Voice & Viewpoint Newswire
Longtime adult education administrator Rudy Kastelic has been appointed interim president of the San Diego Community College District’s Continuing Education division. Kastelic takes over from Dr. Anthony Beebe, who headed San Diego Continuing Education for eight years until his recent appointment as president of San Diego City College.
This is the second time Kastelic will have served as Continuing Education’s interim president; he held the same position during the 2005-06 academic year.
“I am delighted that Rudy Kastelic will lead our Continuing Education organization,” said SDCCD Chancellor Constance M. Carroll. “His extensive experience in noncredit education, his familiarity with our district, his current work on the new statewide legislation on adult education, and his overall expertise bring many benefits to this assignment.”
Nearly 45,000 students attend San Diego Continuing Education’s seven main campuses and many community locations each year. Continuing Education is one of the oldest and largest noncredit institutions in the nation, serving San Diego since 1914. Its students are among the most diverse in California culturally, ethnically, and educationally.
Kastelic has an impressive history in the field of adult education, serving as director of adult education at the Sweetwater Union High School District from 1997 through 2005. Following his year as interim president of Continuing Education in 2006, Kastelic worked for a year with SDCCD Facilities Management in the early stages of planning for Continuing Education’s new César E. Chávez, West City, and North City campuses. He then joined the nonprofit California Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) as a continuing education evaluator and consultant, and returned last year as a coordinator for AB86 Adult Education Consortium for the SDCCD and the San Diego Unified School District.
Kastelic is a strong advocate of adult education and its role in the region. “Our diverse students enroll in these programs to seek a better life for themselves and their families,” Kastelic said. “They persist in their education when faculty, staff, and administration encourage them and provide them with the learning opportunities they need to achieve their goals as quickly as possible. To retain them in our programs we must be respectful of their time with us whether their goals are to learn to speak, read and write English, to prepare for the workforce, or to earn a certificate, diploma or degree.”
A resident of La Mesa, Kastelic earned his bachelor of science degree in economics and business administration from St. Mary’s College and his master’s degree in social work from San Diego State University.
Kastelic will begin his new role on August 1.
As the second largest of California’s 72 community college districts, the San Diego Community College District serves approximately 130,000 students annually through three two-year colleges and seven Continuing Education campuses. The three colleges, San Diego City College, San Diego Mesa College, and San Diego Miramar College, offer associate degrees and certificates in occupational programs that prepare students for transfer to four-year colleges and entry-level jobs. Continuing Education’s Educational Cultural Complex (ECC) also hosts credit and noncredit classes leading to associate degrees and certificates.
