Spotlights

“If you’re unsure of your future plans for a career or for college, there is no need to go into massive amounts of debt to pay for school,” Marybelle advises. “Community college is the perfect place to find inspiration or just to learn for the sake of learning.”

Even as a little girl, Leah knew she wanted to pursue a teaching career. It runs in the family: both her grandparents were teachers, and her uncle is a college professor. Born and raised in Becket, MA, Leah attended public schools in Lee. After completing a high school internship in Lee Elementary School, going to college and majoring in early childhood education seemed like the perfect fit - but not without its challenges.

Kari Dupuis, advises the BCC Human Services Club, is starting a campus wide mentoring initiative called Make Dreams Real, and is developing an Addiction Recovery conference on campus.

At Berkshire Community College, faculty, staff and students had to reimagine the ways they taught, or learned, or delivered incredible support services - remotely. Fortunately, the College had recently developed a division called Teaching and Learning Innovation, which was perfectly positioned to help its faculty, staff and students quickly adapt, not only to remote work and learning, but also to thrive long-term in a virtual and online environment.

Karen Carreras-Hubbard works in the Jonathan Edwards Library at the College - but she didn't start out anywhere close to being a librarian. In fact, Karen has her bachelor's and her master's degree in Cinema Studies from New York University and she spent a couple of decades in New York City before moving to Connecticut and then eventually to BCC.