Bunker Hill Community College Art Professor Wins Teaching Grant

BOSTON, April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Yong Chen, Assistant Professor in the Bunker Hill Community College Visual and Media Arts Department, has won a competition to develop and present a workshop, "Embracing and Adapting New Technologies in a Traditional Classroom," at the annual Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) Summer Leadership Conference this August in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

More than 500 Massachusetts teachers and professors will attend the five-day conference. This is the first time the Massachusetts Community College Council (MCCC), the MTA affiliate representing community college faculty and staff, has sponsored and funded workshops at the conference.  Chen, who pioneered online courses in which students learn to paint, is one of four MCCC grant winners who will be presenting their work.

"Technology will become the way of life for our next generation of students because they all grew up learning from the Internet," Chen said.  "We must adapt our teaching to technology."  In the workshop, Chen will show teachers and professors how to use free online platforms to create classroom tools.  

Chen, who immigrated to the United States with a chemistry degree from his native China, learned English at Bunker Hill Community College before transferring in 1993 to Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he received a B.F.A.  He went on to earn an M.F.A. at the University of Hartford.  Chen joined the Bunker Hill Community College faculty in the spring of 2009 and was appointed Assistant Professor in January 2010.  An accomplished painter and illustrator, Chen is the author of several children's books including Finding Joy, Starfish Summer and Swimming with Sharks.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Colleen Roach
Executive Director of Communications & Marketing
Bunker Hill Community College
250 New Rutherford Avenue
Boston, MA 02129
Phone: (617) 228 2177; Email: [email protected]

Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts. The College enrolls more than 12,600 students on two campuses and at four satellite locations. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Six in ten students are people of color and more than half of BHCC's students are women. The College also enrolls more than 700 international students who come from more than 90 countries and speak 75 different languages.  

SOURCE Bunker Hill Community College