at the Learning Resource Center, which is now called The Hub, and she helped students type on computers. Six months later, she started working in the registration department helping students register for classes. Other than a few brief stints at other companies and other departments within CCA, Sangiuliano has spent three decades working in the registrar’s office. 

Sangiuliano’s passion for her career comes from watching her blue-collar parents move around from job to job. “There was no stability,” she said. “I wanted stability. I wanted community. I wanted to feel a part of something…and I think I have that.”

Sangiuliano said that despite working at the same office for decades, the work is far from boring. 

When Sangiuliano first came to the community college campus as a student, the only CCA campus was on CentreTech. She remembers the campus encompassing just the main building, a classroom building and a fine arts building. Her classes also used to be held in local high school classrooms. 

The Lowry campus hadn’t been opened yet. It was still a fading Air Force Base. That same year, construction was still underway to build the Denver International Airport. Earlier that summer, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” aired its first episode, and the country was months away from electing Bill Clinton as President. 

Since then, the campus has grown to include a student center and the Larry Carter Black Box Theater. The community college is also building a new STEM building which is slated to open in the fall of 2025. 

The biggest change Sangiuliano has seen during her tenure at the registrar’s office is the internet. 

NEW FOR 2024 — READ: Community College of Aurora restarts police education with APD cadet program

The line of students who needed to register for classes used to wrap around the hallways, Sangiuliano said when reminiscing about her time working in the student service office. The work was all done manually and the employees helped students find and enroll for classes. But the internet made the process much faster, and students can now do this on the college’s website. 

“I can remember when we first got our computers with a mouse. Nobody knew how to use a mouse, so we were all learning and practicing together,” she said. 

Sangiuliano attributed the changes and growth to the community college’s past presidents, as well the current president, Mordecai Brownlee. 

“This is my favorite time at CCA in all of my career because so much is changing. So much is happening, so much is evolving,” she said. 

Sangiuliano will be eligible to retire in four years, but says she has enough energy to hang around the office for another 10 years. She has no plans to work for another three decades, but she would still like to volunteer in the community after she retires. 

When asked to give advice to high school students who, like her, were unsure about what to do after school, Sanguiliano said that people shouldn’t be discouraged from pursuing an education. She referenced her own experience of how she came to the community college and how she didn’t earn her bachelor’s degree until 2015.

She also encouraged young people to “just go with the flow” and not to worry so much about the obstacles they may encounter. 

“My advice is, don’t stop. Look ahead. Don’t look back,” Sanguiliano said. “Education is still here. And that’s the beauty of it.”

— Kristin Oh, Staff Writer

2024 grant will allow CCA to support students’ transportation need 

The Regional Transportation District gave the community college’s Office of Student Advocacy $22,440 “to support individuals who need a reliable transportation option to get to campus. It provides 816 standard 10-ride ticket books, each valued at $27.50,” according to a press statement from the community college. 

“On behalf of CCA, I want to express our deepest appreciation for all those involved in selecting our institution to receive these funds. Our students deserve the ability to attend our institution free from challenges, such as the lack of reliable transportation, that present barriers to their pursuit of economic mobility. Resources such as these aid in removing another barrier,” CCA President Mordecai Brownlee said in the statement. 

RTD set aside $1 million for this grant program, called the Transit Assistant Grant, in response to a 2023 analysis. According to the press statement, RTD received 211 applications from various organizations for funding, and awarded money to 181 of them. 

“This inaugural program was intentionally designed to meet pressing and urgent needs in the community, whether that be immediate access to essential services or assisting during times of crisis, supporting the unhoused or aiding newcomers to the metro area,” Debra A. Johnson, Denver RTD general manager and CEO, said in the press statement.

— Sentinel Staff