In her biweekly column, Lookout wine expert Laurie Love recaps a successful showing for Santa Cruz Mountains wines at a prestigious wine event up the Peninsula, notes big enrollment numbers for Cabrillo College’s wine programs and spotlights wine-centric events for Valentine’s Day and beyond.
Cabrillo College
Cabrillo College steps back from name-change discussion, moves forward with Native American studies initiatives
To move away from the divisiveness of the Cabrillo College name-change discussion, the school’s governing board is putting a pause on the topic until at least 2028. College leaders are moving forward with educational and support initiatives for Indigenous students and Native American studies.
Cabrillo-UCSC joint housing project groundbreaking delayed to 2025
Cabrillo College President Matt Wetstein says the challenges of doing a joint housing project with the University of California are delaying the groundbreaking of the complex planned for Cabrillo’s Aptos campus. That could push the opening of the 624-bed project a year later, from fall 2026 to fall 2027.
Laurie Love on Wine: Kissed By An Angel’s new tasting room, recycling bill’s impact, accolades and events
Lookout wine expert Laurie Love returns with word on a new spot to sample Kissed By An Angel Wines, a new semester of wine classes at Cabrillo, what a new recycling bill means for consumers and winemakers, plus love for local vintages and upcoming Santa Cruz County wine events.
Faculty diversity: Why do California community colleges struggle?
“Progress remains slow,” according to a recent report on faculty diversity at California’s community colleges. For Nikia Chaney, the sole full-time Black faculty member at Cabrillo College, the experience is personal.
New Cabrillo Wine Studies degree raises profile of Santa Cruz’s wine industry
Starting in the 2024-25 academic year, Cabrillo College will offer a 60-unit associate degree in Wine Studies, plus two companion certificates. It’s one of two wine degrees offered at public institutions south of San Francisco, and its broad course of study has it poised to become one of the best in the state, drawing attention to the often-overlooked Santa Cruz Mountains wine region.
Carmageddon: Santa Cruz Metro prepares for free rides, 15-minute wait times in bid to double ridership
Santa Cruz Metro is set to begin rolling out the first phase of its Reimagine Metro initiative aimed at more direct, frequent routes and 15-minute all-day service. The changes will begin as a three-year pilot program, and civic leaders will work towards transitioning the pilot into a permanent fixture.
UCSC, Cabrillo confront fraught campus debate over Israel and Gaza
The Israel-Hamas conflict has triggered a reckoning for college campuses across the country — including at UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College — where tensions over free speech and academic freedom have simmered for years until boiling over in the past month, challenging students, faculty and administrators alike.
Cabrillo College governing board censures trustee Steve Trujillo after offensive social media posts
In a 6-1 vote Monday, with Steve Trujillo as the lone dissent, Cabrillo College trustees registered their disapproval of Trujillo’s Facebook posts and found that the posts violated policy; Trujillo reiterated his defense that the account had been hacked. The formal censure also prohibits Trujillo from serving as an officer of the board for three years.
I am the first male, openly trans person elected to public office in our state; this is my coming-out story
Nov. 13-19 is national Transgender Awareness Week, and in a Community Voices opinion piece, Adam Spickler, a Cabrillo College trustee and one of only four openly transgender people to hold elected office in all of California, shares their coming-out story. Adam wishes when they were growing up in the 1980s and 1990s that they had transgender role models.

