Renegade Rip, issue 2, Sept. 21, 2022

Page 2
News
The Renegade Rip www.therip.com
Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022
BC celebrates STEM building
By Amanda Hernandez
Reporter
Bakersfield College held a public
ribbon cutting event Sept. 7 to celebrate
the new Science and Engineering
building.
The idea for the project began in
2016, and the entire process took over
six years to complete. The full cost of
the new structure was well over $40
million and paid for with bond funding
made possible with the passage of Measure
J.
Bakersfield College president Zav
Dadabhoy speaking on September 7
BC president Zav Dadabhoy speaks at
ribbon cutting ceremony for BC’s new
STEM building on Sept. 7. (Amanda
Hernandez)
During the ribbon cutting event, BC
President Zav Dadabhoy stated that
former Congressman Bill Thomas was
really the one who pushed to make the
building idea become a reality.
The creation of the building was part
of an effort to give students more opportunities
to expand their knowledge,
increase essential career skills and graduate
from BC with hands-on experience.
The overall design of the building
has gained a lot of attention because of
its unique structure, filled with secrets.
There is a tree design that is made to
absorb sounds, and it follows a famous
math sequence found in nature.
It has bricks that look like all of the
other BC buildings, however, they are
different. To crack the code, you have
to learn about orbitals.
The windows that represent the blueprint
of life and how scientists decode
the blueprint. It also has a peg board
also known as a binary board that codes
words following the language of computers.
Christina from HMC architects said
of designing the project, “It wasn’t hard
at all, it was actually really fun. The design
took us two years and then the construction
was an additional two years.
As the architects we stay throughout the
entire process and help the construction
team if they have questions or when
things need to be changed.”
Professors who were on hand shared
their point of view, and how effective
the new building makes the process of
teaching students.
Timothy Plett, who teaches physics in
the new
building stated, “I have mostly been
using the new building for labs and conducting
office hours. The students have
more space to learn, are able to interact
with state-of-the-art equipment, and it
definitely makes a difference in them
being able to fully grasp what I am trying
to teach them.”
AMANDA HERNANDEZ/ THE RIP
Stephen Waller, Executive Dean of
Instruction, Math, Science and Engineering,
speaks Sept. 7 at the ribbon cutting
ceremony for BC’s new STEM building.
Ag webinar and water crisis
By Nicholas Watson
Reporter
Bakersfield College hosted the first
of a series of webinars on water policy
in the Central Valley on Sept. 13 as
part of their partnership with the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory
and Valley Strong Credit Union.
It featured three speakers representing
different organizations and institutions
that have partnered with the
Valley Strong Energy Institute, all of
whom touched on different aspects of
the ongoing water crisis that is gripping
the Central Valley.
Alivar Escriva-Bou, a senior fellow
from the Public Policy Institute of California
Water Policy Center, explained
the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the
recent Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, or SGMA.
He was then followed by Thomas
Ott, an assistant research hydrologist
with the Desert Research Institute,
who has been working on openET, a
public database for water management
data funded and worked in part by
organizations such as NASA, the Department
of Agriculture, the Desert
Research Institute, and Google, among
many others.
Following this, Josué Medellín-Azuara,
an associate professor
of environmental engineering at the
University of California Merced, gave
a general rundown of the severity of
the ongoing severe drought in the Central
Valley, with specifics on the data
behind the severity of the water crisis.
The webinar concluded with a Q&A
session, where members of the public
were able to ask the panelists questions
regarding the things they discussed or
just general questions regarding water
conservation and management in California.
The key takeaway from the webinar
as a whole was that, while the situation
is certainly dire, there is still action that
can be taken, along with the new tools
that are emerging through continued
dedicated research, that will allow the
Central Valley to mitigate and manage
this crisis. While the webinar’s topic
was one of crisis, the main theme was
one of hope – something that all three
guest speakers wanted to drive home.