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Women’s History Month Events Include Panels, Forums and a Pop-up Exhibit
In honor of Women’s History Month, Bucks County Community College presents two free forums on Thursday, March 23. In addition, college president Dr. Felicia Ganther will be a featured speaker in a virtual forum hosted by Guttman Community College in New York City on March 30.
And the Library is hosting a pop-up exhibition from the African American Museum of Bucks County, featuring the historic contributions of women of color, March 20 – 31 at the Newtown Campus.
Women’s Power Panel at Newtown
The Office of Community & Government Relations presents the second annual Women’s Power Panel at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at the Newtown Campus and live on Zoom.
Interim Associate Vice President of Advancement Christina Kahmar will moderate the discussion, centered on the national theme for Women’s History Month, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Story.” The panelists will discuss the obstacles, challenges, and opportunities they encountered on their paths to success.
The panelists are:
Sara Araya, JD, Loan officer, Advisors Mortgage Group LLC
Dr. Vail P. Garvin, FACHE, President Emerita, Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce
Silvi Haldipur, President, Desis of Doylestown
Adrienne King, President, The PairUP Society
The Women’s Power Panel takes place at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23 in the Gallagher Room, located in the Rollins Center on the campus at 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown, Pa., 18940. It will be streamed live on Zoom for those who register. The event is free and open to the public.
Women in Politics Share Forum at Bristol
Meanwhile, the Social and Behavioral Science Department presents the Political Power Hour: Women in Politics at noon Thursday, March 23, at the Epstein Campus at Lower Bucks and live on Zoom.
Moderated by faculty member Bill Pezza, the forum features the following participants:
Hon. Tina Davis (D-141), State Representative
Hon. Diane Ellis-Marseglia (D), Bucks County Commissioner
Cathy Horwatt, Bucks County League of Women Voters
Hon. Kristin Marcell (R-178), State Representative
Tiffany Thomas-Smith, Esq., (D), former candidate, Bucks County Court of Common Pleas
Hon. Kathleen “K.C.” Tomlinson (R-18), State Representative
The Political Power Hour takes place in the Student Commons on the campus, located at 1304 Veterans Highway, Bristol, Pa., 19007. It will be streamed live on Zoom for those who register. The event is free and open to the public
Dr. Ganther Joins Presidential Panel in NYC
Bucks County Community College president Felicia L. Ganther, J.D., Ph.D., is a featured panelist on Guttman Community College’s President’s Speaker Series at noon Thursday, March 30. The virtual forum will be hosted by Dr. Larry D. Johnson, president of the college that’s part of the City University of New York (CUNY). The topic is “Woman King: Challenging Hierarchical Norms in the 21st Century.”
Pop-up History Comes to Newtown
The African American Museum of Bucks County brings its pop-up exhibition celebrating the historic contributions of women of color to Bucks County Community College’s Newtown Library. Located inside the main entrance, the exhibition is free and open to the public March 20 – 31 during library hours: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, and 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday. The Library can be accessed through the Gateway Center building entrance on the campus at 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown, Pa.
For more information on Women’s History Month events at Bucks County Community College, contact the Office of Community and Government Relations at diversity@bucks.edu.
BCCC and Philadelphia Building Trades Announce Historic New Partnership
Pre-Apprenticeship Program To Provide Students with Path To Union Membership Officials of Bucks County Community College (BCCC) and the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council today announced the launch of the “Bucks County Community College Building & Construction Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program”, which is believed to be the first of its kind in Pennsylvania. The 11-week course offers BCCC students the opportunity to study many skilled Building Trades disciplines.
Skilled building and construction workers are in high demand. To help fill the need, BCCC has partnered with local Building Trades unions to offer its students free training and career service assistance. The launch of this new program is funded through a PA Department of Labor and Industry PAsmart grant. Participants will learn from industry experts with extensive experience in their fields at the state-of-the-art Center for Advanced Technologies (CAT) on the Gene and Marlene Epstein Campus at Lower Bucks in Bristol, PA.
The 11-week, 288-hour curricula will provide the fundamental education necessary for graduates to apply for a Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) to potentially secure a high-paying, family-sustaining job. Additionally, students will earn OSHA-10 and Aerial Platform Lift Safety certificates.
“The Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council is ecstatic to be partnering with Bucks County Community College on this unprecedented new Pre-Apprenticeship Program,” said Building Trades Business Manager Ryan N. Boyer. “This innovative program, taught by our experienced Trades’ instructors, will provide students who are interested in a career in the unionized construction trades with industry-specific knowledge and a significant edge on other apprentice training program applicants.”
“Bucks County Community College is proud to join forces with the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council in this historic partnership,” said Dr. Felicia L. Ganther, President of Bucks County Community College. “Bucks is committed to providing students with pathways to meaningful and relevant career opportunities, and this collaboration furthers that commitment. We are thrilled to welcome our first cohort of students to this inaugural program!”
Joining Boyer and Dr. Ganther on the dais were BCCC Board Chair Tom Jennings and Associate Vice President Tracy Timby.
For many young people, a traditional four-year college degree is not a viable option, for various reasons. The Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council Apprenticeship programs provide young people with the opportunity to “earn while they learn”, along with entry into family-sustaining careers in the unionized construction industry, upon graduation. This unique Pre-Apprenticeship Program being offered by BCCC and the Trades offers participants a potential gateway into a highly-coveted Philadelphia Building Trades Apprenticeship Training Program.
The inaugural cohort of the BCCC Pre-Apprenticeship Program begins April 10, 2023 and will feature a total of eight students. With the current staff of seven Building Trades instructors, the BCCC Pre-Apprenticeship Program can accommodate as many as 32 students over the next two years under current grant funding.
For more information, contact Program Manager Christine Harvie at christine.harvie@bucks.edu.
BCCC honors 4 for building on MLK’s dream
The president and trustees present the second annual MLK Dream Builder Awards to community, corporate, humanitarian and student leaders Feb. 23 at Newtown. Bucks County Community College, which has been making the dream of higher education a reality for nearly six decades, will honor four individuals with the second annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dream Builder Awards on Thursday, February 23.
To cap off the college’s celebration of Black History Month, President Felicia L. Ganther, J.D., Ph.D., and the Board of Trustees will present awards to leaders of community, corporate, humanitarian, and student organizations who have demonstrated outstanding commitment and service to nondiscrimination, regardless of an individual’s station in life.
“Acknowledging and honoring these leaders is critical to keeping the legacy of Dr. King alive,” noted Ganther. “Doing so not only educates our community on what is needed to improve the lives of all citizens, it also provides a blueprint for others to follow as they see the great works of those we honor for their service. This year’s honorees have truly modeled the way for us to do more and be more and for our fellow man, just as Dr. King had done.”
Kevin Antoine, J.D., the college’s associate vice president for government and community relations and chief diversity officer, says the honorees are being recognized for the unsung work they do.
“The MLK Dream Builder awardees have done their job well, without the expectation of recognition or glamour,” said Antoine. “What’s more, this program exemplifies the college’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion by reaffirming that there is goodwill in the people of Bucks County, regardless of their station in life.”
This year’s honorees are:
Community Dream Builder – Adrienne King, Founder and President, The PairUP Society
Corporate Dream Builder – Dr. Vail Garvin, President & CEO Emerita, Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce
Humanitarian Dream Builder – Karen Downer, President, Bucks County NAACP
Student Dream Builder – Lateefat Adewale, President, Bucks County Community College Student Government Association
The second annual Bucks County Community College MLK Dream Builder Awards, featuring live music from the college’s Madrigal Singers and jazz faculty combo, takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, February 23, in the Linksz Pavilion on the campus at 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown, Pa. The ceremony will be streamed live online starting at 5:30 p.m. Special thanks to the presenting sponsor, Parx Casino.
High School Scribes Encouraged to Enter 36th Annual Poetry Contest
Bucks County 9th, 10th, 11th & 12th graders can submit three poems by March 10 for the chance to win $300 Bucks County Community College, which has been nurturing writers for more than 50 years, calls on creative young people to enter the 36th annual Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contest for the chance to win $300.
Students have until Friday, March 10 to submit three original poems, according to Dr. Ethel Rackin, director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program, which runs the Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contest.
The contest is open to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors who live in Bucks County or attend a Bucks County high school. Home-schooled students may also enter. Previous winners are not eligible.
In addition to the prize money, the winner receives a proclamation from the Bucks County Commissioners, and the opportunity to read at a public reception. Runners-up and finalists in the contest will also be invited to read at the public event.
“Entering the High School Poet of the Year contest may give students a chance to discover and develop a talent they may not have realized they had,” said Rackin, a language and literature professor at Bucks. What’s more, participating in the public poetry reading may help a student stand out in the college search.
“Mentioning the contest, public reading, and anthology on college applications will demonstrate initiative, writing skills, and public speaking experience,” Rackin added. “Clearly, there’s a lot to gain from entering this contest.”
Each participant must submit three original poems with an application.
The contest will be judged by the current Bucks County Poet Laureate Tom Mallouk and the former poet laureate Nicole Steinberg.
To learn more about the Bucks County Poet High School Poet of the Year program, visit the Bucks County Poet Laureate web page. For more information, contact Dr. Ethel Rackin at ethel.rackin@bucks.edu.
Code Number Safe [Un]Safe Exhibition At Hicks Art Center Gallery
Hicks Art Center Gallery at Bucks County Community College is pleased to present a group exhibition of new and historic art works featuring U.S. and internationally based artists. Code Number Safe [Un]Safe will be on view from Wednesday, January 18 through Saturday, March 4, 2023.
The group exhibition will feature sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, assemblage, photography, and video works by:
Miriam Carpenter, Paul W. Evans, Helen Rebekah Garber, Hand Drawn Map Association (Kris Harzinski), Daniel Healey, Edward Ellis Hughes (Courtesy of The Petrucci Family Foundation), Barbara Martin, Kathleen McSherry, Neal Pressley, Lorna Simpson (Courtesy of The Petrucci Family Foundation), and Steina and Woody Vasulka (Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix).
The premise of the exhibition "Code Number Safe [Un]Safe" is built around the concept of numbers and numeric systems holding values for safety and stability or on the contrary- impermanence and oppression. The cohort of artists participating in the exhibition use numbers and numeric identifiers to describe personal, process and historical narratives through sculpture, painting, collage, or visual diagrams/images that symbolize spaces for realized well-being or vessels of conflict.
Artistic expression is often codified solely as a right-brain endeavor. However, many artists utilize left- brain processes, organically, out of preference or necessity, by sourcing a multitude of numeric systems to augment right-brain creative activities; in artworks deploying painting, printmaking, photography, video, assemblage, and sculpture in the exhibition “Code Number Safe [Un]Safe.” For example, Lorna Simpson’s photogravure and screen-print work, “Counting” employs various means of quantifying time, history, architecture, and the body(hair) with texts flanking three images while Barbara Martin’s expressionist paintings include repetitive marks or tallies to measure rhythm in dance. Enumeration for Paul W. Evans is made visible by tackling familial relationships through sibling birth order. In addition, Evans paints and collages numbers juxtaposed with plant shapes to question the proliferation and detrimental side effects of genetically modified organisms to humans and the environment.
Neal Pressley’s “No. 7” series of woodblock prints capture a historic building’s past identification before it was erased during the site’s development into a construction company’s Lancaster headquarters. An augmented reality video will illustrate where the “No. 7” was originally seen on the building prior to its transformation. Daniel Healey’s Letraset transfer drawings are shape forms the artist meticulously creates by hand, “not [with] a computer, or lensing an AI response.” Steina and Woody Vasulka on the other hand, embraced new medias and broke technological barriers to create moving images that questioned the presence of the human hand in artmaking. Their two works in the exhibition, “1-2-3-4” and “Solo for 3” look archaic now and almost humorous in their basicness. But at the time of their making, the videos were groundbreaking.
From the Hand Drawn Map Association’s archive, founder Kris Harzinski is exhibiting a selection of maps with subjects ranging from concepts of partnership to transit line numbers in a fictional city. While numbers do not appear visually on Miriam Carpenter’s exquisitely carved wood feathers, the title of the first one the artist created is the average number of feathers of a mallard duck, 11,903. Each subsequent sculpture’s numeric title is one less than the one made before it. In “Code Number Safe [Un]Safe, Carpenter will exhibit the 15th feather, “11,889.” Experiencing the daily ritual of self-injection as a means of healing and survival, Kathleen McSherry felt guided to make the sculpture “MS Nightmare” from found objects in her collection that spoke to her in a transformative and meaningful way that words cannot describe. In Edward Ellis Hughes’ remarkable collaged painting from 1982 the numeric references are not obvious which raises questions that may remain unanswered; “Did the artist choose the numbers randomly and do they signify some thing or being?”
Although numbers are attached to specific values like money and hurricane categories, the artists in “Code Number Safe [Un]Safe” made conscious decisions to include them in their artworks as clues to explain the inherent values personally significant to them and others.
Exhibition programming is free and open to the public and includes:
February 2, 2023, 2 p.m. - Helen Rebekah Garber will present an Artist Talk in the Zlock Performing Arts Center at Bucks County Community College. Garber will speak about her journey as a nurse practitioner and artist and how they intersect on her canvases through numerical patterns. Following the Artist Talk, the exhibition’s opening reception will be held in the Hicks Art Center from 4-6 p.m.
February 7, 2023, 10-11:30 a.m. - Kris Harzinski, artist, director, and founder of The Hand Drawn Map Association will present a map making workshop in the Hicks Art Center room H100. Materials and supplies will be provided.
Gallery hours throughout the exhibition will be Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays noon to 4 p.m.
About the Hicks Gallery
Hicks Art Center Gallery at Bucks County Community College provides a varied series of curated art exhibitions and related programming in support of the Arts & Communication Department and as an important educational and cultural resource for the community. The Gallery is located at 275 Swamp Road, Newtown, PA 18940 in the Hicks Art Center on the Newtown campus of Bucks County Community College.
