BHCC Library
& Learning Commons  

It is difficult to compare the student body of BHCC in 1973 with the student body of today. However, it is my subjective opinion that the nontraditional community college student of 1973 (and before) is more or less the traditional student of today. We now live in an era in which college education is no longer an elective but rather a necessity. The Associate degree, or at least some certification of post-secondary achievement, has replaced the high school diploma (and the GED as well) as the entry-Ievel credential for most jobs that promise upward mobility.

Thus, at one end of the spectrum we are seeing students who are not worse than their counterparts of 1973 but rather students whose counterparts are the ones we never saw before; namely the people who upon graduating from high school found good job opportunities that did not require any college certification.

At the same time, as financial aid continues to dwindle and the cost of obtaining higher education continues to escalate, more and more students who might have gone directly from high school to college in 1973 now come to the community college to begin their education and effectively reduce the cost of a four year degree by almost 50% (even with the increased fees that we now charge).

In this context, I find that the role of the community college, as important as it was in 1973, is far more important today if the community college is to do for America in the first half of this century what it did for the last half of the previous century. We now have a bimodal distribution of students where, at one end of the spectrum, the students are more poorly prepared than in

the past and at the other end of the spectrum we have students who are far better prepared than their counterparts of the past. Moreover, the challenge is made even greater in the sense that, while we need more money than in the past, we are usually asked to do more with less.

Thus in my mind the community college is different but equal to the higher division colleges and universities. Indeed, it is we who have served and who hopefully will continue to serve
those students who might otherwise have never been able to attend college. In essence we are, and hopefully we will continue to be, the "statue of liberty" for all those who might otherwise have been academically disenfranchised.

We have a noble mission and I am proud to have been given the privilege to be part of it for a half century, the last 30 years of which have been spent "in the trenches" at BHCC.

Herb Gross
Professor, Mathematics and Physics

Each day for thirty years I have started my day at BHCC on a continuum of emotional response ranging from contentment to euphoria.

Mark Lieberman

30 years: 1/2 a life, I difficult and rewarding job. I week off for a blizzard, I furlough without pay, 1 pair of twins, I mass sick-out to get a contract, I diversity scale starting at I.I and ending at 9.9. Three decades: 20 sick days, 250 sections of classes, 6,000 students, 10,200 class meetings -many with laughter, some with anguish. 30,000 tests graded, 40,000 homework assignments checked. Countless fascinating students, faculty and staff. A few more years?

Ted Ridout

This has been a long journey! I remember the first day of classes: I was supposed to teach keyboarding and the type- writers had not been delivered yet, so I had to improvise. I
made up keyboards from cardboard paper, and we got through the first week like this.

A lot has changed in the 30 years; what has not changed is my desire to help students, who remind me of the beginning ofmy journey and my desire to make that road easier, to walk and reach the light at the end of the academic tunnel. There is nothing greater than enjoying one's work and not working just for the paycheck.

I want to take this opportunity to thank BHCC and the U.S.A. for helping me both personally and professionally. I am so grateful for the friendships that I have made over these years. In Greece they say "when you are overseas, you are never alone, because you have the other Greeks". In my case I have an eastern European Jew, Richard Klayman, and a southern European (Italian), Anne Zakrosky, amongst others; I am never alone!

I always felt -in spite of the worldly shortcomings -the words of Rabbi Harold S. Kushner ring true at BHCC:

Let the warmth of the sun heal us wherever we are broken. Let it bum away the fog so that we can see each other clearly.

So that we can see beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color.

Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness. So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrow of our neighbors.

A big thank you to all.

Anna Tsakarissianos

When we opened the Instructional Design and Technology Center -would you believe that was back in January of 1996 - we wondered if anyone would really be interested. After more than seven years, and working with hundreds of faculty and staff, full-time and adjunct, I am still amazed by the changes that have happened in the ways that faculty teach and staff do their various jobs. But what I have noticed most is that these changes are not the result of bringing in technology. The changes are the result of the thought that faculty and staff have given to what they do and to how they can do it better with the technology.

In particular, some faculty have completely rethought and redesigned their courses. A group from the Math Department let the genie out of the bottle, as our Title III evaluator likes to say, by completely redoing many of their courses to take advantage of smart rooms. Now, the only problem is to keep them from taking over all the smart rooms. The Computer Department thinks it is standard procedure to have projectors in all of their rooms, just as they would expect to have chairs and tables. Perhaps it is reasonable to assume that math and computer people would take to the technology, but could we really foresee that some of the Behavioral Science faculty would also be rethinking their courses, and would just about kill for a smart room? And would we really have predicted that Criminal Justice would have the first full program to go online?

President Fifield once commented to Bill Sakamoto and me about the impact that Title III has had on the college. We are proud of that impact, and grateful to the scores of faculty and staff who participated in both the planning and the implementation of Title III projects. While Title III did provide the "stuff', it was the creativity of those faculty and staff that really made the difference. Without that, the stuff just sits there. It looks like lean times ahead, but hopefully the college will find a way to keep up. It is that combination of the technological equipment with the creative spirit that really makes the things happen, and that even now continues to amaze me.

Nancy Myers

No mistake -it has been 25 years. It is difficult to stand back and reflect on your profession when you are still in the midst of your career. However when I look back and attempt to identify that part of my job which means the most to me, that part which keeps me coming back, the answer is clearly found in the individuals I have encountered over the years. Time passes rapidly and we meet people who come and go in our lives; they become part of our "work family". A family made up of colleagues who have shared some of your happiest and saddest times and the students who have allowed you into see them grow in knowledge and maturity. Even though my position is that of professor, I have learned and will continue to learn from both groups. We all have something to teach one another. Thank you.

Pat Alexander

Some of us have had the good fortune of sharing a collective memory of Bunker Hill Community College when it began. We designed a college where none had been before; we sculpted our unique place in Boston, where seventy other colleges and universities competed for students; we created our own special mission to serve students from diverse communities with diverse educational backgrounds and fulfilled that mission. And we did this by offering new state-of- the-art methods of instruction. We taught courses days and nights, in social agencies, at neighboring schools, and in

prisons. We were the first to offer courses by correspondence and television. We taught out students and learned from our students. I am proud to be a member of the founders of Bunker Rill Community College, to have had the opportunity to work with many others who have joined us and to have witnessed the transformation of Bunker Rill Community College as a leader center of opportunities for our community.

R. Brent Bonah