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Welcome Dr. Patrick M. Jones!

President and CEO

Dr. Patrick M. Jones starts his term as the sixth president of Bucks County Community College on July 1, 2024.



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Collage of photos of artwork

New Exhibitions Opening On July 24 At Hicks Art Center Gallery At Bucks

 Bucks County Community College (BCCC) is pleased to announce the opening of two new exhibitions: “Dreams of Flora and Fauna” and “Endless Summer” at Hicks Art Center Gallery at the College’s Newtown Campus on Wednesday, July 24. In the main gallery, “Dreams of Flora and Fauna,” comprised of the work of 17 local artists, features fanciful, naturalistic, pop, symbolic and abstract scenes of botanic and animal depictions. The artists’ renderings—across mediums including drawing, painting, collage, fiber, ceramics, and video—range from subtle, delicate lines, to dense and rich color fields, and hypnotic patterns to sculpted animated shapes and puppetry. The exhibition transports the viewer to multiple fantasy realms through the portal of the gallery. Boldly and delicately painted, drawn and stitched flowers mingle with nightmarish spiders, hybrid beasts and cartoon stylized animals conjuring an imaginative art safari tour for viewers. The artists participating in “Dreams of Flora and Fauna” create their artworks and products in Studio Route 29 in Frenchtown, New Jersey or at The Center for Creative Works in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Grounded in Progressive Art Studio practices, both organizations advocate for artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities to focus on professional development and to exhibit in a variety of venues and locations. Outside the main gallery, a film created by BCCC Arts and Communication artists, “Can You Repeat That” will be screened continuously alongside “Dreams of Flora and Fauna.” The film documents BCCC student Sean Hesser’s life living and thriving with motor impairment and cerebral palsy. By featuring the works of neurodiverse artists and Sean Hesser’s narrative perspective documentary alongside one another, Hicks Art Center Gallery affirms its mission to inclusively promote all artists’ access for invitation and participation in gallery exhibitions at Bucks County Community College now and in the future. In conjunction with “Dreams of Flora and Fauna”, on September 12, the neurodiverse poet Nathan Spoon will present a reading at 12:15 p.m. in the main gallery. This event is collaboratively hosted with the BCCC Language and Literature Department and is free and open to the public. In the hallways surrounding “Dreams of Flora and Fauna” and in the Atrium Gallery, the exhibition “Endless Summer” features over 30 local artists’ paintings and sculpture evoking the summer season experience. From realism, impressionism, to abstract, this diverse range of expressions brings the sensorial experiences of summer to life. Visitors are invited to “escape the virtual” and take a break from the demands of our tech centered world by absorbing the different terrains, textures, times of day and weather in the artworks to remember the summer experience they most enjoy. All are welcome to the closing reception of the exhibitions on Thursday, September 12 from 4–7 p.m. at the Hicks Art Center Gallery, Bucks County Community College, 275 Swamp Road, Newtown, PA 18940. The exhibition will remain on view through September 14. Summer gallery hours are Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and Saturdays from noon – 4 p.m. Images Daniel Lacey, “Untitled”, caran d'ache on paper, 2024, crayon drawing with animals atop a bluff overlooking a beach scene Joseph Arico, “Yellow Moon”, oil on canvas paper, 2006, painting shows a boat on water with a yellow moon in the background reflected on the water Judy Barnett, “Wildflowers”, needlepoint on cotton, 2018, embroidered, brightly colored flowers on fabric
Security & Safety Executive Director Dennis McCauley, Bucks County Community College accepts the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) Certificate of Accreditation from IACLEA President Paul Dean and IACLEA Executive Director Paul Cell

BCCC Office of Security and Safety Earns Accreditation

Bucks County Community College's Office of Security & Safety earns accreditation from International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.  (Second from the left) Security & Safety Executive Director Dennis McCauley, Bucks County Community College accepts the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) Certificate of Accreditation from IACLEA Director of Professional Services Jerry Murphy (first from the left), IACLEA President Paul Dean (second from right) and IACLEA Executive Director Paul Cell (first from right). [Newtown, PA] – Bucks County Community College today announced that its Office of Security & Safety has achieved accreditation from the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), the leading authority for campus public safety. The Bucks Office of Security & Safety demonstrated to outside, impartial experts its compliance with national best-practice standards in the profession. Fewer than 100 agencies have earned this distinctive recognition. The Bucks Office of Security & Safety is now one of only two IACLEA-accredited campus safety agencies in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and one of only three community colleges nationwide to achieve the accreditation to date. “We congratulate the Bucks County Community College Office of Security & Safety on achieving IACLEA accreditation, a unique distinction among campus police and public safety agencies,” said IACLEA President Paul Dean. “The men and women protecting your campus have proven through policy and practice the commitment to operate at the highest level of the profession.” IACLEA accreditation signifies an agency’s ongoing commitment to excellence and state-of-the-art performance in every aspect of its operations. The standards guide the recruitment, selection, training, and professional development of agency personnel and overall agency operations. “The IACLEA accreditation is proof-positive of the steadfast work and attention-to-detail that that our campus safety team exhibits every day,” said Bucks County Community College President Patrick Jones. “Our security and safety professionals are focused on maintaining the highest standards of safety and security on each of our campuses throughout the county.” Among the many benefits of the accreditation are increased accountability from agency personnel and the agency as a whole and a commitment to continuous improvement to maintain excellent operations. “The accreditation is a direct result of our entire team’s professionalism and commitment to protecting the campus community, as well as the ongoing support from College leadership,” said Dennis McCauley, Executive Director of Security & Safety for the College. “It was truly an honor to accept the award on behalf of Security & Safety and Bucks County Community College.” Achieving accreditation was a multi-year undertaking in which department policies and procedures were completely revised to conform with the campus safety best practices specified by IACLEA's rigorous standards. As the final step in the process, a team of IACLEA assessors conducted a thorough review of the department’s policies and procedures followed by a three-day on-site visit in April 2024 during which they inspected Security & Safety's facilities and equipment, observed operations, met with team members, interviewed stakeholders, and invited public comment. Executive Director McCauley accepted the accreditation award on behalf of the Office of Security & Safety at IACLEA's National Conference on June 25, 2024. The IACLEA accreditation is valid for a four-year period after which the agency can apply for re-accreditation.     
Calligraphy pen and paper

BCCC Launches 48th Annual Bucks County Poet Laureate Competition

 The 2024 search is on for the 48th annual Bucks County Poet Laureate, according to Bucks County Community College professor and director of the program, Ethel Rackin, Ph.D. The Bucks Laureate Program is one of the oldest in the country. It also holds a High School Poet Contest every spring. The Bucks County Poet Laureate Program is seeking the 2024 Laureate. The postmark deadline for submission to the competition is Friday, September 13, 2024. The winner of the competition will receive a $500 honorarium, a plaque from the Bucks County Commissioners, and a reading at Bucks County Community College in the fall with the previous year’s laureate, Tara Tamburello. The 2024 final judge will be Kasey Jueds. Keeper, Jueds’ first book, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press, and was published by Pitt in 2013. Her second book, The Thicket, was published by Pitt in 2021. Jueds has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Soapstone, and the Ucross Foundation; she has also been a visiting poet at the University of Pennsylvania, LaSalle College, and the University of Northern Colorado. She currently resides in New York State. Preliminary judge will be Thomas Devaney. Devaney is a poet, facilitator, and educator based in Philadelphia. He is a Pew Fellow in the Arts with a focus on city building and community engagement. He wrote and co-directed the film Bicentennial City with Green House Media (2020). Devaney is the author of Getting to Philadelphia (Hanging Loose Press, 2019) and You Are the Battery (Black Square Editions, 2019). Entrants to the competition must be Bucks County residents and 18 years or older. Poetry of any kind is welcome. The entry requires 10 poems, any style, form, or length. All work must be original, published or unpublished, typewritten or word-processed, one poem per page, in black ink. Poems and entry form must be submitted online. For more information, contact Dr. Ethel Rackin at ethel.rackin@bucks.edu.