News Release

Michelle Priest Named Dean of Science, Mathematics, and Health Sciences at Santa Ana College

​(Santa Ana, CA)—Rancho Santiago Community College District has named Michelle Priest, Ed.D., as dean of science, mathematics, and health sciences at Santa Ana College. In this role, Priest is responsible for the leadership and administration of the division, including the design, delivery, staffing, administrative support, supervision and evaluation of division academic, occupational and vocational programs as well as academic and support staff. She also oversees the division's student enrollment, progress, evaluation, assistance and discipline. She provides direction and support to faculty in the development, revision, and evaluation of curriculum and instructional materials. She also reviews and approves division curriculum development proposals, course outlines, program changes, and textbook recommendations.

With 13 years of experience in higher education as an instructional dean, Student Learning Outcomes (SLO)/Honors coordinator, director of distance education, STEM grant director, and instructional laboratory manager, she brings a wide range of administrative expertise to the role. In addition, she has over 16 years of experience in higher education classrooms as an instructor of marine science/oceanography, environmental science, zoology, general biology, anatomy, and more.

Since 2015, she has served as instructional dean of Math, Science, Art and DSPS at Coastline College. In that role, she coordinated the division's semester schedules, and utilized staff and physical resources to meet emerging needs of the student population. She also worked to identify funding sources, prepare concise procedures for development, implementation, and monitoring of funding proposals for the division's programs and special projects. In addition, she worked collaboratively with the faculty on budget, curriculum, facilities, and other areas of shared governance.

Previous to that, she served as the SLO/honors coordinator at El Camino Compton Educational Center (CEC). In this capacity, she wrote campus-wide reports on SLO, Program Learning Outcomes (PLO), Instructional Learning Outcomes (ILO) progress and areas for development. She also reestablished the honors program at CEC.

Priest received her Ed.D. in science education with a minor in community college administration from University of Southern California. She earned an M.A. in marine science from California State University, Fullerton, and a B.S. in organisms, ecology and evolution from the University of California, Los Angeles.

About Rancho Santiago Community College District
Santa Ana College and Santiago Canyon College are public community colleges of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, which serves the residents of Anaheim Hills, Orange, Santa Ana, Villa Park, and portions of Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, and Tustin.. Both colleges provide education for academic transfer and careers, courses for personal and professional development, and customized training for business and industry.

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Contact: Judy Iannaccone

Phone: (714) 480-7503

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