Campus Roundup

Challenge Accepted

HCC students Jacob Bissonnette and Anjou Edwards took home the top prize at the first-ever HCC Innovation Challenge on Saturday, Dec. 7, for Green Computer Processing, their idea for a net-zero-energy computer processing system. A panel of four outside, independent judges declared their team the “Ultimate Achiever,” recognizing the pair for excellence in all aspects of the competition: pitch, poster, feasibility, and overall creativity. The HCC Innovation Challenge was modeled after a national competition that encourages community college students to come up with solutions to real-world problems. “Innovation education gives students the ability to showcase their coursework as they apply critical thinking, communication and presentation skills,” said accounting professor Michele Cabral, co-organizer of the Innovation Challenge with BSTEM dean Elizabeth Breton. About two dozen students attended a STEM Week brainstorming session and Innovation Challenge kickoff event in October with about half putting together teams for the HCC competition. Edwards and Bissonnette plan to enter the national challenge this spring. “With the right guidance, we’ll take this as far as we can,” said Bissonnette. 

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Igniting Workforce Success

HCC received the Igniting Workforce Success Award from MassAbility for a cybersecurity training program it runs in partnership with the agency, formerly known as the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission. Specifically, the award recognizes HCC for its CyberOps training program, a free, nine-month remote program that trains MassAbility consumers to be cybersecurity analysts. MassAbility works with people with disabilities to empower their lives through counseling and career and employment programs. Kermit Dunkelberg, assistant vice president of adult basic education and workforce development, accepted the award on behalf of HCC last June. “We just completed our fourth year of our partnership,” he said. “MassAbility brings as much to the table as we do in terms of innovation and attentiveness to student success.” The pilot program, launched by HCC and MassRehab in 2020, was the first of its kind in Massachusetts. Since 2020, about 60 MassRehab clients have gone through the program, many emerging with paid internships that have led to full-time, benefitted positions as cybersecurity analysts. 

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Fresh Space for Thrive

On Sept. 10, HCC celebrated the re-opening of the Thrive Center in a new location on the second floor of the Kittredge Center for Business and Workforce Development. Thrive (formerly known as the Thrive Student Resource Center) helps students address nonacademic issues that often interfere with their studies, such as food and housing insecurity. The center also manages the HCC Food Pantry, which is right next door in a dedicated space more than four times the size of the old food pantry and just steps away from the HCC Campus Center and cafeteria. “What I always tell folks is that our first impression is our first intervention, so the first impression we make with students is pretty critical,” said Ben Ostiguy, coordinator of the Thrive Center and Food Pantry. “I think having a fresh space with updated equipment and designs sends the right message to the students. It shows the campus cares, that this is a priority, and that we are prepared to help them in meaningful ways.” 

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Itsy Bitsy Expansion

The Itsy Bitsy franchise continues to expand at Holyoke Community College as students in Professor Sheryl Civjan’s Psychology of Women class have again taken up the “Itsy Bitsy” theme for a campus-based community service project. In 2023, Civjan’s students created the Itsy Bitsy Closet, transforming a storage room next to the college’s Itsy Bitsy Child Watch Center into a family-friendly resource room full of donated books, clothes, and other children’s items — all free to HCC student-parents. Last semester, they put together five Itsy Bitsy Play Stations — containers of children’s books, games, small toys, art supplies, and other items — that student parents can access to occupy their children when visiting campus offices, including Financial Aid, Admissions, Advising, English as a Second Language, and the HCC Library. “Some college offices can be difficult to go to for appointments when you have kids,” said Civjan. “These boxes will give kids something to do while their parents are waiting.” The idea for using “Itsy Bitsy” as the title for early childhood programs at HCC started in 2020 during the pandemic, when HCC educators created a series of video interviews for early education students and professionals (the Itsy Bitsy Zoomcast). The theme grew into a title for a new suite of early education classrooms modeled after pre-school and kindergarten facilities (the Itsy Bitsy Learning Lab). The Itsy Bitsy Child Watch opened in 2022, followed last year by the Itsy Bitsy Closet, and this year by the Itsy Bitsy Play Stations.

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Star Power

The topic could not have been larger — the universe — but it was one the presenter was uniquely qualified to discuss. On Oct. 9, W. Lowell Putnam visited HCC to talk about the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, the oldest private astronomical research center in the United States. The observatory was founded in 1894 by Putnam’s great-grand uncle, Percival Lowell. Putnam, a Springfield native and the observatory’s sole trustee, shared images of past discoveries, which include the discovery of Pluto and the first proof of the expanding universe. “I was entranced,” said Jalen Cortes, an HCC physics major who wants to be an astronomer. “I have a telescope myself, and am still very much inexperienced. However, even with their technology, it still takes an incredible amount of time and patience to look at the night sky. Hearing about it just made me feel a sense of pride and kinship.” Putnam, a frequent HCC donor, has strong ties to the college, with his family having established the Roger and Caroline Putnam Scholarship Fund in memory of his grandparents. The Putnam scholarship is for transfer students who continue their educations beyond HCC. “Once we start supporting you,” he said, “we will continue to support you — as far as you go.” 

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Talking the Talk

For the second year in a row, HCC sent two students to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Ithaca National Student Dialogue, an annual conference held at the University of Delaware’s Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration. The event brings college students together from across the country to engage in discussions that promote civil discourse, civic engagement, and democratic principles. Seventy-six students from 32 colleges in the United States participated in the 2024 conference. HCC was the only community college in the country invited. Joe Black and Jessicalee Heredia were selected to represent HCC at the fourth annual conference in October, alongside other undergraduates from colleges and universities ranging from Harvard to Stanford. Based on their experiences, Black, Heredia, and 2023 conference participant Sunrise Iaim Sanchez, created CIVIC — “Connecting and Inspiring Vital Innovators through Collaboration” — a campus forum to get more student involved in public discourse. “There is a certain skillset that’s required to have a constructive dialogue,” said Black. “But once you learn the skills, it’s a lot easier for ideas to flourish.”

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HCC adding eSports 

HCC is adding a new athletics team to its roster of intercollegiate sports. Along with soccer, cross country, golf, volleyball, basketball, track and field, and baseball, HCC will soon be offering eSports. In eSports — short for electronic sports — participants play online video games against individuals or other teams. Some of the more common collegiate-level eSports are Overwatch (a multiplayer, first-person shooter game), League of Legends (an arena-style battle game), and Rocket League (a vehicular soccer game). According to HCC Athletics Director Tom Stewart, HCC is just the fourth community college in Massachusetts to create an eSports team, joining Mass Bay, Northern Essex, and Bunker Hill community colleges. The HCC team will be co-ed. “We’re the only community college west of Worcester that has it,” he said. Last summer, a former classroom on the second floor of the Bartley Center for Athletics and Recreation was converted into an eSports center and outfitted with 10 high performance computer stations designed specifically for eSports competition. Competition is expected to start this spring.