Sept. '25 News Blog
News briefs from the HCC campus and beyond
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Popping In on Popps Inn
You can call him Popps, or you can call him by his other radio name, DJ Bustahip. He answers to both, or to his legal name, Todd Therrien, a 60-year-old HCC student, CMTA major, stand-up comedian, and host of not just one, but two shows every week on the HCC radio station, WCCH 103.5 FM: “Popps Inn with DJ Bustahip,” Wednesday mornings at 10, and the “Night Shift with Popps, Saturdays 10 to midnight. On the Night Shift, Therrien plays more music, but not “pop,” he says. “I play a lot of local music, a lot of local hip hop artists.” Popps Inn is more of an interview show, with Therrien inviting members of the Holyoke Community College faculty and staff in to talk about what they do. “I love it that community is our middle name. I’m trying to let the community here and the community outside of campus know what’s going on.” Earlier this month, Therrien introduced a new monthly segment of Popps Inn, “Coffee with a Cop.” His first guest was recently promoted Sergeant Ruben Roberto, who asked to come on to talk about the HCC police department’s new initiatives. “We trying to do all we can to engage with the HCC community and talk about our vision,” Roberto said. “I’m doing anything I can to let people know that I’m here, and we want to be transparent.” Therrien said he's calling it “Coffee with a Cop,” in part, because he likes the alliteration, but there’s more to it than that. “We want to use the word cop, but not as a negative,” he said. “We want it to be something positive.” PHOTO: Todd Therrien (a.k.a. Popps, a.k.a. DJ Bustahip) in the WCCH broadcast booth with HCC Police Sergeant Ruben Roberto.
A Brand New Biblioteca
The staff at El Centro recently unveiled their own little free library thanks to a donation of books from adjunct theater professor Nicole Young-Martin, founder, producer and host of the “Black Writers Read” podcast and video series. During one of El Centro’s regular Monday morning Café con Leché breakfast events, Director Julissa Colón and El Centro Student Success Counselor Naiomi Robles pulled the black veil off a tall rotating shelving unit and flicked a switch on the wall lighting up a blue neon sign that says, “El Centro’s Biblioteca.” “It’s one of the dreams I’ve had from the beginning of El Centro and that my beautiful team has talked about and cultivated, but we never actually got it together,” said Colón. Until now. “This is about giving our students access to more materials that are, hopefully, stories and information that feed their soul – about themselves and about their communities,” she said. Robles, who put the library together, said the top shelf will be a collection of curated books specific to special occasions or themes, such as, currently, Latinx Heritage Month. There are also sections for fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Students can check out books with a QR code scanner and – coming soon – watch video reviews from their classmates. To the question, is it a free library or a lending library, the answer, Colón said, is both: “We want you to take a book and bring it home. If it feeds your soul and you love it, keep it, but if you want somebody else to share it, please bring it back.” And, Colón said, “it turns!” PHOTO: Director Julissa Colón and Student Success Counselor Naiomi Robles unveil El Centro's new little library.
The New Face of Change
Business major Samantha Stackhouse is no stranger to the camera. As president of the Student Philanthropy Council she has been out front and outspoken on behalf of the club and its activities at campus events. Last spring, she was interviewed by NBC’s Al Roker for a Today show segment about the Double H Ranch, a summer camp in upstate New York for sick children where she works as a volunteer counselor (More coming soon on that story). Now, she is the new face of “60 Seconds of Change,” a monthly video broadcast put out by HCC’s Institutional Advancement division, which includes the college’s fundraising and scholarship operations. The Institutional Advancement team started “60 Seconds of Change” in 2024 to share what’s going on at HCC and how advancement efforts impact the HCC community. Stackpole was asked to fill in for “60 Seconds” host Laura White, assistant director for donor relations, who is out on maternity leave until January. “I'm very grateful for this opportunity, because I know how much our advancement efforts impact our students,” said Stackpole. “I know that some people might not be familiar with everything advancement does and how that benefits the college. It’s important work, and I'm really excited to be the voice for that.” In the “60 Seconds” September segment, Stackpole talks about the Thrive Center and Food Pantry’s new refrigerated lockers and The Green Thread, a brand-new podcast featuring interviews with HCC alumni. (More on that coming soon too.) She looked like a natural sitting in front of the lens. “I've had a good amount of practice this year," she said, "so I feel confident and ready.” Watch it now ...
On the Art Beat
“What happens when the art made in classrooms meets the wider world?” That was the question WHMP radio host Donnabelle Casis posed to listeners at the beginning of a recent broadcast. Her answer: The Taber Art Gallery at Holyoke Community College, the subject of her Sept. 5 interview with gallery director Rachel Rushing. During a guest appearance on Casis’s Art Beat show, they talked about “Milestone: 25 Years of the Taber Art Gallery,” a 25th anniversary retrospective showcasing the work of the HCC Visual Art faculty, past and present. “Art professors focus on teaching students how to create while galleries offer an in-person, real-life context for what happens to art after it is created,” Rushing said in another recent interview. “Spaces like the Taber Art Gallery provide the visceral experience of engaging with professional artists modeling pathways forward that students can pursue. 'Milestone' celebrates this interconnection by looking at the very artists HCC students work with and learn from, and who have made the Visual Art Department what it is today.” You can listen to a recording of Rushing’s WHMP interview on Soundcloud. PHOTO: Rushing talks about “Milestone” during a Sept. 4 gallery reception. You can see more photos of the reception in our Facebook gallery.
Board Leader
Professor Claire Sanders, chair of the 
HCC Deaf Studies department, has been named chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wille Ross School for the Deaf in Longmeadow. She is just the second deaf person to serve as board chair in the 59-year history of the school. “One of the reasons our school has been so resilient and successful since our inception is the quality of our board of trustees and trustee leadership,” Bert Carter, president and CEO, said in a press release. “Claire brings experience in deaf education to the position, and we welcome her to this new leadership position.” Sanders holds a master’s-level national certification from the American Sign Language Teachers Association and is a board member of the Western Massachusetts Association for the Deaf. “I felt honored to be invited to be on the board of trustees at Willie Ross in 2019, and I am now also honored to serve as the school’s second deaf chair,” she said. “As chair, I will provide my steadfast support for deaf, deafblind, and hard-of-hearing children at Willie Ross, because they so deserve the opportunity to receive the best education and experience available.”
