Bergen Selected for National Storytelling Initiative
Complete College America visited Bergen Community College in 2024 to photograph authentic lived experiences of real students. Allison Shelley/Complete College Photo Library
PARAMUS, N.J. – Complete College America (CCA) - a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing postsecondary attainment in the United States - has launched a public Creative Commons photo library featuring Bergen Community College students and campus life.
CCA developed the Complete College Photo Library to provide journalists, government officials and colleges with high-quality images of real students and campuses to enhance storytelling in a way that generic stock photography cannot offer. The organization selected Bergen and six other colleges to serve as the flagship institutions of the initiative after an application and interview process last year.
“College students are more likely to be working learners, parents, veterans, first-generation college-goers and professionals seeking to upskill, rather than the full-time, residential, straight-from-high-school archetype depicted in the majority of media and publications on higher education,” CCA President Yolanda Watson Spiva, Ph.D., said. “The way we depict students - regardless of the medium - has to evolve beyond the outdated stereotypes of the past. This project is about shifting the visual narrative to match the realities.”
The library showcases a wide range of student experiences and campus settings across the country - including community colleges, HBCUs, regional universities and workforce training programs - while trying to reflect emerging trends in higher education enrollment through photography. For example, nationally, more than one in four students raises a child while pursuing their education and roughly 40 percent of undergraduates are over 25. Additionally, more than 40 percent of students enrolled in postsecondary education attend community colleges and Hispanic Serving Institutions such as Bergen enroll more than 65 percent of all Hispanic undergraduates.
Bergen President Eric M. Friedman, Ph.D., said CCA’s desire to spotlight these realities through visual storytelling encouraged the institution to participate as a representative example of community colleges in the United States.
“Colleges and universities today are shaped by the unique experiences, backgrounds and identities of our diverse student bodies - it’s what strengthens and binds our community together,” he said. “Serving as one of the flagship colleges in the Complete College America Photo Library not only speaks to the tapestry of cultures at Bergen Community College, but how those many identities enrich our institution and how we provide visibility for our community members to the entire society.”
The free and publicly accessible photo library features nearly 1,000 images, including many from Bergen that spotlight the institution’s students, faculty and facilities such as the award-winning Cerullo Learning Assistance Center. CCA has organized the photos from all seven colleges in collections such as “classroom learning,” “outdoor spaces” and “the arts” at completecollege.org/photolibrary. Photojournalist Allison Shelley and a team of CCA leaders visited Bergen during the spring 2024 semester to capture the images.
CCA is a national advocate for increasing college completion rates and closing institutional performance gaps by working with states, systems, institutions and partners to scale highly effective structural reforms and promote policies that improve student success. To learn more about CCA, visit www.completecollege.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.