Students are not the only ones who have to worry about finding the right classrooms this semester, as Bakersfield College has brought some new staff to campus.
Mitch Seal is proof to his students that the two-year college route can really open some doors. After getting his AA degree at Trident Technical College, Seal transferred to the Medical University of South Carolina on a U.S. Navy scholarship.
Seal was in the Navy for seven years before becoming a registered nurse in 1997.
Besides his years of service with the Navy, Seal is very proud that he will soon receive his doctorate in education from the University of the Pacific in Stockton. “I’m in the home stretch. I’ve finished collecting all of my research. I’m very close to being done.”
Seal taught at BC for the summer semester in 2006 and has returned for a one-year deal teaching in the nursing department.
When asked why he would take up a job at BC again when he is so close to getting his doctorate, Seal replied, ” You can only write so much in a given day and I have to keep up on my clerical skills for the Navy. I came back because there is a nursing shortage and I’m a training officer for the Navy.”
After receiving his doctorate, Seal will move to San Diego where he will be an academic director for the Naval School of Health Science. He attributes his success to the two-year college program. “Two year schools are excellent for establishing skills in life… It’s the way to go.”
Elizabeth Rodacker-Borgens, “Ms. Beth” as her students call her, has traveled all the way from California to the Midwest and even Japan teaching English as a second language. When asked why she decided to teach ESL, Rodacker-Borgens replied, “One of my boyfriends was from Japan. I helped him through college. I realized that the skill of learning from people from different cultures and my skills with reading and writing, would help to become an ESL teacher.”
English has brought her the opportunity to be able to teach how she wants, going beyond just teaching the English language. “An English study is such a wide field. You can teach anything you want when you are a language teacher.”
Rodacker-Borgens taught at a language school in Kagoshima, Japan for two years. Kagoshima is on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan.
“It made me feel how marginalized people feel when they are in the U.S. and are not part of the dominant culture. I was illiterate in Japan.”
Most recently, Rodacker-Borgens taught at a small private school in Nebraska for nine years. “It was in a way kind of hard to leave that job. It’s nice to be in a public school, though. I’m able to serve so many more people.”
When Rodacker’s husband, Ed Borgens, was brought on as a political science professor at BC, she felt that getting a job at the same college would be ideal.
Rodacker and her husband feel that BC is the place for them. “We’ll probably be here for the long haul. We made an offer on our house recently and will stay here till we get old … er,” mentioned Rodacker.