In a rare moment of synchronicity, the recent departures of Ellen Kennedy and James Birge from the presidencies of BCC and MCLA respectively mean the two colleges are starting the 2026-2027 school year with brand new presidents. Both say they’re eager to chart a path forward based on close collaboration.
Hara Charlier comes to BCC after a decade leading Central Lakes College in Brainerd, Minnesota.
“Everywhere I've ever lived and ever worked has been a very rural area," she told WAMC. "So, in some ways, I think rural areas and rural leaders understand that we can't compete with one another. We have to bring resources to bear and leverage those resources to make the community better.”
MCLA President Diana Rogers-Adkinson envisions the two colleges existing in a kind of marriage.
“We have to be linked together," she said. "We're serving the same student population. A lot of our students start there. We have a lot of students who transferred this year. We're up significantly in transfer students from BCC specifically this year, and so we need to be prepared. We need to be able to pretty much know, okay, here's your degree plan, here's how you start at BCC, and here's how you finish at MCLA.”
Charlier says one idea would be to formalize that pathway from college to college from the jump.
“We've been playing with the idea of a dual admission program, where a student who wants to get a bachelor's degree and knows they want to stay right here in Berkshire County could apply to BCC and MCLA simultaneously," she said. "There would still be many requirements. They have to jump through all the hoops. They have to learn and meet our high expectations. But they would know exactly what that pathway looks like, and what's at the end of it. It allows us to have really robust conversations about timeline, around cost, and around outcomes. And we know that students are looking for those streamlined pathways."
Another avenue forward to unite the colleges that’s emerged from Rogers-Adkinson’s conversations with her new colleague is to craft bespoke offerings at MCLA to complement students’ experience at BCC.
“We've already been throwing out ideas of some new degrees that could be really helpful for her students as they exit," said the MCLA president. "For example, in technical leadership. So students, if they want to be entrepreneurs, run their own business - How do we then help those folks do the accounting side once they graduate with their trade and really launch their own business and have those technical skills as well?”
That thinking extends to one of the Berkshires’ largest industries, healthcare.
“This is our first nursing class that's graduating this year," Rogers-Adkinson said. "That means that we could then look toward developing from an RN to the BSN, which would be a nice collaboration for the nursing students.”
Rogers-Adkinson says MCLA can even offer BCC basic logistical support that has been untapped.
“Some of their students could actually use housing was an example that was brought up," she explained. "Could they actually stay on our campus because they do need housing, even though they're attending BCC? How can we do some collaborative things for students that have some unmet needs that are not traditional in terms of a community college and a college partnership?”
As the colleges prepare for a meeting between both of their leadership teams to hammer out collaborative efforts, Charlier says it’s fun to dream of what BCC and MCLA can accomplish together.
“It's really fun that we've come in at the same time, and both of us believe deeply in the fact that our institutions are only successful if we contribute to the success of the region," she told WAMC. "And we're both new to the area, so we're learning together, which is really fun. And when we first met, we just said to each other, these are two institutions that have tremendous partnership opportunities, and we want to do something big and bold, and make certain that the community sees that we're working together.”
