COSTA MESA, CA - The Coast Community College District is proud to announce that our very own Rupa Saran was recently honored with the 2026 Chief Information Systems Officers Association (CISOA) Distinguished Service Award during the annual summit last week.
This award acknowledges and celebrates exemplary leadership that has a significant and positive impact on advancing the mission, vision, values, and goals of the Association.
The following tribute was shared during the award presentation:
"Rupa exemplifies outstanding leadership and an unwavering dedication to supporting CISOA members through advocacy and collaboration. When a small, rural college experienced a significant system outage, vendor support was delayed despite the severity of the outage because our licensing level - limited by budget constraints - did not include premium service. Rupa stepped in as CISOA President, escalated the issue with the vendor, and ensured a prompt resolution. Her actions demonstrated a deep commitment to equity by ensuring financial constraints did not hinder student success.
Rupa has played a key leadership role in multiple statewide initiatives, including advancing the systemwide Common Data Platform. She consistently shares her expertise statewide, including facilitating meaningful dialogue with her district board member to help IT leaders better understand how to effectively engage executive and governing boards-an area often unfamiliar to many."
The District extends its sincere congratulations to Rupa on this well-deserved recognition. Her contributions continue to advance student equity and promote technical excellence across California's 116 community colleges.
###
| 