BRCC SIFE applied for this grant to assist the small mountain village of Mon L’opital, Haiti in opening their first general store and bakery. Access to day-to-day staples including rice, beans, flour and oil is limited because of the two-hour journey to Port au Prince, where villagers currently purchase these goods. BRCC SIFE worked with villager residents to convert and upgrade an existing building for use as a village general store and bakery.

LCEF grant funding helped finance the upgrades to the building’s structure and improving building security, wiring for solar power to light the store and internal upgrades including shelving.

BRCC SIFE has been working with the villagers of Mon L’opital in the development of a business plan for the store and bakery – businesses that will create six jobs in a community experiencing an extremely high unemployment rate. The opportunity to have products for purchase in the village will save time and money currently required for travel to Port au Prince. BRCC SIFE will travel to Haiti in early June to assist with the final preparations for the store’s grand opening.

BRCC SIFE is now eligible to compete for additional grant funding from Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation. If selected, the team plans to produce biomass presses for use in the village, creating more jobs and offering the village an alternative energy source that converts trash to energy.

Further information please contact BRCC SIFE Sam Walton Fellow Rebecca Evans at evansr@brcc.edu or 540.453.2366

“This program will have an immediate impact on the workforce needs of existing industries like bioscience, food processing and agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley. Over time, it will also be an important tool in the recruitment of new companies to the region, as we can showcase employees with technology based skill sets” explained Robin Sullenberger, CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership.

“Along with a wide range of other local education service providers, we are working to show business and industry leaders that they will not find a more productive or better educated workforce than the one found here in the Shenandoah Valley,” commented BRCC President, Dr. John Downey.

BRCC Bioprocessing instructor Devon Genus gave an overview of bioprocessing – including its history, methods, and applicability. He developed the current non-credit bioprocessing program to address an immediate demand for incumbent employee training, but also shared his vision for expanding the curriculum into an associate degree in the near future.

For more information on bioprocessing training and education offered by BRCC, please contact Mr. Devon Genus at genusd@brcc.edu or (540) 234-9261.

Thursday, March 15:

Nags, Hags, and Beauties: Women’s Strength Through Stories

From Scheherazade to Rosie the Riveter and beyond, women have exhibited extraordinary ingenuity, determination, and integrity that has often been uncelebrated. Through stories that amuse, inform, heal, and illuminate, Sandy Parks will share some of the courage and strength that is the heritage of every woman. 12:30-1:30p.m., Plecker Center 126B.

Tuesday, March 27:

Iron Jawed Angels – starring Angelica Huston, Hilary Swank, Francis O’Connor, Julia Ormond

This is the story of two important women in the history of suffrage in the United States. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns began a more radical branch of women fighting for the right to vote. They found themselves up against powerful men, an atmosphere of chauvinism, an unconcerned President (Woodrow Wilson) and even their own more conservative counterparts. These women risk their lives and loves to fight for what they believe in. Two showings: 11-noon & 2-3p.m., Plecker Auditorium (this film lasts one hour).

Wednesday, March 28:

Common Differences:  Women’s History Across Culture and Time– A panel discussion featuring:

•   Elizabeth Njuguna, attorney for Miner, Martin & Hahn: The Impact of the Late Wangari Maathai
• Frances Kirby, a Juris Doctor Candidate at Washington and Lee University School of Law, where she focuses on Civil Rights and Human Rights: The History of Gender Discrimination in the U.S.
• Pamyla Yates, Assistant Professor of English, Blue Ridge Community College: Women’s Education in Tibet

12:30-1:30 p.m., Plecker Center Auditorium

All month long:

Larger-than-life portraits of women like Elizabeth Taylor (as Cleopatra), Princess Diana, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Lil’ Kim will be on display in the Fine Arts Center’s Kinetic Gallery. These digital paintings were created by advanced graphic design students in BRCC’s Computer Graphics II class, and printed by BRCC’s Visual Communications department.

For more information, contact the Public Relations Office at (540) 453-2358.

Military Advanced Education (MAE) has selected Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) for inclusion in their 5th Annual Guide to America’s Top Military-Friendly Colleges & Universities.

“The Guide has become an invaluable tool for both Education Service Officers/Specialists and Base Transition Officers when advising their servicemembers about degree and certification opportunities currently available from institutions of higher learning,” said MAE Associate Publisher Glenn R. Berlin.

From community colleges to state universities and nationally known centers of higher learning, MAE’s Annual Guide to America’s Top Military-Friendly Colleges & Universities provides servicemembers with information about schools that go out of their way to give back to our men and women in uniform.

Among the attributes considered in evaluating this year’s schools for inclusion in the Guide are: on-campus active duty/veteran assistance, the sophistication and effectiveness of its distance learning programs, Servicemember Opportunity Colleges (SOC) participation, and the number of ACE credits the school will accept, to name but a few.

“Blue Ridge has seen a rapid increase in enrollment by veterans in the last few years.  We have a dedicated veteran’s counselor, an outstanding financial aid department, and a growing number of scholarships to support of veterans,” said Dr. Bob Young, BRCC’s Vice President for Instruction and Student Services. He added, “BRCC has a large number of veterans who work at the College.  The vice-president of the Student Government Association is also a veteran.”

Military Advanced Education is the only magazine produced expressly for active duty/reserve servicemembers as well as members of the National Guard and our veterans who are seeking to take advantage of the Department of Defense’s education benefits. MAE covers issues and trends in distance learning and education as they specifically relate to military life, including innovative programs, military educational policy, financial aid, and coursework that offer special opportunities for military personnel.

Postmaster Brown as photographed by Arthur Rothstein in 1935.

Blue Ridge Community College will host a lecture about and showing of Richard Knox Robinson’s award-winning documentary “Rothstein’s First Assignment” on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Plecker Center auditorium.

“Rothstein’s First Assignment,” a story about documentary truth, centers on the photographic work of Arthur Rothstein, who was sent to Virginia in 1935 to photograph mountain residents before their removal to make way for Shenandoah National Park.  It was nominated for the special jury prize at Seattle’s International Film Festival in 2011.

“This subtle but powerful film establishes an important link between the inhumane practices of the American eugenics movement and Depression-era documentary photography. Robinson traces a chilling tale of deceit, cynicism, and stolen property that ruined lives in the process,” Carol Squiers, Curator of the International Center of Photography, writes about the film.

Robinson is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker based near Charlottesville, Virginia. His first film, “The Beekeepers,” premiered at Sundance in 2009 in the New Frontiers Shorts Program and went on to screen in Toronto and Telluride, winning Best Short Documentary at The Atlanta Film Festival. His still photography has been published and exhibited widely, appearing in numerous publications including Time, Smithsonian and National Geographic Traveler magazines.

The event, sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Committee and the Appalachian Environmental Learning Community, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact  (540) 453-2358.

Bottoms, a Verona resident, won an Honorable Mention award for her poem, The Reese’s Klondike Dance, published in 540 Magazine, BRCC’s literary magazine. Bottoms is a College Transfer major at BRCC and plans to study neuroscience at The College of William and Mary.

Ripley received an Honorable Mention award for his acrylic paintings, six of which also appeared in 540 Magazine. The Mount Sidney resident is pursuing an associate’s degree in art and is employed as a tattoo artist.