The Force Awakens | Sonya Christian's Blog

2016: The Force Awakens

Happy New Year Bakersfield!

It’s 2016, a new year, and The Force is with Bakersfield College!

Sonya Christian with the Promising Professionals

The year just completed (2015) was a great one for BC. With over 24,000 students and an annual Full Time Equivalent Student (FTES) exceeding 13,500, the college’s student-to-faculty productivity remains high, and total operational cost-per-FTE remains low at $3,789. Student Education Plan completion has increased, with most disciplines seeing completion rates of over 70%. Matriculation percentages have increased, with 88% of first-time students completing Orientation and 87% completing Assessment. 100% of Student Support programs completed Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), 100% of programs completed Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs). BC offers 23 Associate Degrees for Transfer and 24 dual enrollment courses at high schools. BC developed three new programs last year—Applied Music, Public Health, Multimedia and hired 35 new faculty. BC has deepened its ties with the community and has developed the Renegade Scorecard to advance the accountability of the college and the transparency to the community. check it out at https://www.bakersfieldcollege.edu/scorecard

BC’s key strength is its people. Faculty and staff are talented and dedicated to the students and to the institution. As such, they are motivated to do what it takes to “Make It Happen” in advancing student learning and progression towards their educational goals.

Especially with all of the hectic activity of 2015 this past week was a relatively quiet one with students and employees alike taking a break to spend time with family and friends, rest and rejuvenate for the spring term. I was happy to attend the Kwanzaa celebration held at the MLK community center on Owens Street.

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This was the the first time that I attended the celebrations here in Bakersfield. The event was fun and inspiring all at once. I found the drum beat in the music mesmerizing and felt as if my own heartbeat was in rhythm with the drum. Another favorite part of the program for me was the story telling by Lynell Moore who just retired from Owens Elementary School. Moore had us in the first 30 seconds of the story about Anansi, the spider, who tried to figure out the names of the King’s daughters. Anansi, as I understand from Wikipedia, is an African folktale character. He often takes the shape of a spider and is considered to be the spirit of all knowledge of stories. African folklore, Moore said, always has a moral and as it turns out the moral of the very engaging story for the day was that we should focus on long-term goals rather than-short term. “Short-term goals are good. But long term goals are better.” Good to hold this for 2016.

For more on the Bakersfield Kwanzaa Celebration check out KBAK at: http://tinyurl.com/pbgpmdl. Also a special thank you to Bakari Sanyu for organizing the event.

I also thought you might enjoy as I did the seven principles (Nguzo Saba in Swahili) that describe the spirit of Kwanzaa. Particularly appropriate as we start a new year.

Nguzo Saba The Seven Principles

Talking about the core principles of Kwanzaa, I am reminded about BC’s core values that were developed in 2013 with Professor Wesley Simms finalizing the language and Professor David Koeth creating the symbols. Sit back and immerse yourself in the words and the images.

BC Core Values

New Year’s eve was very special this year, bringing in the new year with friends at Buck Owens Crystal Palace. This was very different from the last three years where I watched the the Hobbit movies on Dec 31st (2013, 2014, 2015), a phenomenal movie series btw, and also a great way to bring in the new year! I love the song The Misty Mountain Cold in the Hobbit. There is a 3:00-minute version of this on youtube, but I thought I would share the extended 8:06-minute one instead. I am sure you will be enchanted with it.

This New Year’s eve saw the passing of the legendary Natalie Cole. I absolutely love her redo of the song “Unforgettable,” a beautiful love song, by her father Nat King Cole. It is not surprising that it won several Grammy awards in 1992 including song of the year. Please take a moment (3:48 minutes) to slip into the heartfelt and elegant world of this song.

To close out this post, let me share with you what a friend shared with me recently; an amazing verse from Rudyard Kipling’s If.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

…..

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

…..

Warm wishes to each and every one of you in this amazing community from all faculty, staff and students of Bakersfield College. Here’s to a glorious 2016!

A Holiday Blog

Eisha Christian, Pam Christian

Woke up to a quiet house this morning–December 27, 2015. My daughter and her husband left yesterday after spending two nights and two and a half days with me. I packed up some of my daughter’s favorite food items which we cooked ahead of time — coffee cake with butter icing topped with chopped caramelized pecans, roast beef, and beef stew with potatoes. It felt like old times when she would visit from college and then head back with lots and lots of home cooked food. As a friend texted me Christmas eve, it’s a wonderful life!

We did the usual fireplace talks, great food, monopoly, and movies. This year of course it was Star Wars — The Force Awakens. The movie, at the new IMAX in Bakersfield, was just awesome, and Manohla Dargis describes it best in her Dec 16, 2015 review in the New York Times at

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-review.html?_r=0

Strobel extended family. Picture from Facebook

J.J. Abrahms, the director of episode VII, was described in a recent article I read as a cross between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The Sunday Californian now has a USA Today insert that names J.J.Abrahms one of the “People of the Year” for Star Wars.

Renegades, the Force has always been with Bakersfield College, but even so I feel the stirrings of a new awakening. Watch out 2016!
Or as Yoda once taught us, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Sonya Christian and David Lampe

Leading up to Christmas there were so many events it was tiring and wonderful all at once. One of the highlights was meeting Judge David Lampe at the Open House at Cathy Abernathy’s home. He is an alum of BC and spoke fondly of his time at the college particularly the quality of the faculty. He said his two favorite faculty were Sam McCall at BC and Charles McCall at CSUB. They had very difference approaches to teaching Political Science he said — Sam McCall being more of a traditionalist focusing on the purpose and organization of the state from an ethical and philosophical perspective, while Charles McCall was more of a behaviorist focusing on the political behaviors and informal relationships that influence decisions. At all of the events that I attended, I was reminded over and over again how much our community loves Bakersfield College. And this includes political leaders like Jean Fuller, Shannon Grove, Kevin McCarthy, Andy Vidak, Rudy Salas, Leticia Perez, Zack Scrivner…….. and of course, the fabulous Harvey Hall.

Bryan Burrow and Sonya Christian

Another highlight was the BC Choir performing with the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra (BSO) at their Home for the Holidays event featuring all our favorite Christmas music at the Harvey Auditorium. Bryan Burrow, CEO of the BSO is just a great partner. Bryan deeply believes in the value of the having a fine symphony in the community and puts in a lot of effort in planning and taking care of details. I did not get around to purchasing tickets for the event from the website until I showed up at the Harvey Auditorium at around 2:00 p.m. on Saturday hoping that the ticket office would be open. It was not. Instead I found Jen Garrett and conductor Stilian Kirov with the choir and symphony rehearsing for the evening performance. I also found Bryan in his sweatshirt and jeans doing a lot of the detailed grunt work to make sure that the evening was very special for all those who were attending. He is my kind of a guy. Here he is all cleaned up for the event in the evening after putting in long hours ahead of time. Thank you Bryan!

The photo collage below was taken from Mary Jo Pasek’s Facebook page.

Jen Garrett Dec 19 2015

Stiliam Kirov Dec 19, 2015

BC Choir with BSO at Home for the Holidays

Bryan brought the symphony to the college for the Noteworthy Event marking the reopening of the outdoor theater, part of the Simonsen Performing Arts Center (SPArC). I missed the opportunity to blog about this great event, but here is a post on the ribbon cutting of SPArC

http://bcpresidentblog.com/2015/04/24/reintroducing-the-new-sort-of-simonsen-performing-arts-center/

Josh Rothstein with Frank Gifford Bobblehead

Josh Rothstein with the Frank Gifford Bobblehead

A third highlight was getting a photo from Josh Rothstein with a Frank Gifford bobblehead. I received an email on December 6th from Josh’s dad Eric. Here is a copy and paste.

Dear President Christian:

I write on behalf of my son Joshua who collects bobbleheads. I was wondering if the college has any extra of the Frank Gifford bobblehead that it just sponsored and if so whether you can send one to Josh? I know he would greatly appreciate it as he is a big New York Giants fan as it is our hometown team. If you can, Josh’s address is: ****

Thank you and happy holidays.

Eric Rothstein

Of course, we did not have any extra bobbleheads but Francis Mayer who always does the impossible, located the bobblehead which Jennfier Marden mailed to Josh. On December 23rd, right before Christmas, Josh received the bobblehead and sent the picture to Jennifer.

A fourth highlight was the full moon on Christmas — a rare phenomenon. I headed out early Christmas morning and took this series of pictures on my iphone. The first with the moon relatively high in the sky, followed by others as the sky got brighter and the moon lower on the horizon.

For more on the Christmas Full Moon check out

http://www.space.com/31471-rare-christmas-full-moon-guide.html#st_refDomain=t.co&st_refQuery=/2eNW1oBF0C

A final highlight: BC has remarkable students. A majority of them are first-generation college-going among other challenges. The college has expanded its student employment and engagement opportunities on campus. One such program is the “Promising Professionals” that provides employment for students in leadership roles. On Dec. 23rd as we were wrapping up activities to start the holiday campus closure, we took this picture in the welcome lobby: