The History of Building Bridges
1990-2020 (celebrated in 2024)
30 years ago, Kate Pluta (from the BC English Department) and I applied for a grant from the CSU Chancellor's Office to align our freshman composition courses at BC and CSUB and "Build Bridges" between the two schools.
- We were awarded a grant of $13,000 to "articulate" our writing courses.
- We paid our English faculty from both schools to meet and discuss our courses.
- We started with 12 English faculty meeting once a month, and we ended up with the full English departments from both schools meeting and enjoying each other.
- We developed genuine respect for each other that has lasted 30 YEARS!! (That alone is remarkable.)
A literary love story: Local colleges collaborate on English programs at conference, by Melanie Nguyen Bakersfield, Californian, Apr 12, 2024
- When our grant ended, Kate Pluta and I decided we wanted our departments to stay in touch, which would benefit the students and the faculty from both schools. The students often go back and forth, and we also share about 10 adjunct faculty in English, who teach virtually the same class on both campuses. But basically, we just wanted them to stay in touch.
- Kate and I continued to schedule meetings for the two English departments, and, to our surprise, our department colleagues continued to show up.
- We met at least once every semester and were always happy to see each other.
- We were still spending our original grant money.
- Our next step was to start a local mini-conference with a plenary session and breakout sessions to share our best practices with each other.
- Based on our original grant, we called it the Building Bridges Conference.
- We invited more colleges to join us, expanding to Taft College, Porterville College, and Cerro Coso, and we moved our meetings from Marie Callender's to Four Points Sheraton in Bakersfield.
- The participating colleges continued to beg, borrow, and steal to support the event.
- In 2013, we invited the local high schools to join us.
- We soon ran out of money, but the faculty attending this mini-conference every year said they were willing to pay to keep the conference alive. They each paid $10 to attend, which kept us going for several more years.
- A Dean of Instruction at Porterville College, Antonia Ecung, learned that her faculty were paying to go to this conference and donated $2000 to allow her English faculty to attend the Building Bridges Conference free.
- As the conference grew and more schools participated, more schools supported our efforts financially.
- Because of these contributions from our administrators, we have a breakfast to thank and honor them every year, which is why this year's Building Bridges 30th anniversary will start with a breakfast at 7:30.
- We have administrators from every school attending this year.
- We now have the following participants in our conference:
- CSUB English Department
- Bakersfield College English Department
- Taft College English Department
- Porterville College English Department
- Cerro Coso English Department
- CSUB American Language Institute
- BC English for Multilingual Students
- Kern High School District (all schools)
In 30 years, we grew from 12 faculty participants to 120 faculty—who have instinctively created a congenial, open, constructive educational environment in English for all college students in the immediate vicinity. We could have chosen to compete, but instead we have opted to learn from each other and help our students flourish in a supportive atmosphere that benefits everyone involved, and here we are today sharing part of our campus with our very good friends from BC.
Compiled by Kim Flachmann
In Honor of our 30th Anniversary
April 2024
