Laney College Resumes Campus Tours for High School Students
In partnership with OUSD, Laney has been able to warmly welcome high school students to begin touring the campus again, as of late March.
During the past few weeks, Laney’s Career and Technical Education department hosted two large groups of students from Fremont High School and Castlemont High School, with approximately 80 students in attendance. The tours focused on Laney's CTE programs, such as Welding, Machining, Wood Technology, Carpentry, FabLab, Culinary and Cosmetology. Toward the end of the campus visit, the students were treated to lunch and had a chance to speak with President Besikof.
The Recruitment, Assessment, and Student Relations department also recently welcomed 21 students and chaperons who traveled more than 260 miles to Laney from Dunsmuir High School, located about 10 miles south of Mount Shasta. The group had an opportunity to tour the campus and visit some CTE programs, including Welding, Culinary Arts, Carpentry, Cosmetology, and the Fab Lab. The Culinary Arts crew welcomed students with some coffee-flavored pastries. "This is the best tour guide ever!" one student said of Laney Outreach Specialist Nia Ford.
Laney Biomanufacturing Selected to Participate in Scientific Bioprocessing Fellowship
Laney College is excited to announce that its biomanufacturing program has been selected to participate in the Scientific Bioprocessing (SBI) Digitally Simplified Bioprocessing Fellowship in partnership with BioMADE. Laney was selected along with 23 other community and technical colleges nationwide to receive free state-of-the-art bioprocessing equipment. Laney will receive SBI's automated shaker flask system, which will allow students to do real-time biomass monitoring and fed-batch experiments, using their liquid injection system (LIS). The system will dramatically improve the college's upstream processing curriculum because it will allow students to conduct multi-day experiments and collect data in between lab sessions.
Students enrolled in the "Bioreactor, Cell Culture, and Protein Recovery" course are excited to use this system as soon as it lands in the lab. Special thanks go to BioMADE for offering this opportunity to their community college members, as well as Biomanufacturing Program Director, Douglas Bruce, for seeing this opportunity to fruition.
Laney Partners with Peralta Colleges Foundation to Lead Distinguished Leaders Lunch Session
On March 30th, Laney College partnered with the Peralta Colleges Foundation (PCF) to host the March Distinguished Leaders Lunch Session, featuring Honorable Betty Yee, California State Controller, and Tamara Lundgren, Chairman, President, and CEO of Oakland-based Schnitzer Steel. The event was attended by over 60 faculty, staff, students, and community members. The conversation revealed how the guests navigated their careers in a field that has been mostly dominated by men, as well as their contributions to California’s long-term environmental sustainability.
The honorable Betty Yee has been a long supporter of the Peralta Colleges and its Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. She believes that Peralta’s CTE programs play an important role in our region’s economic recovery. CEO Lundgren and Schnitzer Steel recently made a huge investment in Laney College’s Machine Technology and Welding Technology programs in the form of scholarships, work-based learning opportunities, and pathways to employment that will provide livable wages for our CTE students.
Laney College thanks LaNiece Jones, Executive Director of the Peralta Colleges Foundation, and Tasion Kwamilele, PCF Board Member/Government & Public Affairs Manager at Schnitzer Steel, for organizing a wonderful event that was facilitated by Foundation Board Vice President, Dr. Joseph Simmons and Laney CTE Dean Alejandria Tomas.
Laney College Launches First-Ever Hackathon
On March 26 and 27, Engineering and Computer Science students, the Associated Students of Laney College (ASLC), and Student Services held the first-ever BeeLikeCoders hackathon. This was a hybrid event that consisted of 27 students, who made up 15 teams to tackle the challenge of designing an app to improve the student experience. The apps they created were impressive, which included a financial planner, a scheduling tool, a tool to facilitate group work, and a tracker for Peralta events.
By hosting this event, the BeelikeCoders organizing committee hoped to encourage more rising freshman and college students to challenge themselves, grow their technical skills, strengthen their problem-solving skills, and gain hands-on experience in tech by developing innovative products all within a 24-hour time period. By the end of the hackathon, Laney faculty and staff members were overwhelmed by the products each team had come up with! This event is a true example of how much potential Peralta students possess. The College hopes to see BeelikeCoders become an annual event and thanks to Professor Mallory Barkdull (Engineering) and ASLC President Bilal Homran as well as the event judges and committee organizers who made the event a success.
This article is taken from the President’s Report, written by Dr. Rudy Besikof, Laney College President, that was presented to the PCCD Board of Trustees during their regular meeting on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. To view as a pdf, click here.