What makes new Psychology Instructor Nakysha Cummings a perfect fit for Cerro Coso Community College is her core philosophy of student success by engaging interactive learning across multiple student learning styles.
Born and raised in Bakersfield, she attended California State University, East Bay, and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications with a concentration in Public Relations and minor in Sociology. She spent a year working for a global pharmaceuticals company as a Public Relations Specialist but found the travel exhausting. So she decided to go to graduate school and major in counseling with a dual emphasis in school counseling and college student affairs at California State University, Bakersfield. While in graduate school Cummings spent three years as a social worker specializing in foster youth and family re-unification.
Upon completion of her Master’s Degree she became a Community Counselor facilitating group sessions in social skills, emotional intelligence, and play therapy. Her teaching career spans public, private, for profit, non-profit, two-year, and four-year colleges. Cummings has taught human development, sociology, psychology, all lower division psychology college classes, and student development courses at Bakersfield College, San Joaquin Valley College, College of the Sequoias, and the University of Phoenix. She has completed all of her courses for a Doctorate in Psychology through the University of the Rockies and is finalizing her dissertation in Online Learning. She served as a Dean of Student Services and as an Outreach Counselor for Cal State Bakersfield. During graduate school she also co-founded a non-profit organization that helps at-risk youths by providing free tutoring in math, reading, and music.
She enjoys grant writing especially for education for at-risk youths. Teaching is where Cummings feels most passionate. She enjoys spending time with her husband Reggie, son Xavier (9), and daughter Iris (2). She is currently teaching two classes at the Ridgecrest Campus, one in Tehachapi, and two online for Cerro Coso. Cummings enjoys tennis, performing spoken word poetry, and playing board games that allow her to engage her son more in conversation and critical thinking. She and her husband hold music in high esteem and are both musically inclined, Cummings plays two instruments and her husband six.
Where words fail…music speaks. Cerro Coso is very excited to WELCOME Nakysha.
