Reading, PA – RACC students, who will graduate on May 5th, participated in the second annual “Career Ready” event at the Boscov’s store in Exeter on Tuesday, April 25th. This event was built upon the unique partnership of Reading Area Community College, Truist Bank and Boscov’s Department stores, to set graduating students on the right path for success. Each student participated in financial literacy sessions facilitated by the experts at Truist, as well as met with the Director of Career Services at RACC for job search preparation.  Buyers from Boscov’s were on hand for a special presentation on color coordination, accessorizing and proper attire demonstrations for interviews. Upon completion of the various sessions, each student received a $250 Boscov’s shopping spree to purchase new career attire.

Last year’s inaugural “Career Ready” event was a rousing success with exuberant students moving through the Boscov’s store to select new clothing and outfits that they would never have thought possible. “Many of our students have never been able to purchase a new suit or put together a completely new outfit”, RACC President Susan Looney explained. “This opportunity to shop with the assistance of personal shoppers is a dream come true for our graduates”.

Providing professional clothing to RACC students for their job interviews would assist them in presenting a more professional appearance and make a good first impression.  Looking and feeling confident helps students to focus on being their typical best and be in a better position to communicate their skills and qualifications.

“Truist is proud to partner with Reading Area Community College and Boscov’s in helping their students prepare for the next step in life. Our company’s purpose is to ‘Inspire and build better lives and communities’ and this event certainly gave us the opportunity to help fulfill that purpose here in Berks County” said Truist Market President David Roland and Senior Vice President Schnearia Ashley. 

“We’re delighted to partner with Reading Area Community College and help launch the careers of so many outstanding students.  We thank Truist for the investment they have made in the graduates and in our community. We are pleased and excited to help outfit these hard-working students as they enter the workforce,” says CEO of Boscov’s Department Stores, Jim Boscov.

“This is a wonderful collaboration between three leading Berks County organizations. Our RACC graduates have the training to be successful in the workplace, and thanks to this event, they now have the professional attire to complement their skills along with the important understanding of budgeting their own finances,” said Tony DeMarco.

Reading Area Community College (RACC) believes in the educational access of each Berks County citizen and the economic and cultural development of the community it serves.  It is committed to providing diversified educational opportunities for individuals to develop their maximum potential and realize their self-worth and dignity, while serving as the conduit between high school graduation, degree-seeking programs and / or career training, and a family sustaining career.

The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) offers two annual competitions to “honor excellence in student publishing: Crown Awards for overall excellence and Gold Circle Awards for individual student recognition.”

Legacy 2022 was initially recognized as a Crown Finalist and later honored with a Silver Crown as a print literary magazine at the 2023 CSPA College Media Convention. According to the CSPA, Crown Awards are “the highest level of recognition given by the CSPA” to a student publication and one of the highest honors in college media. 

Below is the complete list of award winners:

• Grub Street Literary & Arts Magazine, Towson University, Towson, MA
• Lighted Corners, Mount St. Mary's University, Emmitsburg, MA
• Port City Review, Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, GA
• The Tower, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
• Legacy, Reading Area Community College, Reading, PA
• Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
• Parnassus, Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, MA
• Windhover, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

We are the only college in the state of Pennsylvania to receive this prestigious distinction, which is a testament to the great work of RACC students and the staff of the journal. Congratulations to the contributors, the student editors who helped produce the 2022 edition, the Editor-in-Chief and Layout/Design Editor, Dylan Sokolovich, and the faculty advisor, Dr. Bahar Diken.

The CSPA also awarded Legacy’s 2022 issue four national Gold Circle Awards:

• First Place – Experimental Fiction
  Shianne Ayala-Lind, “Pretty Girl”
• First Place – Cover Design for Literary or Literary Art Magazine
  Miguel Santiago and Dylan Sokolovich
• Certificate of Merit – Table of Contents Page
  Dylan Sokolovich
• First Place – Portfolio Illustration
  Mia Davis

The complete list of individual awards can be found here.

Legacy 2022 contributors also took top awards from The Community College Humanities Association (CCHA). The CCHA’s annual literary magazine competition highlights student work from all over the nation. Honoring the best in the Eastern Division, the CCHA named the following contributors as winners of its prestigious literary magazine competition.

• First Place – Best Artwork
  Mia Davis, “Wanderer”
• First Place – Best Song
  Rachel Dodson, “Alice”
• Third Place – Creative Nonfiction
  Rachel Dodson, “A Conversation with My Dad”
• Third Place – Short Story
  Jack Weaver, “The Silence of the Bugle”

Congratulations to the CCHA winners for their exceptional work.

Legacy 2022 and all the past editions can be seen here.

April 10, 2023 — The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) recently named Reading Area Community College (RACC) Medical Laboratory Technician Professor, Ms. Alayne Fessler as one of its 2023 Dale P. Parnell Distinguished Faculty Award winners.

Named in honor of former AACC President and CEO Dale P. Parnell, this designation has been established to recognize individuals making a difference in the classroom. The AACC is the primary advocacy organization for the nation’s community colleges. The association represents more than 1,000 two-year, associate degree-granting institutions and nearly 12 million students.

According to Ms. Fessler, “The inspiration that I obtain from our RACC students continues to overwhelm me. My position as the program director of the Medical Laboratory Technician Program at RACC is the perfect professional opportunity to blend my love of clinical laboratory science with my desire for educating students.”

In addition to overseeing the Medical Laboratory Technician Program, Fessler also teaches and serves as the academic advisor for all students in the program.

Alayne graduated from Susquehanna University with a bachelor’s degree in biology. After graduation, she attended the former St. Joseph School of Medical Technology and became a certified Medical Technologist. She later obtained a master’s degree in education from Penn State University.

Her career began in the chemistry department at the former Community General Hospital in Reading. At that time, RACC had an affiliation with Community General Hospital and she had the opportunity to work with the RACC students during their clinical rotations. She loved sharing her passion with the students. That sparked her interest in pursuing a career in laboratory education.

To learn more about the Medical Laboratory Technician program at RACC, contact an enrollment specialist at admissions@racc.edu, 610.607.6224 or 800.626.1665.

David Mekeel | Reading Eagle | March 28, 2023 - Reading Area Community College is looking to help address the growing need for health care workers in the region with a new project.

The college has announced it will convert its Weitz Hall into the Weitz Healthcare Pavilion. The multimillion-dollar project will increase classroom and lab spaces in the building, realign the structure of RACC’s health science programs and consolidate those programs into one facility.

The project will allow the community college to increase the number of students in its health care programs by 80%.

“The Weitz Heathcare Pavilion will serve our community by providing Berks County students with a quality education in the health care fields and then bring these skilled workers to our local medical facilities,” said Dr. Susan Looney, RACC president. “The RACC students who learn at the Weitz Healthcare Pavilion will go on to care for all of us within our region.”

Work on the health care pavilion will begin in May and is expected to conclude in August 2024. The building’s current footprint will be expanded to create a new lobby and student lounge space.

When complete, the first floor of the new facility will feature state-of-the-art simulation nursing and respiratory care lab spaces with a central observation room and two debriefing rooms.

The second floor will include simulated patient rooms with cardiac monitors, alarms, and air supply systems that mimic real-life patient care areas. It will also be home to the college’s short-term health care professions programs, such as the nurses aid program.

The third and fourth floors will have redesigned classroom spaces, as a well as phlebotomy and dental assistant labs.

RACC has so far received $10 million in government funding for the project, and has begun a campaign to solicit further funding from local businesses, foundations and philanthropists. The project is expected to have a total price tag of around $22 million.

City Council in December allocated $2 million each in ARPA funds to Alvernia University, Albright College and Reading Area Community College.

RACC administrators said the college’s share of the funds will be used toward the project.

“We are grateful to the mayor and City Council for their support of the future Weitz Healthcare Pavilion,” Looney said at the time. “This facility will allow us to double our health care programs, addressing the critical need for skilled, well-trained health care professionals in Berks County.”

The need for well-skilled health professionals is higher than ever, said David Hessen, RACC’s director of marketing and communications.

“We have 700 RACC students on our waiting list to enter our RACC Nursing Program,” he said. “Our nursing program costs only $6,000 and takes only two years to complete.”

Graduates of the college’s nursing program, he added, have a pass rate of 94% on the state board exam.

In addition to allowing for the doubling of enrollment in RACC’s health care programs, such as the nursing program, Hessen said, the completed Weitz pavilion will allow the college to add to add other critically needed programs to qualify emergency medical technicians and paramedics, psychiatric and mental health services personnel, physical therapist assistants and other health care management technicians and personnel.

Tony DeMarco, RACC’s vice president of advancement, said the hefty investment will be fruitful, serving to bolster the local health care industry.

“Through the Weitz Healthcare Pavilion, we will continue to graduate qualified health care workers with diverse backgrounds resulting in equitable representation in our region’s health care centers,” he said. “The majority of health care students who graduate from RACC in both the academic and workforce curriculum remain in Berks County.”

For more information about the Weitz Healthcare Pavilion, contact Tony DeMarco at 610.607.6294.

March 14, 2023 — Reading Area Community College’s Phi Theta Kappa Chapter, Alpha Sigma Rho, earned several awards at the Middle States Regional Convention, including the Tenth Most Distinguished Honors in Action Project in the Region. Chapters receive awards for their work on projects that support PTK’s Four Hallmarks (Service, Scholarship, Fellowship and Leadership).

One of these projects, Honors in Action, challenges members to develop a research question and plan an action based on the Honors Study Topic.  This year’s topic was The Art and Science of Play. The chapter officer team and active members investigated the mental health benefits of play for college students. As a result of their findings from this academic research, the students planned and implemented a set of actions, designed to maximize these benefits.

This project, along with other chapter activities demonstrated members’ research and leadership skills and commitment to seeing a project through from development to completion. “I am exceptionally proud of the hard work and dedication of the Alpha Sigma Rho Chapter,” says RACC Professor of Social Work/Sociology and Phi Theta Kappa Advisor, Danelle R. Bower.

The Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society recognizes academic achievement of community college students and provides opportunities for them to grow as scholars and leaders. For more information about Phi Theta Kappa at Reading Area Community College, please call 610.372.4721.