BCC Hosts Community Partners Breakfast

On Wednesday, March 26, Berkeley City College hosted its annual Community Partners Breakfast. Over 100 counselors, dual enrollment partners, college advisors, and administrators from local high schools and higher education partners attended. The program included highlighting BCC’s growing transfer and completion data, spotlighting BCC Career Pathways of Child & Adolescent Development by Dr. Joya Chavarin and Multimedia Arts by MMART Chair Mary Clarke-Miller. The highlight of the program was when partners met with BCC students for a half hour at their tables, learning about resources BCC students tapped into, how they found out about BCC, and plans for their futures.

We thank our community partners for showing up for BCC students and continuing to support our shared commitment to transforming lives. Many thanks to Susan Truong, Skyler Barton, Dri Regalado, and Gail Pendleton for organizing another great Partners Breakfast!

Basic Needs Center Spring Flea Market

March 25, the Basic Needs Center held its Spring Free Flea Market hosted by the Buddies Closet Student Assistant, Kenny, & Student Intern, Khanh! Over the course of the semester, the Basic Needs Center collected almost 877 pieces of clothing from the BCC and broader community. 130 students brought home 361 articles of clothing (41% of inventory) for free. Items included t-shirts, dresses, professional wear, outerwear, and shoes. Students who were not able to attend the Flea Market can still choose from the remainder of the items available for pick up at the Basic Needs Center. Big thanks to Basic Needs Coordinator Izzie Villanueva, Michael Alvillar, and the entire Basic Needs Team for managing another great event!

Women’s Leadership Club Hosts Career Panel

On Tuesday, March 18, the BCC Women’s Leadership Club hosted its annual Women’s Career Panel. The panel included Chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson, Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii, Melanie Errett (Marriage and Family Therapist with Bluewater Therapy), Linda Shih (Software Engineer at Amazon Robotics), Sareeta Young (Content Producer at BlkReels & BCC Multimedia Art instructor), and Dr. Jennifer Hugenberger (Program Manager at Biotech Partners). These established female leaders shared their career journeys, challenges, and success strategies, as well as fielded Q&A from audience members.

In an Instagram post, Mayor Ishii said, “Thank you so much to the amazing students at @berkeleycitycollege for inviting me to participate in the Women’s Career Panel. I was honored to share the stage with 5 other phenomenal women as we gave advice and shared stories about the challenges and triumphs we’ve experienced in our respective careers.”

The ASBCC said, “ASBCC is proud to have contributed to such an amazing event. Thank you to all the amazing speakers who gave empowering presentations. A big shoutout to the Women’s Leadership Club for being the main event coordinators and for all the clubs who worked hard to make this event for Women’s History Month!”

BCC Represented at ACCJC Regional Convening “Transparency, Storytelling, and Value Literacy”

On Tuesday, April 1, VPI Chris Lewis, Senior Research and Planning Analyst Phoumy Sayavong, and PIO Tom Rizza joined colleagues from other PCCD colleges at the ACCJC Regional Convening at Skyline College. The theme of the convening was “Transparency, Storytelling, and Value Literacy.” ACCJC President Mac Powell and ACCJC Vice President Melynie Schiel led discussions about how college’s share their data in a narrative format to both attract and inform students about positive outcomes with higher education, especially in a time where public opinion of higher education has dipped from 70% to 38% over the last 20 years.

College representatives took part in two group work assignments and shared results. The first assignment involved a rubric for effective institutional outcome transparency provided by the ACCJC, allowing colleges to review and self-score their publicly available student achievement data story in terms of accessibility, recency and context, disaggregation, and reflection and storytelling. The second assignment involved an introduction to various public dashboard tracking institution value metrics and completion rates and learning from example colleges to compare and contrast their data storytelling with our own colleges.

“It was a great opportunity to brainstorm how we can better communicate our success stories through data with the public and to hear from other colleges about their experiences and best practices. Never before has there been a more critical need for us to inform our communities and policymakers about the vital role community colleges play in workforce development and in reversing intergenerational poverty. Data is only part of the story – we control the narrative. Let the story be told!” said VPI Lewis.

BCC West Topping Off Ceremony

On Wednesday, April 16, Berkeley City College and construction partners Kitchell will host a topping off ceremony for the BCC West Campus at the corner of Milvia and Center St. The highest point of the 5-story building will be topped off with a ceremonial beam signed by the Mayor, College and District administrators, Board of Trustees members, Construction and Design representatives. It will also serve as an opportunity to thank the taxpayers and contributors of the wider community for making the construction of this new campus possible.