News and Awards

Felisa Ojadi-Kedigui, an exemplary student leader at Bristol with a passion for community and a commitment to the health and wellness of children, has been honored with the prestigious 2023-2024 Newman Civic Fellowship.

This year-long program, exclusive for Campus Compact member institutions, celebrates students who exhibit leadership on their campuses and demonstrate a commitment to finding solutions for challenges facing communities locally, nationally and internationally.

Felisa serves as Vice President of the college’s Student Senate as well as the Diversity Leader of Bristol’s Multicultural Student Center. She works as a Residential Counselor for a youth program in Fall River and as a volunteer with Bristol’s Mobile Food Market, in partnership with the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Set to graduate this spring with an Associate in Science in early childhood education, Felisa has ambitious plans to continue her education with the ultimate goal of working with the United Nations.

Bristol’s Associate Vice President of Administration and Facilities Jo Ann Bentley is the recipient of the 2023 Massachusetts Facilities Management Association (MAFMA) Member of the Year Award. The award honors facility staff members who have provided exemplary service to an institution’s building and facility as well as to the Commonwealth.

Jo Ann is an accomplished licensed architect who exhibits exceptional leadership of Bristol’s facilities department, overseeing 1 million square feet across five college locations and managing more than $100 million in capital projects.

MAFMA is a network of state facilities personnel, established by the Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM).

LusoCentro at Bristol is committed to exploring the language and heritage of the Portuguese-speaking community and fostering engagement to promote the appreciation and exploration of Portuguese and Lusophone cultures. This year marks a significant milestone – the 20th anniversary of LusoCentro, led by Carlos A. Almeida, Ph.D., a Professor of Portuguese and the coordinator of the Portuguese/English Community Interpreting Certificate.

Over these two decades, LusoCentro has curated the Série Cultural do LusoCentro, a sequence of vibrant Lusophone cultural events developed in collaboration with local Luso-American organizations and other institutions of higher education. These activities, supported by Bristol and the Camões Institute, encompass hosting international exchanges with visiting scholars from Portugal, facilitating book luncheons, arranging conferences and lectures, and commemorating World Portuguese Language Day.

This significant milestone underscores the enduring commitment of LusoCentro to cultural exchange and appreciation, leaving a lasting impact on Bristol and beyond.

Bristol’s Attleboro Campus is the latest to join the college’s sustainability initiatives. Through a generous donation from the Lockhart Vaughan Foundation and an anonymous donor, the college has added a solar-powered Beam Global EV Charging Station.

The charging station has two ports for charging electric vehicles (EVs) and supports the college’s efforts to implement sustainable green initiatives that help protect our environment and reduce greenhouse emissions.

The station’s “plug-and-play” design requires no grid connection, electrical work, trenching or site construction. It seamlessly fits into a standard parking space, utilizing solar energy to store electricity and provide clean, renewable energy for Bristol’s EV drivers to literally “drive on sunshine.” Drivers can simply plug into the charger without having to download an app, scan a QR code or belong to any EV charging program to “juice-up” their vehicle. As an added feature, the overhead canopy of the EV Charger is heliotropic (Latin for “sun turn”), meaning that it follows the sun and automatically adjusts to the sunlight throughout the course of the day to maximize its solar energy storage.

Because of this equipment acquisition on the Attleboro Campus, Beam Global named Bristol Community College one of its Beam Global Heroes in 2023.