FRESHMAN CONVOCATION KICKS OFF FALL 2018
Hot weather and high hopes were in attendance at Bronx Community College yesterday as new students gathered for the 2018 Freshman Convocation, the opening event of the academic year. Held at the Hall of Fame Playhouse in the Roscoe Brown Student Center, the festivities included a video with stunning drone’s-eye-view images of the campus, the reveal of a reimagined website and remarks by BCC President Thomas A. Isekenegbe.
“I want to thank you for choosing Bronx Community College to start your higher education journey,” said President Isekenegbe. “For sixty years, students like you have made that decision, to start at BCC and move on to bigger things.” The President noted recent graduates who continued their education at Yale, Brown, NYU and other prestigious schools.
President Isekenegbe described the BCC experience in two words — Transformation and Engagement. “I want you to use BCC as a tool for transforming yourself,” he noted. “To do that, you have to be engaged with your professors, with someone in your class, with clubs, with the institution.”
The president was followed by Keynote speaker Alcy Leyva, who, after welcoming “our future doctors, nurses and engineers, future business owners, accountants, mathematicians and law enforcement, poets, painters, and yes, politicians,” told the students “I am honored to be standing before you on your first step towards a college degree because almost fifteen years ago I was sitting where you are now.” Today Leyva is a teacher and author who has just published his first novel — copies of which he signed after the ceremonies.
Also greeting the new students was their classmate and Student Government Association President Carolina Valenzuela.
The event concluded with a poetry reading by Ms. Oyinadamola Shoola — also a BCC alumnus — and closing remarks by Dr. Yvonne Erazo-Davila, Student Life Specialist for Student Activities.
The students then had the opportunity to introduce themselves to their fellow freshman at a reception.