Cabrillo College

Cabrillo College

Cabrillo College John Hurd Enrollment Services Building
Motto	"concentus" (Lat. "harmony")
Type	community college
Established	1959
President	Dr. Laurel Jones
Students	~14,000
Address	6500 Soquel Drive Aptos, CA 95003, Aptos, California, United States
Colors	sky blue, white and black
Mascot	Sammy the Seahawk
Website	www.cabrillo.edu

Cabrillo College is a public community college offering associate degrees and certificates in more than 70 fields of study. The college itself is named after the explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. Its main campus is located in Aptos, California and is situated overlooking the Monterey Bay. It is one of 112 public community colleges in the state of California. The college opened in 1959. Cabrillo College has an enrollment of more than 14,000 students.

Classes are offered at two locations: the main campus in Aptos at 6500 Soquel Drive and the Cabrillo College Watsonville Center, located at 318 Union Street in downtown Watsonville.

Facility planning and major construction has been completed on campus for the Barbara Samper Student Activities Center, and the Cabrillo College Arts Education Complex as well as a Health & Wellness Center (Precision Wellness Center) at the Aptos campus. The main quad in Aptos features a bust honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2007, Cabrillo received a $2.5 million grant from the Economic Development Administration towards the construction of a new Industrial Technology Education Center (ITEC) in Watsonville on the site of the former Watsonville Public Library. Now called the Solari Green Technology Center, the center hosts classes in solar technology, renewable/recycled building materials, and construction management. The new building is LEED Platinum certified, the first for Cabrillo.

In 2013, Cabrillo opened and dedicated the Baskin Engineering, Physics and Computing Center. The center serves as a focal point for STEM classes, and also contains the Monterey Peninsula Foundation STEM Center, which is a central point for STEM student services such as workshops, tutoring and labs.

Cabrillo focuses on student-centered learning and has a tradition of collegial, shared governance. The college transfers many of its students (after 3–5 years) to three nearby universities – the University of California at Santa Cruz, San Jose State University, and California State University at Monterey Bay. In fact, Cabrillo ranks #1 in transfers to UC Santa Cruz according to Chancellor George Blumenthal in his address to the Cabrillo College Governing Board in November 2007. Cabrillo offers hundreds of courses leading to four-year degrees in many majors. The majority of courses in the Cabrillo curriculum transfer to the University of California or the California State University systems.