Highlighting the amazing Administration, Faculty, Classified Professionals, and Students that make up our pirate family.
This month's highlights include:
Julissa Deluna (student), Gabriel Aragon (classified), JP Bareng Schumacher (administrator), Ali Fazelpour (faculty)
Name: Julissa Deluna
Role at VC: I am the president of Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), the manager of internal affairs for Womxn In STEM (WiS), a STEM Navigator and also an embedded tutor for MATLAB for Engineers.
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Years at VC: On and off for about 4 years
Family life: I am a first generation college student who was raised by my grandparents. My grandma who worked at the swap meet and my grandpa going to Home Depot every early morning to find work. My parents were always in and out of my life due to drug addiction. Although fate would have said I’d follow in my parents footsteps, I took it as an opportunity to create a “what NOT to-do list” to succeed. Despite being a full time student, I am also a full time mother to a beautiful baby boy. We love to take walks together and go to our local ice cream shop down the street from our house!
Hobbies: I love to go to the museum, the zoo, the aquarium or anything educational that me and my family can learn from every time we visit! I also took a recent interest in soldering after recently hosting a soldering workshop for our SHPE club.
Favorite Food: My all time favorite food is albóndigas.
Favorite Movie: If you haven’t seen me walking around in my crocs, you should know my favorite movie is Shrek.
Favorite Song: I have too many to choose from but I recently been replaying the song “Water” by Tyla.
Something Fun, interesting, and/ or unique about you: I love to dance even if I have no idea what I am doing.
Name: Gabriel Aragon
Role: Office Assistant, Civic Center
Years at VC: 1 (on 11/21)
Family: I have 8 biological siblings (4 brothers & 4 sisters), of which I am the oldest. I’m also adopted, so I have 3 bonus siblings (1 sister & 2 brothers). My bonus sister and I are the same age, so she is more like my best friend. We live together with her menagerie of pets; 3 cats (Debbie, Nova, & Bruce), 2 snakes (Jade & Pixie), and a bearded dragon (Lizzo).
Hobbies: I love to hike and attend live music concerts/festivals when I can. Love to travel, but haven’t done as much as I’d like. I am looking forward to going to Turks and Caicos in the spring though, maybe it’ll kick start my international travels.
Favorite food: I love food in general honestly. My favorite is probably Italian food though, if I could only eat one carb for the rest of my life, it’d be pasta.
Favorite Movie: I have a short attention span, so I’m not much of a movie watcher. I did just see the Taylor Swift Eras Tour movie last month which was amazing, and in spite of its 3 hour runtime I did not take my eyes off the screen from start to finish, lol. I’m also very much looking forward to the Beyoncé Renaissance Tour movie coming out next month!
Favorite Song: That’s a hard one, I don’t think I could pick one single song. I’ve had 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on repeat since it came out, because 1989 is my favorite of her albums so that’s all that’s in my head right now. But I’m a pop girlie to my core, I love a strong female pop vocalist like Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Adele, Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera…the list could go on forever to be honest. Pretty much anything that makes me wanna sing along (horribly) at the top of my lungs, lol!
Something unique or interesting about you: Not to be self-deprecating, but I’m honestly not that interesting. Or at least I can’t think of anything unique or interesting about me, I’m very regular degular in my opinion, haha!
Name: JP Bareng Schumacher
Primary role at the college: Vice President of Student Affairs
Years of Service: 4 months
Family: Husband, a rambunctious 6-year-old Labrador Retriever, and a large extended family that’s mostly in Southern California
Hobbies: Volleyball and tennis (but VERY rusty nowadays), going to the beach, spending time with loved ones, reading/audiobooks
Favorite Food: Cheeseburger and fries. Dessert? Maple donuts.
Favorite Movie: Most horror films.
Favorite Song: Strength, Courage, and Wisdom by India.Arie
Something fun, interesting, and/or unique about you: My first time traveling internationally was for my destination wedding in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
Name: Ali Fazelpour
Role: Computer Science Instructor
Years at VC: 3
Family: Married with no kids but many wonderful nieces and nephews
Hobbies: Biking, jogging, reading
Favorite food: Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian, and Mexican
Favorite Movie: Documentary and Social-subject movies
Favorite Song: Classical and pop music
Something unique or interesting about you: Collecting stamps and coins