March 2023

Vol. 11

Alumni Hall of Fame set for June 22, Nominations Being Accepted

The BC Foundation, in partnership with the Bakersfield College Alumni Association, invites the community to nominate Bakersfield College alums that have made a significant impact and have proven to be outstanding examples of Renegade excellence. We will recognize these alums with induction into the Bakersfield College Hall of Fame at a gala set for June 22, 2023, at the Bakersfield College Event Center.

Nominees may include alums who earned their associate’s degree, those who transferred directly to a four-year university, or alums who attended classes for continued education (without earning a degree).  Posthumous nominees are welcomed. 

One of last year’s inductees, NaTesha Johnson, is still beaming about her selection in 2022. She told us recently, “It’s hard for me to articulate how much being inducted into the BC Hall of Fame means to me. I am still overwhelmed and incredibly honored to be recognized by a distinguished association that holds community impact at its highest regard. Even more so, I’m honored to be recognized by a place that not only has provided me a stellar education but has also provided me the tools and opportunities to be daring and innovative. I am forever grateful. I am a Renegade. #WeAreBC “

If you have questions or would like to sponsor this new event, contact the BC Foundation at (661) 395-4800 or foundation@bakersfieldcollege.edu.

From the Executive Director

Dear Friends of BC,

Spring is a beautiful time at Bakersfield College, filled with a sense of new beginnings and opportunities.  The campus is a vibrant green, the semester is well underway, and commencement is just around the corner! 

We at the BC Foundation kicked off spring by saying “thank you” to employees who make donations to campus funds through payroll deduction.  I enjoyed visiting with employee-donors during our Employee Giving luncheon.  I am inspired by the way BC’s staff and faculty lift up our students.  Throughout the month of March, we’ll continue to thank and spotlight our caring and generous employees as we promote Employee Giving Month at Bakersfield College.

Speaking of people who support our Renegades, we’ll honor some very special people at our 15^th Annual Sterling Silver.  The event will take place in the Renegade Ballroom on March 25.  Our honorees this year include: Valley Strong Credit Union; Marjorie and James Lindsey (posthumously); Fran Florez; and Senator Emeritus Jean Fuller.  We still have a few seats available, so if you’d like to join us, check out Sterling Silver Tickets for details!

Marjorie Lindsey, one of our honorees, holds a special place in the heart of many at Bakersfield College.  She was a friend of prior BC President John Collins when he initiated the BC Archives.  Marjorie was a committed supporter of the Archives because she felt it was important to keep the college’s history alive.  After her passing, Marjorie provided for student scholarships and BC Archives support in her estate.  Thanks to her planned gift, students’ dreams of a college education are coming to fruition, and the BC Archives is alive and well!

If you’d like to visit campus and see some of the amazing work happening here, please contact our office.  We’d love to give you a personal tour!

Happy Spring!

Cheryl

15th Annual Sterling Silver Supporters

Giving Thanks Where Thanks are Due

The BC Foundation recently kicked off its Employee Giving Campaign by serving lunch and thanking employees who donate to our Employee Giving Program through their monthly payroll deductions.  Every donation to a campus program helps fund the success of the Bakersfield College students, programs, and campus goals! 

Working at Bakersfield College (or in education in general), we see student and program needs that can not be met by state and federal budgets.  Some of these programs include the Renegade Pantry, Student Emergency Fund, and the Renegade Innovation Fund.  These programs provide food and basic necessities like toiletries, they assist students with one-time emergency grants for immediate monetary needs, and they provide funds for innovative new ideas, programs, and even new equipment for outdated labs.

Gifts from our employee-donors are critical, and they are proof of just how much BC employees are truly committed to student success.  We thank our dedicated faculty and staff for demonstrating their pride in Bakersfield College with their financial gifts!

Visit SupportBC.org/employeegiving if you are an employee of KCCD and would like to enroll in a payroll deduction.

Visit SupportBC.org/donate or call (661) 395-4800 if you are interested in making any donations to BC!

Title IX Celebration to Feature Line Up of Athletes, Authors, Coaches, and Legends

Mark your calendar for March 21, when the BC Foundation will partner with the Kern CCD to present: Celebrating 50 Years of Title IX in Athletics and Education. 

The spectacular line up includes long-time athletes and coaches, along with up-and-coming female athletes.  Bakersfield College’s Women’s Volleyball Coach Carl Ferriera and CSUB’s Women’s Basketball Coach Greg McCall will speak from the perspective of men coaching college-level female athletes. 

Registration for the day-long event is just $25 per person, including lunch.  Registration, and sponsorship information is available at this link: Event Registration

Community Partnerships Help Students Succeed

The Bakersfield College Foundation’s mission is to build and foster connections with individuals in our community and within our corporate community. These relationships are vital in aiding the success of our students, and our college. Most often, they start with our very own faculty and staff, who continuously strive to create opportunities to help support our students.  

The impact of these relationships and the resulting support are immeasurable. Sometimes it comes in the form of scholarships for students; sometimes it’s a completely different type of support. Thanks to our scholarship donors, students can pay their tuition or purchase books; equipment and other donations allow students to hone their skills on the same equipment currently used by local industry;  and thanks to a grant awarded to local transportation providers, students can breathe a little easier knowing they have reliable transportation to get to their classes.

All these opportunities tear down barriers that can make it difficult for students to achieve their education goals.

A few of our most recent collaborations that help us in supporting the achievements of our students include:

• The Haas Foundation renewed a scholarship grant for $12,000;
• Kern Health Sytems created a new scholarship which will award $8,000 each year to nursing students;
• AERA Energy donated 11 brand-new Corvalent HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces) for use in BC’s Industrial Automation Baccalaureate classes;
• Kern Transit and Golden Empire Transit District recently began offering free rides to BC students.

We are incredibly grateful for the many community partnerships that pave the way for students to succeed.  Thank you to all of our partners! We could not do what we do without you!

BC Spotlight on Manufacturing: Robb Stewart

Robb Stewart, BC Manufacturing and Fabrication Technology Assistant Professor, doesn’t like to toot his own horn so we are taking this opportunity to do it for him!  Robb is a Bakersfield native and a BC Alum.  He moved to Washington state right out of high school to attend college and began a career in Aerospace Manufacturing.  After enjoying nearly 19 years in the Pacific Northwest he returned home in 2005 after a family loss and opened a local Manufacturing business. 

With more than 25 years of manufacturing experience, Robb entered BC’s MFGT AS pathway and it didn’t take long for the instructors to notice that he might have more to offer than to learn from them.  It was at this point that he asked about, then began co-instructing to see if teaching would be a good fit.  As it turns out, it was!  After working as an adjunct professor for years, it became apparent that educating had become his primary passion.  Robb said, “There is nothing like being a part of a student’s gain in experience or confidence and seeing them begin to feel that anything is possible if they apply themselves. It is addictive to be a part of what will propel and enable them to do great things.” 

As he was nearing the completion of a BC Manufacturing technology AS, an opportunity to become a faculty member within the program arose.  It’s been nearly seven years since those initial interviews, but Robb is more convinced than ever that joining BC was the right choice.

Today, BC’s Manufacturing program offers opportunities and pathways that include:

• Work experience and Internship experiences with local industry partners
• Ability to earn Job Skills Certificates
• Ability to earn a Certificates of Achievement
• Ability to earn an AS degree in Manufacturing Technology through course and Gen Ed requirement completion.

Robb is always looking toward the future for BC’s Manufacturing program.  He would like BC’s Manufacturing program to become certified as an official skills testing center for students to obtain a national certification through NIMS (National Institute for Metalworking Skills), which is one of the flagship certifications in industry. Additionally, he would like to work with their regional Haas (HTEC) program representatives to become a testing location for their certificated program which could elevate BC’s Manufacturing program appeal across the region and provide even more opportunity to our next-generation workforce.

Panorama Feature: Your BC Story

In every issue of PANORAMA we highlight proud BC alums. You can share “Your Story” in our next issue of PANORAMA.

Kariana Sotelo – Class of 2015

My name is Kariana Sotelo. I am a First Generation, Latin-American College Graduate. Jo’L Jackson, Bernadette Towns, and Steven Holmes were not only professors, but mentors in my educational journey. With support of the BC Child Development Center services and staff, I graduated from Bakersfield College in 2015. Without the support of Fabiola Johnson as my BC Advisor I would not have been convinced into obtaining my AS in Child Development and Family Relations for transfer. I transferred to CSUB and graduated with my BA in 2017 in Child, Adolescent, and Family Studies. Since graduation, my first opportunity in Early Childhood Education was with our very own BC CDC, and I fulfilled three substitute positions with them. Since then, I have also worked in the private and public sectors of Early Childhood Education, as well as gaining experience as an Early Interventionist and a Behavioral Interventionist. I now work as an Inclusion Specialist with Head Start CAPK, I serve, and support Inclusivity in our Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms throughout the county. I am proud to say I will always be a Renegade at heart and will always consider Bakersfield College to be a strong pillar in not only who I am today, but also in how I got to be where I am now.

Donald F. Turney – Class of 1977

I began attending Bakersfield College in the Spring of 1975 and left in 1977 to a 4-year school.  While at BC I played football and baseball as well as attending classes.  In 1976 the Renegade football team had a terrific season and were invited to play in the Potato Bowl. In front of the biggest crowd in Memorial Stadium history, 23,000 people, the Renegades defeated the College of Sequoias to win the California state championship.  In the following week, the Renegades were invited to the Junior Rose Bowl in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for the National Championship.  We played a team from Ellsworth CC, Iowa. The Renegades also won handily, 29-14,  (My dad said it was bumper-to-bumper traffic from Bakersfield to Pasadena that day!) We were declared National Champions, and were awarded beautiful rings with our name and number on it, and the BC logo.  We received very nice letterman’s jacket style coats as well.  Coaches Gerry Collis, Duane Dameron, Harvel Pollard, Carl Bowser were tremendous influences on my life. Coach Walt Johnson was doubly influential on my life as he also coached the 1977 Renegade baseball team, along with Pete Lango.  I owe those men a debt of gratitude I can never repay.  I won 3 letters playing ball at BC.

I believe I owe Norm Hoffman the greatest debt of gratitude.  I was admittedly an indifferent student, kind of floating along.  One day in class, Norm announce he was going to read the best research paper he’d ever had turned in to him.  And…he read my paper!  Norm pulled me aside after class and said “I’m made at you.  You’ve been drifting along all this time and you were capable of work like this?  Don’t you ever give a half-effort again.”  And, I never did.

After BC, I went to Biola University in La Mirada, CA.  I played baseball there for an outstanding coach named Charlie Sarver.  Coach Sarver was an athletic legend at BHS and Cal.  Frank Gifford himself said at a banquet “I wasn’t the best football player BHS ever produced.  It was Charlie Sarver.”

I began my career as a full-time Youth Pastor in Denver, then in Fresno.  I really loved the counseling aspect of that position, so I went to Fresno State to obtain a Masters Degree in Education: Counseling and Student Services.  After I earned that degree, I was a school counselor at a high school in the Hacienda Height area of Los Angeles.  After one year, I was transferred to an LA County Women’s Jail facility.  During the 10 years I counseled women at this facility, a colleague of mine and I created the REACH rehabilitation program for incarcerated women, a program that is still running to this day.  Also while working there, I discovered that the LA County jail system is considered the largest de facto mental hospital in the world, with 25% on the inmates having a diagnosable mental illness.  After talking to a few inmates who were in a full-blown psychotic break, I knew I needed more education if I was going to assist them in any way.  I went to Pepperdine University and earned my second Masters Degree in Psychology.

I began my career at Bakersfield College in 1995 as an Adjunct EOPS counselor.  I would work in the mornings at BC, then drive up to the Magic Mountain area jail facility and complete my day there.  In 2000, I was hired full-time by EOPS.  After 2 years there, I was promoted to the Transfer Center Coordinator position.  Two years after that, I was promoted to the Dean of Students position, a position I held for four years.  In 2008, I retreated to a Professor of Psychology position, a position I hold today.  All told, I’ve been at BC for 28 years.

When I count the blessings that Bakersfield College has bestowed on me, I am humbled, and grateful.  The Student Body of Bakersfield College has voted me the Samuel L. McCall award for “Professor of the Year” three times, a fact of which I am doubly humbled by.  Thinking back on all the incredible people I’ve met and colleagues that I’ve worked with I can honestly say, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Get to Know the BC Foundation Team