News

George School Senior Named Bucks County High School Poet of the Year

Rhianna Searle, a senior at the George School, has been named the 2023 Bucks County High School Poet of the Year, officials at Bucks County Community College announced. Searle, who was first runner-up in last year’s contest, rose to the top of more than 120 entries in the 36rd annual contest, part of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program administered by the college. For the first-place finish, Searle wins $300 and will be honored with a poetry reading on Saturday, May 13 from 2-4 pm in Tyler Hall 142 on BCCC's Newtown Campus. The event will feature winners, finalists, and judges. The three poems Searle submitted for the contest were entitled “Steady,” “Sugar Snap Peas” and “Springtime Sonnet.” The judges were Tom Mallouk (the current Bucks County Poet Laureate) and Nicole Steinberg (last year's BCPL). In addition to the winner, the judges also named Olivia Cao, a junior Central Bucks High School South, as first runner-up. Second runner-up was senior Eva Houlton from New Hope-Solebury school. Third runner-up was Charlotte Smyth, a junior from Central Bucks High School West. The three runners-up will also read from their works during the celebration. The annual Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contest is another way that Bucks County Community College contributes to the cultural heritage of the region. For more information contact Dr. Ethel Rackin, a Professor of Language and Literature at Bucks and the director of the Wordsmiths Reading Series and Poet Laureate Program at Ethel.Rackin@bucks.edu. Winning poems Steady I slide into womanhood like a glove trying on different sizes testing the waters. Most girls bloom, are written in poems as flowers, green metaphors. I wonder if most of those poems are written by men. I am the knot of roots beneath the soil. As time’s waters roll women are the river stones shifting but standing firm. My own mother smells of muscle balm and quinoa. She sounds like summertime. Women are strong like wintering trees. Stop calling their beauty ephemeral like cherry blossoms. Womanhood is also private fitting in the crevices between stonework and sheets fingers tracing Georgia O’Keeffe patterns; Like cacti in deserts, women hold their own water. Sugar Snap Peas “Let me call my anxiety, desire, then. Let me call it, a garden.” -Natalie Diaz, “From the Desire Field” It’s not that poetry isn’t truth –it’s a trellis. I’d like to untie the knots of my fear like tendons turned tendrils reaching towards the light to transplant myself to let myself be wild and patient I wrap metaphors around my arms like casts after some time I can crack them off, peel them off, I become one not a comparison or a shadow but bones and being. Anger is red. Love is peach colored anxiety No–love is blossoms turned fruit and even fear is fertile. What I mean to say is I love younot in spite of but through My love is never adjacent Fear and love are the same poem at different stages of revision, the same sentence, rewritten, translated. Springtime Sonnet “And it’s over!” cry the leaves, as daybreak Chimes. And still and still…when I am leaning Here on you: it’s a sweeter kind of ache. Time is passing away, away, cleaning And rearranging. My ambitions changed. In hearts’ safe chambers, recollections sproutAnd melt as something soft becomes estranged. Now April comes around again with doubtOf Summer, then September. Trees turn green Again, and I will become old and new. And oh the tremor! Oh the thrill–eighteen! And yet…less fear when sitting here with you. We are young, and caught in April’s arm And now for just a moment, out of harm.

Learn About ‘Cultivating Your Resilience’ from Mental Health Expert at Bucks

Clinical psychologist Dr. Lise Deguire shares how to use cognitive tools of resilience to improve well-being at 12:30 Tue. April 25 at Newtown and online Bucks County Community College invites the public to “Finding and Cultivating Your Resistance,” a mental-health awareness program at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 25, at the Newtown campus and online. The forum is presented by clinical psychologist Dr. Lise Dequire, who suffered third-degree burns on two-thirds of her body at age four, setting her on a journey of pain, hospitalizations and social ostracism. Yet she now lives a life of great joy, meaning, and purpose. In her talk, Dr. Deguire uses these personal experiences to discuss psychological resilience, the cognitive tools of resilience, and how we can cope more resiliently with life’s challenges. The award-winning author of Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor has appeared on NPR, NBC, ABC, FOX, Sirius XM, and numerous podcasts, and writes a blog for Psychology Today. Learn more about the speaker at www.LiseDeguire.com. The event takes place in the Library Learning Studio on the campus at 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown, Pa. It will be also offered live online to those who register at https://bit.ly/FindYourResilience. “Finding and Cultivating Your Resilience” is brought to you by the Office of Community and Government Relations, and by the student-run Psychology Club. It’s among several educational forums to encourage engagement and dialog on issues surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion in the community. To learn more, visit www.bucks.edu/diversity.

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.

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.

The Esteé Lauder Companies Donates to BCCC to Advance Supply Chain Education