Last week kicked off Women’s History Month, which has been observed annually in March in the US since 1987.
This year’s theme is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” recognizing “women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, TV, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts, news, and social media.”
Check out this post from NASA highlighting the history of women in space, beginning with Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova. She was the first woman to orbit the Earth, in 1963. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, who spent 7 days aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983.
The Kern CCD will be hosting two events to celebrate Women’s History Month.
On March 21st at Bakersfield College’s event center, we will be Celebrating 50 years of Title IX: Women in Athletics and Education.
On March 30 at the Weill Center, we will host the 4th Annual Women in Leadership Panel, moderated by Senator Emeritus Jean Fuller.
I welcome you to join us for these events.
A photo of our beautiful skies snapped while I was walking Neo –
Good morning friends.
It is March 11, 2023.
The sun shines bright over Kern CCD
Porterville College
“Reimer Selected Works, 1990 – 2020” Now Showing at the PC Art Gallery
The public is invited to see the exhibition, Reimer Selected Works, 1990 – 2020, at the Porterville College Art Gallery.
DATES OF SHOW: March 9 – 30, 2023
GALLERY HOURS: Monday – Thursday from 12 – 2 pm and 4 – 6 pm
Terrance Reimer is a new media visual artist exploring the integration of experiential storytelling concepts and ideas using sound, video, and extended reality technologies.
Reimer graduated in 2020 earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in the multidisciplinary Communication Media Arts program at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio), studying documentary film and extended reality storytelling. His immersive virtual reality thesis film “Walking Past Abandoned Houses, I Think of Eric” shares personal poetic testimony about the opioid epidemic in Southeastern Ohio. The award-winning film was an official selection in the 2021 Fine Arts Film Festival at the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art, Venice, CA.
Prior to his MFA studies, Reimer started his career as a photojournalist, and since 1999, has been collaborating with many of the most renowned contemporary photographers of our time, creating fine art exhibition prints as a master digital printmaker.
There will be several short documentary films created by Reimer available for viewing in the gallery during the exhibition. The show will run from March 6 – 30, 2023. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 12 to 2 pm and 4 to 6 pm.
Please contact Jim Entz at 791-2257 with any questions.
Math Battle Returns to PC
On Tuesday, March 7, the Math Division hosted its 3rd Annual PC Math Battle competition for local high school students. The Math Battle hosts both an individual and a team competition covering mathematics topics in geometry, algebra, algebra 2, and some trigonometry equations. Individual and team winners are awarded medals and the school with the highest average score receives a trophy.
This year also marked the 1st year the competition was held for local middle school students on campus with 33 students representing three middle schools taking part in the competition.
This year PC hosted 61 students representing five local high schools along with 11 faculty coaches for High School and 7 faculty coaches for 33 Middle School students in attendance. Twelve PC faculty members and 95 PC tutors, mentors, and professional experts helped to support our future STEM students over this multi-day event.
This year’s overall Math Battle winners were Harmony Magnet High School in the HS Division and Carl Smith Middle School for the Middle School Division. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all those who participated and helped us make this event a great success!
Celebrating Women in STEM
Engineering and Math Instructor Elizabeth Flynn
This month is Women’s History Month and PC is celebrating with several events highlighting the successes and accomplishments of Women on Campus.
Women’s History Month finds its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.”
Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.”
As part of our month-long festivities, PC Student Life hosted the first in a series of discussions with women in various industries. This first event featured women in S.T.E.M. Careers and featured two of our very own S.T.E.M. superstars, Biology Instructor Denise Jackson, and Engineering and Math Instructor Elizabeth Flynn.
Both women discussed their influences and reasons for going into the fields they chose. They joined students, faculty and staff in the forum to answer their questions and discuss what it is like being a woman in science, technology, engineering, and math today.
Cerro Coso Community College
Student Spotlight: Karina
Originally from Mojave, Karina is graduating from Tehachapi High School ‘23 not only with her high school diploma, but also with three Associate Degrees: AS-T in Business Administration, AA in Liberal Arts: Arts & Humanities, and AA in Liberal Arts: Social & Behavioral Science!
While attending high school and Cerro Coso College, she was in Phi Theta Kappa, worked part-time, and she is very engaged in her family life. She plans on transferring to California State University of Bakersfield and will major in Business Administration with a minor in Accounting. After graduating, she plans on pursuing a business law degree.;
On top of her achievements, Karina is a proud first-generation college student and first-generation Mexican American.
“I grew up in Mojave and moved to Tehachapi about two years ago. The transition was hard. When I moved, I had to start from scratch. To make it worse, my freshman year was when COVID started, and I did the first two years of high school online. In-person school started my junior year. It was like being a real freshman this time. I had to get used to a new town and new high school. It was a lot. The school was significantly bigger. It was a big change in environment, students, teachers, overall so much change and adjustment. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it was just a lot of change at once.”
Read more on the Cerro Coso Community College website.
Cerro Coso Community College Art Gallery Presents: Corrugated Space
Cerro Coso Community College is excited to announce the restoration of Cerro Coso’s Art Gallery. The opening reception of “Corrugated Space” by artist Steve King will be held on April 7, 2023, at 6 PM .
Location
The Art Gallery located in the Library/LRC building
3000 College Heights Blvd
Ridgecrest, CA 93555
Time: 6:00 PM opening reception, 6:30 PM Artist Talk
The Art Gallery is open to the public and would love to see the community enjoy this cultural hub.
Refreshments and appetizers will be provided.
Cerro Coso Outreach at East Kern Career Expo
Cerro Coso Outreach represented Cerro Coso Community College at this year’s East Kern Career Expo. at Mojave Air & Space Port.
They spoke with over 1,000 6th-10th graders, raising career awareness as well as increasing exposure and access to the many incredible opportunities awaiting them at Cerro Coso.
Bakersfield College
Student Spotlight on Tearra Haney
At the Saddleback Invitational, Tearra Haney set a new school record in Women’s Discus with a throw of 154’3″ and earned recognition with the top throw in the state.
The record was previously held by Amanda Harvey in 2001. Tearra is a candidate for graduation this year and will be joining the Renegade Alumni as Class of 2023.
Industrial Automation Hosts Kern County Boys and Girls Club STEM Students
The Industrial Automation program hosted a group of STEM students from the Kern County Boys and Girls Club and gave them a tour of the various labs, focusing mainly on robotics. The INDA program aims to capture the attention of younger students to help foster their interests and skills.
BC Library to Host Another Set of Library Research Skills Workshops
The library will be hosting its second week of research skills workshops for the Spring 2023 semester during Week 9 (March 13th-16th). They will offer a total of 32 Zoom workshops on 8 different topics.
Check it out on the BC website!
TALE Blog
In this week’s Kern CCD TALE Blog, Porterville College’s Janet Uresti shared her thoughts about “Mindfulness, Teaching, and What Matters.”
“Last year, as things began to return to “normal” after the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion around social-emotional learning. This fascinated me. I don’t think as a society (or myself) that we saw how hard individuals were during the pandemic because a lot of their needs were being met by the educational system. We sometimes forget Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and how as people we cannot reach self-actualization without having a foundation of physiological and safety needs being met. “
Ag/Water/Energy Webinar March 14
The Valley Strong Energy Institute continues the second part of its Ag/Water/Energy (AWE) Education Series on hydrogen for Tuesday, March 14 at 3 p.m. The webinar will discuss benefits of hydrogen for energy storage, the regulatory atmosphere and permitting procedures for moving and using hydrogen, engineering of hydrogen pipelines, and hydrogen blending.
The following speakers will be helping us dive deeper into the nuances of hydrogen energy:
- Nathan S. Lewis – Professor of Chemistry, Caltech
- Megan Silva – Regulatory Affairs Manager, SoCalGas
- Brandon Wood – Staff Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- Amado Galaviz – Project Manager, SoCalGas
Fun Photos & Spotted on Social Media
From last Saturday’s Migrant Parent Conference at CSUB, Kern CCD Trustee Yovani Jimenez, who gave welcoming remarks:
Corny Rodriguez was the keynote speaker!
And Yovani’s own words about the event:
Here’s Norma Rojas-Mora, Teresa Hitchcock and Trudy Gerald at our Workforce Investment Board meeting on Wednesday morning.
Porterville College’s Primavera Arvizu shared this from the Californoa Public Institution Navigate Summit:
Attending the California Public Institution Navigate Summit with a great team to innovate, explore, and implement. #studentsuccess
Carlos Medina shared this update:
Today we had the opportunity to meet Atlas from @BostonDynamics Thanks to a great partnership we have with @ROC_CTEC
and @BCIAutomation we’re going to ROBOTIZE Kern County!
And congratulations to Steve Watkin, who has been named interim Bakersfield College President beginnign May 15!
Blast from the Past
At the 2019 Sterling Silver dinner, BC Archivist Jerry Ludeke received the Bakersfield College Foundation Service Medal in recognition of her 60 years of service to BC.
Check out this video:
*****
That’s a wrap for now.
See you next Saturday!
The future is bright at Kern CCD.
-sonya
a joyful and grateful Chancellor
#KernCCDDaringMightyThings
Tagged: Bakersfield College, Cerro Coso College, Kern Community College District, Porterville College, Sonya Christian
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