Student Scholars Shine at Beacon Conference
PARAMUS, N.J. – Recognizing excellence in community college student scholarship, Bergen Community College hosted the 33rd annual installment of the Beacon Conference at its main campus on June 6. A collaborative of 15 mid-Atlantic community colleges, of which Bergen remains a charter member, have partnered to organize the event since 1993.
Supported by faculty mentors, the conference’s interdisciplinary approach allows students from the gamut of academic disciplines - from biology to literature - to submit their research, essays and analysis for possible inclusion in the conference. Faculty evaluators advance the top three projects in each category to panel competitions at the conference.
Nearly 50 students, including 12 from Bergen, received invitations to the conference and competed in the panel competitions where winners received $100 awards. Faculty from regional community colleges served as competition judges. Bergen students placed first in five categories, the most for any college with students competing in the event. Bergen’s winners were:
· Vincent Jericho - “The Evil Within: Moral Decay and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Mentor - Professor Mark Altschuler.
· Hanieh Kachooee - “The Feminization of Poverty in Iran.” Mentor - Professor Lisa Mayer, Esq.
· Francesco Maneri - “Divided Inside: Examining the Failings of Nationalism Before & After the Unification of Italy.” Mentor - Professor Sarah Shurts, Ph.D.
· Catherine Park - “The Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma Within Families.” Mentor - Professor Laura Ochoa, Ph.D.
· Dylan Rehm - “Funding Academic Success in Low-Income Communities.” Mentor - Professor Seamus Gibbons.
Bergen professors Kelly Keane, Ph.D., and Seamus Gibbons led the organization of this year’s conference as co-directors.
“We appreciate these students, their scholarly endeavors, their appetite for knowledge and their fresh and exciting perspectives on many social issues expressed throughout the conference,” the co-directors said in a statement.
Beacon began under a grant from the American Association of Community Colleges and the Kellogg Foundation in 1993. Partner colleges vie for the opportunity to host the event each year; Bergen has hosted the conference four times since its inception (1998, 2008, 2016 and 2025).
For more information, visit beaconconference.org.
Based in Paramus, Bergen Community College (www.bergen.edu), a public two-year coeducational college, enrolls more than 13,000 students at locations in Paramus, the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center in Hackensack and Bergen Community College at the Meadowlands in Lyndhurst. The College offers associate degree, certificate and continuing education programs in a variety of fields. More students graduate from Bergen than any other community college in the state.
Photo caption: Bergen Community College student Catherine Park, one of five of the institution’s students who placed first in their category at the Beacon Conference.