July 2022 News Blog
News briefs from the HCC campus and beyond
Gateway Award
Julissa Colón ’13 (former special programs coordinator, now director of El Centro), Vivian Ostrowski (director), and Shannon Glenn (resource specialist), pictured above l-r, traveled to Portland, Oregon, last month to collect a Graduation Achievement Award for the college’s Gateway to College program. The award, from Achieving the Dream, recognizes participating institutions that have exceeded the graduation benchmark of 50 percent established by the Gateway to College national network. HCC’s three-year graduation rate was 88 percent. The network average was 68 percent. “Despite the obvious struggles of the past two years, you and your colleagues across the Gateway network have persistently done everything you can for your students,” said Stephanie Davolos, director of K-12 Partnerships for Achieving the Dream, Gateway’s parent organization. “HCC’s graduation rate at 88% is well beyond your long-strived for 80% goal! I am thrilled. You and your team are leading the way for our network and our field. Our network’s continued improvement is due to exemplary programs like yours and your outcomes will have an impact well-beyond your community. We know these student outcomes are the product of the culture of relentless kindness, constant reflection and program improvement and a tremendous amount of hard work and care.”
Review Reward
Melissa Perry ASN ’22 was selected as one 
of only 15 students in the U.S. for the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s Spring 2022 Hurst Review NCLEX Scholarship. As a Hurst Review NCLEX Scholar, Perry receives free use of the Hurst Review study materials – a $300 value – and a $250 scholarship award to pay the fees for her NCLEX exam, the last step in the process of being certified as a registered nurse. According to the company, the Hurst Review is the top resource for students preparing for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). This is the first scholarship of its kind designed to assist Phi Theta Kappa nursing students who plan to take the NCLEX with free test prep materials and exam fee assistance. Perry was inducted into the HCC chapter of Phi Theta Kappa in October 2019. She now works in the operating room at Holyoke Medical Center as part of a new nurse residency program. She takes her NCLEX August 12.
Seal of Approval
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Mary Grace Zina ’22, Alannah Brunt, Jessiah Fernandez ’22, and Charlie Summers (pictured l-r with HCC Spanish professor Monica Torregrosa, center) were among the first 10 HCC students to receive their Global Seal of Biliteracy credentials. The Seal of Biliteracy is a professional recognition of either functional fluency or working fluency in English and Spanish. All 10 were students in Torregrosa’s Intermediate Spanish classes during the 2021-2022 academic year. The four-plus hour proctored test measures reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in the second language (Spanish) and scores them according to national standards. Students earning a 5 (Intermediate Proficiency) or higher in each of the skills qualify for the Functional Proficiency Seal. “It’s a skills-based test, not content based, and it is very intense,” Torregrosa said earlier this month after handing out Global Seal of Biliteracy certificates to her students. “The Global Seal of Biliteracy is a professional credential they can use on their resumes and that gets embedded in their LinkedIn profiles. It’s not for college credit, but for employment.”
Charging Points
HCC now has three new charging stations 
for electric vehicles, two in the visitors parking lot (Lot S) in front of the Campus Center and one at the Center for Health Education & Simulation on Jarvis Avenue. The charging stations were installed earlier this summer with assistance from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Electric Vehicle Incentive program.The three stations, like the one pictured by the Campus Center, are managed through ChargePoint and require a ChargePoint card and membership to activate and use. You can sign up online at www.chargepoint.com or by calling ChargePoint Driver Support at 888.758.4389.
Tech Talent
Richard Erskine, a 2020 graduate of HCC's first Cisco Academy Cybersecurity training program, was featured in Dell Technologies' FY '22 ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) report in the "Cultivating Inclusion" section. "It has been one year since I've started at Dell and I'm really happy with the progress that I've made," Erskine recently wrote in an email to Tara Raymond, a job education specialist at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, HCC's partner in the cybersecurity class. Erskine came to Dell through the tech company's neurodiversity hiring program and now works full time as a regulatory audit senior analyst. "I know I'll never get bored," Erskine said in the article titled "Expanding Our Talent Reach. "This is where the future of jobs is."
Snake Charmer
HCC alum Anne Stengle '08, a member of the HCC STEM faculty 
and a veterinary technician at the Florence Animal Clinic, co-authored an article about snake fungal disease in the June 23 edition of the science journal PLOS Biology. "I've been working with state endangered snake species since I was a student at HCC," said Stengle, who is also a student in the doctor of veterinary medicine program at Tufts University and in 2020 represented HCC at the World Congress of Herpetology in New Zealand. "I was in the vet tech program then, 2007, and researched our native rat snakes to help develop the plan where the new road (now Doyle Drive) from Route 202 would be placed. From there I found my passion for snake research and went on to UMass for my PhD, working with timber rattlesnakes. I love teaching at HCC because that's where I found my passion for research and I can share that passion with my students!" Click here to read the article online.
Award Winner
At its 32nd annual meeting, the Latino Scholarship Fund of 
Western Massachusetts presented the 2022 Antonia Pantoja Award to HCC's Vanessa Martinez Renuncio, professor of Anthropology and Honors Program co-director. The Antonia Pantoja Award is presented to an individual who has made a profound and significant contribution to education in the broadest terms, demonstrating a dedication to the academic achievement of Latinx students. In addition to being a community celebration of student accomplishment, the Latino Scholarship Fund views the dinner as an opportunity to publicly recognize individuals whose work significantly contributes to the vitality, welfare and future of the Latinx community.
