Monthly Archives: April 2013

Research and Reporting Study Session on March 1, 2013

Uncategorized April 27, 2013 Leave a comment

We have been wrestling with the questions like (1) What is the primary purpose of Research and Reporting in a college (2) Where does leadership come from and (3) What is the most suitable structure to promote this function?  As those conversations continue, we held our first study series at Bakersfield College on Research and Reporting on March 1, 2013.  It was very well attended.  Over 60 individuals, department chairs, deans, faculty and staff from key committees and councils.  This was the first of the focused discussions sponsored by College Council, http://www.bakersfieldcollege.edu/collegecouncil/, as part of our 18-month work plan.

The 90-minute study session (presentation posted at http://tinyurl.com/c98b8jc) was organized under three categories:

(1)   Big picture facilitated by Lisa Fitzgerald (Director of Institutional Research) and myself

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013Panelist: Sonya Christian

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013
Panelist: Sonya Christian

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013Panelist: Lisa Fitzgerald

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013
Panelist: Lisa Fitzgerald

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2)   Program Review facilitated by Manny Mourtzanos (Program Review co-chair), Mike Carley (Institutional Researcher), and Liz Rozell (Dean of STEM).

Manny was not able to attend in person so he participated via this 5:08-minute video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aifcgx5pKTs

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013Panelist: Manny Mourtzanos

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013
Panelist: Manny Mourtzanos

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013Panelist: Mike Carley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(3) Student Learning Outcomes Assessment facilitated by Bonnie Suderrman (Dean of Instruction). For more on assessment follow the blog at http://bc-outcomes.tumblr.com/

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013 Panelist: Bonnie Suderman

Research and Reporting Study Session. March 1, 2013
Panelist: Bonnie Suderman

Another feature to highlight is the infusion of wellness by having Brent Damron (Chair of Health and Physical Education) lead us through a serious of exercised during the stretch breaks.  Brent in his usual humorous style, led us through these exercises while providing us snippets of information on why it is critical to have a healthy body in order to have a healthy mind and to build healthy communities.

Below are some pictures from the event.

College Council sponsored study series on Research and ReportingSonya Christian presenting to the group

College Council sponsored study series on Research and Reporting
Sonya Christian presenting to the group

College Council sponsored study series on Research and Reporting. March 1, 2013Lisa Fitzgerald presenting to the group

College Council sponsored study series on Research and Reporting. March 1, 2013
Lisa Fitzgerald presenting to the group

College Council sponsored study series on Research and Reporting. March 1, 2013

College Council sponsored study series on Research and Reporting. March 1, 2013

College Council sponsored Study Series. March 1, 2013Manny Mourtzanos presenting to the group via video

College Council sponsored Study Series. March 1, 2013
Manny Mourtzanos presenting to the group via video

Staying Safe at BC

Uncategorized April 25, 2013 Leave a comment
Counts, Chiang, Cox

Our team of safety presenters!

Yesterday, April 24, 2013, I participated in a workshop led by three of our staff members on how to stay safe in an emergency on campus – particularly an active shooter incident. It is a sad reality that we must train for these sort of realities.

Bakersfield College Public Safety Sergeant Chris Counts, Bakersfield College Public Safety Officer Richard Cox and Bakersfield College Director of Marketing and Public Relations Amber Chiang led the presentation which began with important statistics on violent crimes on college campuses, and then the recommended actions for staff and students in an emergency. After their presentation, the audience viewed “Shots Fired: When Lightning Strikes,” a training video on shooter scenarios. Chris, Amber, and Ric then led a question and answer session, where they responded to many questions about safety on Bakersfield College’s campus.

I was quite happy to see several students in the room and they were vocal about the importance of making the session available to students. We will be working to show the “Shots Fired” video during new student orientation, and making future emergency preparedness trainings open to the entire campus, students and staff alike.

One of the things I remember most is “If you see something, say something.” This line has become Bakersfield College Public Safety’s informal motto. Sergeant Counts and Officer Cox reinforced for everyone that no call is too small. They will respond to, and investigate, all calls which come in from concerned students and staff.

The presentation is on the Public Safety department’s website at presentation online.

Thanks Chris, Amber, and Ric.

Being part of Bakersfield College

Uncategorized April 24, 2013 Comments: 2

Kate Pluta forward to me an email she sent the faculty in her department.  This was relevant since we (Jennifer Marden, Kate and I) had just met to work on section 2 of the Recommendation #1 assignment.  Much of our conversation was about the intentional engagement of faculty and staff on campus through work on institutional initiatives and governance councils.  The last question Kate poses at the end of the email spoke to me.  What does being part of Bakersfield College mean to you?

So, let’s hear from Kate Pluta:

Kate Pluta April 18 2013

Dear Colleagues,

At the Senate meeting yesterday, Corny and Nan led a discussion of college values, posing the question:  Who are we (BC)?  Since the senate had just discussed the dearth of new folks stepping up to serve on the CCA board, I was moved to say that I felt service to the college was a core value, something I believed in. I have been thinking along those lines ever since.  When I was a new faculty member, my chair told me to represent the department on the Curriculum Committee–we needed the representation and it would be a good way for me to meet people and learn about the college and its programs.  She was right.  I haven’t been much of a mentor to new faculty, but I would advise you now, don’t wait til someone asks you personally to participate.  For those who haven’t yet, take the initiative to get involved outside the department to learn more about the college.  Play a role.  Be an active part of BC life.

Being part of Bakersfield College—what it means to me.

Teaching our classes and doing it well.

Working within the department to plan, implement, and evaluate the work the department does.

  • We evaluate our students.
  • Our peers,administration, and students evaluate us in the classroom.
  • We need to evaluate what we provide to the college, our students, the community, and each other.
  • Working within the college to help make it an invigorating place to be, for our students and for us.
  • Working in the community to represent the college—reaching out to high school faculty and students; developing programs, lectures, or activities for the community.
  • Using our expertise in every way we can.

What does being part of Bakersfield College mean to you?

Kate Pluta
Professor of English
Bakersfield College
661 395 4531

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Centennial Year Celebration. Planting of the California Oak

Uncategorized April 20, 2013 Comments: 2

Today, April 20, 2013, the campus was alive with the annual Garden festival. This event is always a highlight of the year for campus and community, with food, performances, booths with information and a wide range of plants and garden goods for sale.

Centennial Year Celebration Ag department chair, Lindsey Ono

Centennial Year Celebration
Ag department chair, Lindsey Ono

This year’s Garden festival was a special one marking the start of BC’s year of activities commemorating the college’s 100th year. [For more on the Centennial Year celebrations check out http://www.bakersfieldcollege.edu/centennial/%5D.  Attendance was higher than it had ever been and the atmosphere was full of energy as students, staff and community members talked, walked and shopped.

Centennial Year Tree Planting. Executive Vice President Gomez-Heitzeberg, President Christian, Mayor Hall CC BY-NC NIck Strobel http://tinyurl.com/bskxyf4

Centennial Year Tree Planting. Executive Vice President Gomez-Heitzeberg, President Christian, Mayor Hall
CC BY-NC NIck Strobel
http://tinyurl.com/bskxyf4

It was great to see youngsters from the Newman center painting the faces of children who were queuing up.  I attempted to get in line to get the BC logo painted on my face before the media blitz but the line was long and i felt self conscious of being the only adult in the line.  so I finally snuck away.

Face painting at the gardenfest.

Face painting at the gardenfest.

At 1:00 there was a ceremony to mark the planting of the one hundredth commemorative tree – over the course of the past year ninety-nine commemorative trees have been planted, a wide variety of different trees that will help make the campus an arboretum to enjoy and learn from. The one hundredth is a large oak tree symbolizing stability and selfless giving of shelter, strength and vitality.

100th tree planting Mayor Hall with Christian, Gomez heitzeberg April 20 2013

100th tree planting Mayor Hall with Christian, Gomez-Heitzeberg April 20 2013

The California Live Oak. BC's 100th tree planting for the Centennial Year. Source: Nick Strobel. CC BY-NC 2.0 http://tinyurl.com/d5pwafb

The California Live Oak. BC’s 100th tree planting for the Centennial Year.
Source: Nick Strobel. CC BY-NC 2.0
http://tinyurl.com/d5pwafb

Christian inaugurating the new water feature at the Centennial Year celebrations. April 20 2013

Christian inaugurating the new water feature at the Centennial Year celebrations. April 20 2013

The college had a booth with the Centennial yearbook on sale for $20.13 (get it?…). This is a beautiful book full of pictures, stories and history of BC and I bought a couple of copies and was grateful to be able to have them signed by the author.  Here you see Bonnie Suderman and Becky Whitson with the author.

Becky Whitson, Tracie Grimes, Bonnie Suderman. Centennial Yearbook.

Becky Whitson, Tracie Grimes (the author), Bonnie Suderman. Centennial Yearbook

Many thanks are due for all the hard work that made this year’s festival so wonderful: to all of our community members that pitch in and bring life to the event; to the Ag department that does everything from staffing the show, offering “plant sitting,” identifying plants, solving garden problems, and offering informational presentations; to Chef Coyle and Chef Davis who really outdid themselves in making wonderful food for the event (though unfortunately I was too late to try the ribs special).

Culinary Students at the Gardenfest April 20 2013

Culinary Students at the Gardenfest April 20 2013

Special thanks are in order for Sally Sterns, who has been working for many months to coordinate the complex activities needed to make this event such a success. Sally, you rock!

Here is Sally the day before the big event.  I wandered over to the horticulture lab to see if Sally was surviving and here she was hard at work with her students with energy and high anticipation for the big day.

Sally Sterns the day before Gardenfest April 19 2013

Sally Sterns the day before Gardenfest April 19 2013

Seeing friends from my old days at BC:

It has been a delight running into colleagues from when I was here 10 years ago.  Here are a few pictures with faculty colleagues who are now retired.

Bruce Meyer and Sonya Christian

Bruce Meyer and Sonya Christian

Steve Smith and Sonya Christian

Steve Smith and Sonya Christian

For more photos:

Nick Strobel has many more photos on his flickr site at http://tinyurl.com/bunofjl

BC STEM students on a NASA project

Uncategorized April 18, 2013 1 Comment

My afternoon meeting which was scheduled until 5:00 p.m. got over early and I was totally fried. I went back to my office and tried to stay focused and get a few more things accomplished when I just decided to stop working and wandered over to the Ag area to check on Sally Sterns, since I figured she was immersed in the horticulture lab getting ready for the garden fest on Saturday. And btw, make sure you head out to campus on Saturday, especially at 1:00 p.m. when we will be planting our 100th tree.  check out the gardenfest at http://tinyurl.com/bmtx4ve.

En route to the Ag department I ran into a group of students between SE and MS working on a project with Dan Kimball, Kenward Vaughn, and Nick Strobel.  These students are part of a national competition concerning NASA’s IRIS mission (that will study the Sun). They are one of three teams that BC has put together for the competition.

BC NASA Project

Here is an excerpt from Nick Strobel’s January 5, 2013 publication of the Night Sky in the Bakersfield Californian. http://tinyurl.com/c2mfru3

Associated with IRIS is the National Student Solar Spectrograph Competition in which teams from colleges and universities design, build, and test optical instruments to answer questions about the Sun or use sunlight to investigate some science question about the Earth. Although at first glance it looks like the competition has a narrow goal of spectroscopy of the Sun, the real goal is to train future scientists and engineers in how to solve problems as a team by working on a real-world science question. Most of the students who participate will probably not go into space science but the experience gained and techniques developed from the competition will be invaluable in whatever future science and engineering problems we’ll need them to solve for us. Reading any newspaper shows that we’re certainly going to need a lot of home-grown expertise in STEM fields for the future challenges in this county and state and, heck, in our inter-connected world. For the first time Bakersfield College will participate in the competition and we’re starting in a big way with not just one team but three teams. The teams have received NASA mini-grants to build the spectrographs within the set budget of the mini-grant but the students are going to need help in travel costs to the competition judging event in May. If you or your company would like to encourage these future Bakersfield scientists and engineers, please contact the Bakersfield College Foundation with whatever financial help you would like to provide (it’ll even be tax-deductible).

Sonya Christian's Blog