Toni Sommer Honored With President's Leadership Award

Submitted by President Marie E. Rosenwasser

A leader is someone who recognizes a need, analyzes the problem, looks for resources, plans some solutions that could meet the need, and then acts.  Those phrases describe Toni Sommer, Dean of Student Learning for Workforce and Economic Development, the recipient of the President’s Leadership Award for 2005.
Leadership in the vocational/technical areas is what Cuesta College needed when Toni Sommer was hired as the dean in spring 1999. She was given a charge to revitalize the vocational education programs, and she has done that and more. 

Let’s name a few: Automotive Technology was in decline and today it thrives. Then Toni convinced us we should also have an Auto Body program; both have gone from under-enrolled, almost ready to cancel to fully thriving programs. Architecture is now a booming program. Business Administration and CAOA was another area that needed to be evaluated. Toni and the faculty got to work and today the programs are more successful both on-line and in the classroom. 

Hospitality was a program that didn’t exist when Toni and I came here. However, Toni made it happen through ingenuity, studying what Santa Barbara City College was doing, and always by reaching out to those in the industry. Today we award degrees and certificates to the first graduates of this new two-year program. Name a workforce and economic development program at Cuesta College and Toni Sommer will have provided leadership, and her faculty and staff will have helped revise curriculum, improve facilities, and increase enrollment.

A leader has to have supporters and those who follow. Talk to the faculty and staff under Toni’s leadership and you will hear how strong their admiration and support are.  A leader also has to be willing to go beyond, to do more, to take risks, to say “yes” when others around them are resisting change or not seeing the possibilities for improvement.  Countless times Toni has said yes to adding more programs and projects to this eclectic cluster. Today she leads not only the credit vocational/technical programs but also the Career Center, Tech Prep, Small Business Development Center, and Community and Contract Education. 

An active, positive person, Toni receives this year’s President’s Leadership Award for leadership that has changed Cuesta College by increasing learning for hundreds of students and employers; by increasing the college’s enrollment in workforce and economic development programs, and by increasing the reputation, image and quality of Cuesta College. Toni Sommer--a leader for Cuesta College.