NVC Dean of Disability Support Programs and Services Retires
After 18 years of counseling, supporting, interpreting, teaching, leading, advocating
and yes, dancing, Sheryl Fernandez, NVC’s Dean of Disability Support Programs and
Services (DSPS), will officially retire on December 30, 2020, marking the end of a
four-decade career serving people with disabilities via her passion for mental health
and counseling.
DSPS is designed to ensure that all students with disabilities have equal access to
all of the programs and services at Napa Valley College and serves about 600 students
each semester.
“My tenure at NVC has many memories that I hold dear,” Fernandez said in a December
goodbye email to the NVC faculty and staff. “At NVC, our small community demonstrates
how we embrace our family and students. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful
environment filled with terrific students that have taught me wonders.”
Fernandez’ supervisor, Assistant Superintendent/Vice President of Student Affairs
Oscar De Haro, said, “Sheryl has been an inspiration to me from the beginning of my
arrival at NVC as vice president for student affairs. Her meticulous strategy in problem-solving
is one of embracing patience and unbiased consideration of the issue at hand. I admire
Sheryl for her exemplary professionalism and will undoubtedly miss her guidance and
shared knowledge.”
“Student success has been at the core of everything Sheryl has done in her tenure
with Napa Valley College, first as a counselor and faculty member, and then as a dean,”
said Dr. Ron Kraft, superintendent/president, Napa Valley College. “Her approach is
always one of optimism and hope, finding solutions to challenges and ways to connect
and bring people together.”
De Haro and Kraft joined the Board of Trustees at its virtual meeting on December
17 to formally recognize and thank Fernandez for her 18 years at NVC, the last 3.5
in the Dean position.
In a resolution of thanks, the Board noted that “Sheryl has shown unwavering dedication
to the disability community as a whole, and specifically to the deaf community as
a skilled interpreter. Sheryl’s expertise in serving students with disabilities as
a counselor and administrator will be greatly missed, but her legacy will continue
on with the DSPS department that she worked so diligently to create,” among many more
accolades and observations.
That “unwavering dedication” has been a hallmark of Fernandez’ 18 years at NVC, but
it has been present throughout her entire 40+ year career, including at nonprofits
and the California Department of Rehabilitation, before beginning her work at NVC
in 2002.
“I love that we are a small college,” she says. “We can work together in a more intimate
way, which helps us know each other and our students better. I particularly love working
with our students who have significant challenges. It is so rewarding to help them
come to other side and have some resolution.”
During most of her career at NVC, Fernandez was a counselor with a mental health background,
something she gave up to take on the dean job.
“I miss counseling,” she says. “People tend to think that the epitome of the college
career is to be in the classroom. I found my dean duties to be very rewarding but
I felt I had a greater impact with one-on-one counseling. It truly is my passion.”
That said, there are many things she says she is proud of as she contemplates leaving.
“I am most proud of my work to build capacity by bringing on staff and reconstructing
the access technology center, which now provides better access for students with disabilities,”
she said, referring to the blends of alternate media, such as text-to-speech or Braille,
and assistive technology, such as smart pens, that help people with disabilities.
“I am proud of, with my staff, working with the academic side of house to get learning
disabilities specialists and instructional support specialists under the DSPS umbrella,
rather than separate. It’s more cohesive, in communications and processes, to have
them under one roof. It has a direct positive impact on how students receive information
and how well we are able to streamline student services to have better and more proactive
wraparound services. Our students say they feel that we’re reaching out to them more,
are in touch with them more.”
COVID has been a case in point for that idea.
“Our department was at the forefront with text messaging with our students,” Fernandez
says. “We implemented it more than a year and a half ago. So when COVID happened,
we were ready.”
That connection is especially important with the students she serves. “Our students
don’t necessarily gravitate toward online learning,” she says. “It tends to exacerbate
their disabilities, and this hit them hard. Society has taken off with technology.
People use applications to accomplish everything. I am very cognizant of not losing
site of the human touch.”
With her retirement date in sight, Fernandez says she and her partner, who is also
retired, look forward to being an active presence in the lives of Fernandez’ goddaughter’s
children, who live in Southern California. She plans to do volunteer work and also
looks forward to, after the pandemic has passed, indulging in her favorite hobbies
of dancing (West Coast swing, two-step and line dancing) and cycling.
Her dedication to the first was also memorialized in the Board’s Resolution, with
a tongue-in-cheek “Whereas, many employees will remember Sheryl for her acting and
dancing interest and ability, dressing up for Halloween, tap dancing, and having laughs
with a many other present and past counselors and colleagues …”
Sheryl Fernandez and Emeritus professor of ASL and DSPS Counselor Terry Woodward.
For the remainder of her time at NVC, Fernandez will continue to be grateful for the
experiences and relationships she has enjoyed.
“I love this department. I love Napa Valley College,” she says “And I have thoroughly
enjoyed working with Oscar De Haro. He is triumphant in ushering his deans and staff
in a way that elicits the best out of them.”
That certainly seems to be the case with Fernandez.