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BCC announces the creation of Introduction to Liberal Arts, a first-semester course available for all students declaring liberal arts majors without concentrations.

With a focus on career and educational planning, the course engages students in thinking critically about their academic and/or career plans with an emphasis on digital literacy. Faculty involved in developing course content represent a range of liberal arts disciplines, including communications, biology, music, psychology, English and math.

BCC was pleased to announce it has received an allocation earmarked for the Supporting Urgent Community College Equity through Student Services (SUCCESS) Fund, which focuses on vulnerable populations.

Check out the SUCCESS funding press release

Through this work, BCC improved overall fall-to-fall persistence for first-time-in-college students by 14.1 percentage points, from 42.2%for the fall 2019 cohort to 56.5% for the fall 2022 cohort. The College implemented three main strategies over that three-year time period, all aimed at increasing first-year persistence: first-year experience improvements, investments in student success supports and early alert interventions, and enhanced financial support for students.

ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ and Community Education embedded Life Skills That Matter, a ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Readiness curriculum, into its paraprofessional cohort noncredit trainings. The majority of the graduates found immediate employment in the Berkshires. The focus would be to embed this curriculum into future workforce trainings as well.

Pell recipients improved in fall-to-fall persistence from 39.4% for the 2019 cohort to 62.3% for the 2022 cohort,while non-Pell recipients improved from 46.9% for the 2019 cohort to 48.6% for the 2022 cohort.

• Gateway course completion between white students (started 56.1%, ended 51.7%) and black students (started 31.6%, ended 58.8%). The equity gap moved from 24.6 to –7.1.
• Gateway course completion between white students (started 56.1%, ended 51.7%) and hispanic students (started 45.7%, ended 75.8%). The equity gap moved from 10.4 to –24.0.

Since engaging with Achieving the Dream as part of the Rural Resiliency Cohort, BCC has instituted a student success strategy focused on improving first-year student retention and gateway course completion. BCC's targeted strategies fall into four areas:

1. First-year experience improvements;
2. Gateway course curricular reform;
3. Investment in student success supports; and
4. Improved financial supports for students.

The College's success metrics show that we have moved the needle on our larger student success metrics for all students, with fall-to-fall persistence for first-time-in-college students improving from 42.4% for the fall 2019 cohort to 56.5% for the fall 2022 cohort. In addition, these initiatives narrowed the College's equity gaps between white students and students of color (especially for hispanic/latinx students, whose retention rates improved by 29 percentage points from the 2019 to 2022 cohorts) and between non-Pell recipients and Pell recipients (whose retention rates improved 22.9 percentage points from the 2019 to 2022 cohorts).