Sitting Down With Our New President, Tawny Dotson

On Thursday, September 3, 2020, the Yuba College Journalism Club met with our new President, Dr. Tawny Dotson to get to know her and her goals for our college. Dr. Dotson moved here with her family in the middle of a pandemic to take over the role of President. They found out that they would be given this opportunity in May, and when they visited in June, due to restrictions they couldn’t visit houses to find a place to live. They ended up having to rent a house having never been inside it. She has three boys, a 16 year old 10th grader, a 13 year old 8th grader, and a 8 year old 3rd grader. They went from a place they have lived in for 10 years to here, where distance learning is the only way to meet their classmates. To add onto that, her husband is still in active duty and actually wasn’t with them due to a mission in New Zealand. Due to covid, he had to quarantine for two weeks when he got there, adding more time to his stay.

Dr. Dotson went to Washington state, University of Missouri, and Oregon state, obtaining several degrees; BA Communications, Minor philosophy and aerospace studies, MA Strategic Communications with an emphasis in Journalism, and a  Doctorate in Education with concentration in community college leadership. With all these accomplishments, she had always wanted to be a President of a community college. However, this isn’t quite what she had expected when she dreamed of this. Covid has obviously changed a lot on how we go about our day to day life. This makes it hard to meet new people and get to know the students of this campus. She had to shift her vision to make the best of the situation.

Tawny hopes to be able to slowly open the campus back up next semester for classes with labs and hands on learning. “It definitely won’t be opened 100%, not even 75%, but we do need to start moving in that direction”. When asked if we would still open if Covid rises again she states, “We have to be ready for us not only to open up more, but also to open up less… If you create an environment where you listen to the advice of scientists and doctors, people who understand what the virus is doing and how it’s transmitted, you create the healthiest environment you can. We have protocols in place if someone does get sick…then you know what to do when those things happen.”

Tawny really thinks we can make the best of our current situation. We just need to find a way to look at the opportunities that present themselves and take advantage of them instead of just announcing this as a time where nothing good comes out of it. We really need to find the bright side of this difficult time and use the new opportunities we are given. Yes, everyone is struggling, but we have an opportunity to do things we usually wouldn’t have time for. “I really do hope that we start to see the pandemic for its opportunities, I’m not setting aside the fact that it has been challenging, you know, more than challenging, it’s been hard, and it’s painful,and its changed our scenario a great deal, but we can’t control that. We can only control the way we are reacting to what’s happening around us. As much as it has created problems around us, it has also created opportunities for us to set aside some of the things that would normally distract us from accomplishing our goals and for students in particular, now is a great time to take control of what’s around them and focus on moving forward with their education.” She wants us to use this to our advantage and move closer to accomplishing the goals we had set for ourselves.