HOLYOKE – As the oldest two-year college in Massachusetts, Holyoke Community College has changed since its founding in 1946.

The first change happened in light of the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020. HCC Media Relations Manager Chris Yurko said the flexible start dates added to help students maintain their studies in a difficult time proved to be popular and helpful. They were so popular, he said, they continued into the spring semester and in the future.

“The whole idea is to give students more choices, options, flexibility so they can build a schedule that makes sense for them given everything that’s going on in their life, including work, childcare, anything else that’s going on,” he said.

HCC’s Director of Admission Mark Hudgik said the flexible start dates “showed that students value having the opportunity to take classes when they’re ready.” He said, “Many students mixed flex options with our traditional start to help break up their academic workload throughout the semester. We are building flex options into all of our course choices going forward to adapt to what we’ve learned about students’ needs this year.”

Yurko said over the past year several certification programs had been added to adapt to the growing needs and interests of students. Such programs include cannabis cultivation, beer and cider making/brewing and winemaking. Additionally, other new certificate and associate degree programs added in the fall of 2020 include behavioral neuroscience, critical social thought, geoscience, child development, mental health and veterinary assistant.

Yurko said they’ve also added non-credit programs including an at-home baking series “aimed at parents and children who want to learn how to create, bake desserts at home under the guidance of a professional chef.” The program, called Bake With Me, will run for four consecutive Fridays in March and is “designed for parents to bake for their kids,” he said.

In addition to expanding programming and flexibility for students, Yurko said they also received several significant grants in 2020 that will help them expand services for students moving forward in 2021. Such services include “focusing on equity and building equality.”

“Students in traditionally underperforming demographics, African American, Latin overall, they don’t do as well as their white counterparts,” he said. This is why the “state Department of Education and HCC has made equity a priority.”

One of those grants, he explained, was the Lumina Grant. This $100,000 grant will be used to create an equity, diversity and inclusion taskforce as well as to “expand mentorship programs for students of color.”

Currently, Yurko said there is one existing and one new mentorship program in place at the college. The existing program, called ALANA Men in Motion stands for African American, Latino, Asian, Native American men. “The retention rate and academic performance for those who receive mentorship through that program is better than in general population,” he said.

The new program that the grant will help to fund is called HCC Champion’s Mentor Network. Yurko said in some ways, an expansion of “something that was started last fall called Chatting with Champions.” This, he said, consisted of “panel discussions [that] brought back alumni with various areas of expertise.”

The panels, he said, are “meant for students interested in those areas to come and listen to panels moderated by faculty members.” Yurko described them as “low key and intimate sessions.”

“This expands on that. It’s handled over Zoom, Champions Network has roughly 20 alumni of color who are paired with current students of color to act as their mentors. They each have certain responsibilities and meet a certain number of times and create academic, career plans,” he said. “They meet once a month over Zoom, students are required to attend a certain number of those group events.”

While the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has changed the way the college operates slightly, Yurko said 2021 is also a significant year for HCC due to its 75th anniversary. He said if everyone was not working from home, “we would be having a lot of events.”

“We’re still hoping that come the fall, we’re hoping sooner than that if possible, that we’re returning to campus and celebrate as we can,” he said.