Academic Affairs appointed five acting directors during the summer for on-campus programs.Marcellene Watson-Derbigny is the acting director of Student Academic Success Programs. She has been the Learning Communities program coordinator on campus for almost ten years, where she developed the first learning community effort through the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and grew the program from 19 students to serve more than 400. This program became a national model for helping students be successful in college, through a cohort model which emphasizes collaboration and learning through friendships and partnerships with faculty. She served on the statewide board for EOP directors.Watson-Derbigny has backgrounds in psychology, school administration and social work. She is also an adjunct faculty member for the psychology department.I think one of the main issues, which aligns us with Destination 2010, is providing excellent academic programs so that we can further retain and graduate students, and that’s my goal here, as the director of Student Academic Success, Watson-Derbigny said.Joy Salvetti-Wolfe is the coordinator for the Early Assessment Program and the Guardian Scholars Program. The Early Assessment Program is where a decrease of collegiate remediation in English and math is sought through work with local high schools. The Guardian Scholars Program is brand new at Sacramento State, targeting emancipated foster youth.Aside from being a program coordinator, she has taught Italian on campus for 10 years. She also worked as a consultant for the California Department of Education, where she was a liaison between K-12 and post-secondary. There she worked with all segments of education, helping students to try to get to a successful career, or a successful academic education and then a career. She is also a Sac State alumna.My main passion for this is that I got a wonderful education here, which led me to a doctorate and wonderful positions, so I feel that I want to gift that back to these students, Salvetti-Wolfe said.Jerry Blake is the acting coordinator of EOP. When he started college, he fit the description of the kind of students that the program helps: he came from a low-income family, he was a first generation college student, and he was underrepresented.When he started at Sac State, for whom he’s been working for 14 years (two with the foundation), he worked as a residence hall advisor. Then Blake became the cultural program advisor for UNIQUE in the University Union, and then Student Activities Advisor, working with various clubs and cultures. He has his master’s degree in Bilingual Multicultural Education from Sac State.We want to take the program in a lot of different directions. One, we want to build it into a definite positive light for the university. We want to really take an intricate look at how this program can benefit or contribute to the community at large, Blake said.Melissa Repa is the acting co-director of Services to Students with Disabilities (SSWD). She received her master’s degree in Psychological Studies in Education from University of California, Los Angeles. She has three years of experience as the high-tech center coordinator, where she still serves along with SSWD. She oversaw the Center’s training area, as well as the alternative media production on campus, and the adaptive technology lab.She has previous supervisory experience on technology-based instruction. The areas of SSWD she’s responsible for are academics and technology. She has a certificate in Assistive Technology, so she understands how to match technology to the needs of the individuals.I have teaching experience as well, so I do understand the issues that students face academically, and some strategies for achieving academic success, Repa said.Judy Dean is the other acting co-director of SSWD. Dean received her master’s degree in College Student Personnel from Indiana University. She has served more than 17 years as a disability management counselor for the program. She has been an advocate for the disabled on campus, introducing real-time captioning services for the deaf and ensuring compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.Dean was unavailable for comment as of press time.Tom Roberts can be reached at [email protected]