Questions

Why Engage Students, Faculty, and Staff in a Learning-Centered and Learner-Centered College?

A Learning-Centered and Learner-Centered College engages students, faculty and staff by providing stimulating and diverse experiences in the classroom, on the campus and in the community. It embraces those experiences that ensure high expectations, on-going and diverse collaborations, and relationships that increase learning and connectedness. By building and nurturing our community in this way, we help each individual achieve success and appreciate others. A Learning-Centered and Learner-Centered College recognizes that we are all, in fact, learners, that learning takes place in many environments – not only in the classroom – and that learning includes valuing the self, the other and the whole.

Embracing the vision of a Learning-Centered and Learner-Centered College ensures our core values. We further strengthen diversity and community by acknowledging that each of us is unique and integral to the whole. We foster learning, excellence, and integrity by maintaining high standards and measurable assessments, while supporting individuals through connections. The commitment to engage at this level compels us to bring together learners from all quarters to solve problems and create solutions through a systems approach.

Why Transform Support for Engagement?

As a Community College, we are focused on the learner because we believe in our vision. It is through changing the lives of individuals that we can change the world. Whether mentoring the intellectual and personal growth of the individual, assisting workforce development, or nurturing the economic health and well-being of the region, the College recognizes that individual student success is the catalyst for, and foundation of, change. Student success requires dynamic and responsive systems that support the whole individual, and simultaneously, the system itself. Authentic and thorough engagement, then, requires transformed systems that support all learners at various stages of their development. We recognize that diverse programs, initiatives and campuses present their own unique needs requiring a range of customized supports, as well.

Employing best practices from the 20th century and embracing the possibilities of the 21st century, the College is committed to moving toward enhanced assessment of support systems and improved communication among our members. This strategic goal challenges us to develop models for success that support all members of the College Community and empower their engagement.

Why Transform Opportunity?

As a resource for the Southcoast region of Massachusetts and beyond, Bristol Community College must keep pace with workforce needs and trends, community needs, preparation and transfer with PK-16, and student demographic shifts. Seeking local, state, federal and private funding sources is imperative if we are to be ready to meet our strategic goals and maintain our excellence. Yet, at the same time, and in order to honor our core values of integrity and community, it is crucial that decision making remain strategic, participatory and transparent.

Through purposeful connections with the PK-12 system in our region, new opportunities will be identified and existing opportunities will be strengthened and flourish. In a similar vein, opportunities abound among employers, agencies, government, and other institutions of higher education. Continuous inquiry and feedback with these varied external communities will aid in strategic resource allocation, as well as relevant partnerships, programming and services for our region and state. College representatives will work together with our constituents to raise visibility. This expanded but focused presence will ensure that learners and community members seek out BCC as their partner of choice for lifelong learning. Surrounded by seen and unseen opportunities, we are poised to “be” in the region, that is, be proactive, be resourceful, be relevant, and be a partner.

By transforming how we understand, seek and respond to opportunity, we create more opportunity.