This week marked the one-year anniversary of the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope. To celebrate, NASA released a new image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
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Started last weekend with the new Indiana Jones movie. Absolutely enjoyed it … but then, I enjoy cinema, period. full stop.
If you are an Indiana Jones fan, I have organized the trailers of all five editions of the movie franchise for you here in one spot. Enjoy!
Indians Jones 1 – Raiders of the Lost Arc 1981
Indiana Jones 2 – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Indiana Jones 3 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Indiana Jones 4 – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Indiana Jones 5 – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
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Now if you think I am all play and no work, let me disabuse you of this thought.
Last Tuesday, I attended the 9th Grade to Baccalaureate Dual Enrollment Convening hosted by American River College. I was on a panel with Chancellor Brian King and Board of Governors member Pam Haynes. What fun! We talked about Vision 2030: A Roadmap for California Community Colleges.
I loved Pam’s reference to the frequently-discussed image of 3 boys looking over a fence at a baseball game.
“Why do we even have the fence? Let’s tear down the fence. We need all of our kids on the field!”
Cheryl Aschenbach (President of Academic Senate of California Community Colleges, Carina Hoffpauir (Academic Senate President, American River college) then moderated a faculty panel with Sandra Guzman (Academic Senate President, Sacramento City College) and Alisa Shubb (Academic Senate President, American River College). They discussed best practices related to dual enrollment, and how to increase dual enrollment with equity.
Frank Kobayashi, Interim President of American River College, and Scott Pitts, Principal at Inderkum High School, highlighted their institutions’ dual enrollment partnership.
Glad we snapped this photo with some of the presidents and chancellors who were in attendance.
President Frank Kobayashi, President Albert Garcia, President Art Pimentel, Board Member Pam Haynes, Chancellor Brian King, Sonya Christian, President Tawny Dotson, President Santanu Bandyopadhyay
We had a good turnout from the Chancellor’s Office.
Later that day, I headed to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office for an all-staff meeting. It was a great afternoon of fun and fellowship. This was my first time seeing all the staff together at an in-person gathering.
Thank you Daisy for snapping the selfie!
And as a surprise special guest, Pam Haynes also joined us for the all-staff meeting:
After a busy and rewarding week, I returned home and was able to enjoy my calla lilies – an annual treat in my backyard.
And of course, I love coming back home to this sweet boy after a week away in Sacramento:
Good morning California. It is July 15, 2023. A good day to be a Community College Champion
From California Community Colleges. Our Time is Now!
San Jose City College Holds Equitable Dual Enrollment Expansion Workshop
Kylie Campbell (KCCD), Naomi Castro (CLP), Dr. Rowena Tomaneng (SJCC), Dr. LaTanya Williams (CCCCO), Dr. Rene Alvarez (SJCC)
A team from the Chancellor’s Office and Career Ladders Project headed to San Jose City College this week to lead a workshop on equitable dual enrollment expansion.
Thank you to SJCC President Dr. Rowena Tomaneng and Interim SJECCD Chancellor Dr. Beatriz Chaidez for convening your college team and high school partners to engage in activities and meaningful discussions around implementing and scaling dual enrollment opportunities for your students.
Dr. Rowena Tomaneng (SJCC) & Dr. Beatriz Chaidez
So fun to see their mascot “Jagy” in these photos …check out San Jose’s SPOT campaign, which promotes Guided Pathways to their current and future students.
Bill Gates Visits Chaffey College
In April, Bill Gates visited Chaffey College to explore the state and region’s efforts to streamline college pathways benefitting California students. Last month, he published a blog post about how Chaffey is using pathways to foster student success with equity.
Congressman Cárdenas Presents $2 Million to LA Mission College
U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas announced $2 million in Community Project Funding to Los Angeles Mission College (LAMC) to increase and diversity STEM Workforce programs.
Miramar College Peer Mentor Breanna Hinojosa is one of the thousands of students who have benefitted from a decade-long partnership between the K-12 San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Community College District.
Inside HigherEd: Leadership Academy Provides Access, Equity in Career Development
Inside HigherEd published a piece about Ohlone College’s Junior Leadership Academy, an optional 15-week program allowing learners across the community college to engage in career exploration and receive paid internship experience.
“LPC’s Classified Senate had a blast at their annual Retreat Cultivating Classified Connections! Together, they set their sights on Classified Senate Goals & Priorities for the 2023-2024 AY. #ClassifiedConnections#ProfessionalDevelopment#LPC“
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Lake Tahoe Community College Superintendent/President Jeff DeFranco shared a post about the new Mobility Hub:
“We’re thrilled to cut the ribbon for the state-of-art Mobility Hub @LakeTahoeCC Made possible through the “Power of Partnership” with @LibertyUtil_CA & @TahoeTrans (TTD), whose electric buses charge & propel our community toward a greener future!”
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Chabot College and State Senator Aisha Wahab hosted a free immigration clinic at the Chabot College Event Center:
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Rowena Tomaneng shared this photo from LEAP Advance:
BC Students Participate in Internship Project with Kern County Sheriff’s Office
The Baccalaureate degree program in Industrial Automation collaborated with the Kern County Sheriff’s Office on a special robotics project. Recent Industrial Automation, Early College, Wonderful Education Shafter High School graduates had the opportunity to participate in this 2-day internship project utilizing their recently gained skills.
Also this week, the City of Bakersfield awarded BC’s Launchpad a grant – the City of Bakersfield Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Technical Assistance and Grant Program, designed specifically for those who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
Follow our chancellor’s lead…. he dropped off his ballot today at the BC ballot box.
Good morning Bakersfield. It is Saturday, October 24, 2020…a great day to be a Renegade.
Kern Shakespeare Festival: “The Comedy of Errors”
The 36th annual Shakespeare festival kicked off this week with the virtual premiere of “The Comedy of Errors”, directed by Bob Kempf. The performers have adapted the slapstick of the Bard’s original “Comedy of Errors” into a Chaplinesque silent film with masks. Performances of the play aired online Thursday, October 22 through Saturday, October 24.
For the first time at this year’s Kern Shakespeare Festival, alongside the Shakespeare plays, the theater department will begin premiering a production created by playwrights of color. Premiering Thursday, October 29 is a performance of “Bootycandy”, a semi-autobiographical play written by Robert O’Hara that premiered in 2015. The festival close-out production is Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Check the Kern Shakespeare Festival Facebook page for ticket information for upcoming shows.
BC High School Chamber Singers Festival Moves Online
On Monday, the BC Chamber Singers hosted their annual BC High School Chamber Singers Festival. In past years, 14 high school chamber choirs would have come to the BC campus for the event.
This year, the format changed to a Zoom event with Grammy-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre.
Performing Arts Department Chair Jennifer Garrett shared that 15 high school choirs, plus CSUB choirs and more were scheduled to attend the virtual event – including a Q&A session with Eric.
Jennifer shared the piece that Eric discussed at the event:
Latina Leaders of Kern
Bakersfield College, BC’s Latinas Unidas student organization, and the Latina Leaders of Kern County came together to host their first webinar in a series on race and diversity relations. Norma Rojas-Mora, BC’s Director of Community Relations who serves on the Board of Directors for the Latina Leaders of Kern County, was the moderator for the panel on Wednesday, October 21: “A Dialogue on the Intricacies of Race and Relationships”. Maria Wright was a featured panelist, along with HelloBakersfield podcast host Carla Barrientos and Sandy Woo-Cater, the Co-Director of the Kern Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
I will be sharing videos from this webinar in my blog. Today, I’m sharing Carla Barrientos’ introduction. In this 2:12 video, she shares a little about her background and her experiences being in a biracial relationship.
Next week, I will continue to share short video clips from the webinar, as well as a link to the video of the full webinar.
Art, Architecture and Archetypes
The Levan Center focused its “Art, Architecture and Archetypes” discussion on Wednesday around art and lockdowns, examining the different ways that disease and isolation have impacted art over time.
Professor Rae Ann Kumelos opened her remarks with an mythological exploration of hubris, showing stories from the Greek canon where the gods have punished mankind for its failures to reckon with reason and science. Apollo, the god of reason and science, was also the god who could cast plagues with his arrows.
Art professor Ronnie Wrest showed several art pieces inspired by pandemics and disease, highlighting paintings from Edvard Munch alongside an 1890 print depicting Japanese folklore. He also showed some street art made during the 2020 pandemic to celebrate health workers.
Ronnie Wrest shows Edvard Munch’s “The Sick Child” during Art, Architecture, and Archetypes
Kimberly Chin shared about the impact of the pandemic on Broadway theater. The New York theater district, which is the biggest in the world, had only closed 14 times before the pandemic, mostly related to strikes or natural disasters. In fact, the theater stayed open during the Spanish flu. The current pandemic is the longest time that Broadway has been closed in its history, and it looks to continue closure well into next year.
Krista Moreland gave a presentation on the way art about pandemics reflected different cultural values and needs that evolved over time. Pandemics were initially perceived as “punishment” for sinners, and woodcut illustrations were used to communicate the dangers about plagues for a primarily illiterate population . Eventually, as culture evolved to perceive plague victims with more empathy, artists depicted their struggles with more humanity. Pandemics changed the urban landscape as we began to understand disease, and images from newspapers, drawings and video recordings could directly depict disease in HD.
Thank you to Levan Center director Reggie Williams and all of the panelists for their participation in this virtual forum about art and pandemics.
Latino Inspire Awards Recognize Norma Rojas-Mora
Norma Rojas-Mora
TJ Cox
BC’s Norma Rojas-Mora was recognized by Rep. TJ Cox during this year’s Latino Inspire Award celebration. Rep. Cox first hosted the Latino Inspire Awards in 2019 in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated since 1988 from September 15th to October 15th.
Rep. Cox recognized Norma for all her years of service and her work to inspire positive change throughout the Bakersfield Community. Congratulations to Norma and the full list of deserving recipients.
Kern County: Rosalinda Chairez, Magda Menendez, Ana Vigil, Matthew Cauthron, Norma Rojas-Mora
Organizations: Centro la Familia and the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Student Success Lab offers Standardized Test Prep Course
All of us at one time or another have had to take a make-or-break sort of test, such as TEAS (Nursing), CBEST, CSET, ASVVAB (Military), GED, SAT, ACT, and WorkKeys. But did you know that you can prepare for these by signing up for practice exercises that are free, ungraded, online (PLATO software), and at your own pace?!
Our very own Student Success Lab is now offering EDUC B80 Test Prep for Careers. Signing up couldn’t be easier: register any time this semester for CRN 75692, which is EDUC B80NC. Then send an email to our Director, Kim Nickell (knickell@bakersfieldcollege.edu) with your student ID# and birth date. Professor Nickell and her staff will then set up your account and test prep activities in PLATO and email the login information to you. You can also access the course through Canvas, which will contain further resources on test taking tips and strategies.
Early College at the #SSSC20 Virtual Conference
Early College was asked to present on the Online Collaborative Model of course delivery at the Strengthening Student Success 2020 Virtual Conference. Program Directors Kylie Campbell & Nicole Alvarez were joined by BC faculty member Teresa Mcallister and her online collaborative teaching partner, McFarland High School faculty, Angela Quinn. The four of them detailed the evolution of BC’s online collaborative module and the adapting they have had to do in light of the COVID pandemic.
Bakersfield Young Professionals Diversity Panel
Abel Guzman represented BC and the EODAC committee at the 2020 Bakersfield Young Professionals Summit, speaking as part of a panel on diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.
At the panel on October 14, Abel helped answer questions about recruiting and hiring diverse talent, diversification in the workplace, and more, along with Claudia Catota, Chief Diversity Officer at CSUB; Jane Myneni, Inclusion, Diversity and Engagement Lead at Aera; and moderator Carla Barrientos, host of the HelloBakersfield Podcast.
Thank you, Abel, for representing BC on this esteemed panel, and thank you to the Chamber and the Bakersfield Young Professionals for inviting BC to participate.
#LightACandle: A Juneteenth Conversation
Today, I am sharing the final videos from this summer’s #LightACandle: A Juneteenth Conversation programming.
Commitment from Rural Communities & Rural Initiatives:
Commitment from HEAL:
I would once again like to thank everyone for the time, effort, thought and care that went into this programming. It truly was a community conversation.
Please join me in celebrating the life and legacy of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg on Thursday, October 29, live at 5:30 p.m on BC’s YouTube channel and Facebook live. This very special tribute, organized by the Pre-Law Club and the Women’s History and More committee, has been in the making for a few weeks, and I can’t wait for everyone to see it.
Talita Pruett shared this picture of her beautiful family, and found the positives in these unprecedented times:
“One of the upsides of distance learning and working remotely is that we can work from the beach. So, we’ve been working/ studying from Morro Bay as much as we can. It is a blessing to be able to go on walks early in the morning before we start work/school and late in the afternoon after we are all done with work…Being safely outdoors, when we’ve been isolated/ at home for seven months now, is divine. It is a balm for the body and the soul.”
Cindy Collier shared this photo from getting takeout at the Renegade Room:
“BC Renegade Room and Culinary students continuing their education with take out food services. Chef Suzannne and Logan were so hospitable and the food is wonderful. BC faculty and students are innovative and flexible.“
Athletics
Baseball’s Caggienelli Headed to CSUB
Renegade Baseball pitcher Benji Caggienelli announced this week his commitment to play at the next level across town at Cal State Bakersfield. The right-handed pitcher played just this shortened spring season at BC after a stellar high school career at Ridgeview High School. He is the third baseball player this year to move on to the four-year level. Congrats Benji! We’ll be rooting for you!
That’s all for now. Until next time. With much Renegade Pride and Collegiality. sonya – the luckiest and happiest college president ever
The Workforce & Economic Mobility Blog blog shares approaches to workforce and economic development, with a goal of supporting economic mobility for our community while staying committed to the health of our people and the health of our environment.
In the Bhambi & Christian blog, Dr. Brijesh Bhambi join together joined together with the goal of facilitating healing and conversation in our community.
