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Five Onondaga Community College students will spend their summer at SUNY Binghamton, participating in paid internships as part of the Bridges to Baccalaureate program. It supports under-represented students interested in pursuing careers in biomedical sciences. The OCC students benefiting from the experience are members of the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (known as C-STEP) or the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (known as L-SAMP). OCC's students participating in the Bridges to Baccalaureate program are:

Iannelis Castro Calderon has been named Student Speaker for Onondaga Community College's Commencement ceremony. She was selected by a committee of faculty and staff following a round of in-person interviews and extensive review of each candidate's credentials. "To be chosen is a gift. It encourages me to reflect, to appreciate, to honor, and to always consider our community. I am overjoyed to have the opportunity to share words of encouragement with the whole class and to celebrate our success together."

A popular weather-themed movie coupled with real-life meteorological mayhem propelled Josh Kozlowski '03 down his first of two career paths. Between the Blizzard of 1993, the movie Twister which came out in 1996, and the Labor Day storm of 1998, Kozlowski had plenty of inspiration. "We experienced this severe ebb of weather and I was fascinated by it. I said to myself the night of the Labor Day Storm that I wanted to be able to, at some point in the future, tell people something was coming before it got there. There were so many people who said 'I didn't know it was coming.'"

Students in Onondaga Community College's chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society are hosting a series of podcasts titled "Voices of Our Community" which introduce listeners to international students on our campus.

You can listen to the podcasts at places like iTunes and Spotify by searching "Chatting About College" which is the year-round home of OCC's podcasts.

A panel discussion about the PTK podcast series was held Wednesday, April 27th in room C116 of Coulter Hall.

If there's a game of chess being played on the Onondaga Community College campus, there's a pretty good chance you will find Connor Burkhart on one side of the board. Burkhart is the president of OCC's Chess Club. And he's worked hard to organize the CNY College Chess Tournament which will be held on campus this Saturday. "I love chess. When you're playing in a tournament, the only thing you hear is clocks ticking and people saying 'check' and 'checkmate.' It's like music to me."

When Joe Doyle was growing up he watched his mother battle lung cancer and the extraordinary care she received from health care professionals. It made a lasting impact on him. "I was always thankful for the oncology team, the radiation therapists, and the radiologists who saved my mom's life. They are the reason she's still alive today. That's something that's always been near and dear to me and something I want to give to other families."

Onondaga Community College paid tribute to the founder of its Baseball program Saturday with the naming of the 3rd base dugout the "Joe Antonio Dugout" in his honor. "In the immortal words of Lou Gehrig, today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth," Antonio said during an on-field ceremony which was attended by approximately 100 supporters. "Believe me when I say I've been very fortunate to have all of you coaches, players, and parents supporting my mission during my 23 years as head baseball coach at Onondaga Community College."

Kenna Maring is on her way to a successful career designing and building things. During her final year in the Architectural Technology degree program she's turned a job shadow opportunity at VIP Structures into an internship. What started as a one-day-a-week internship will grow into 40 hours a week this summer. "I've learned so much there. The biggest lesson has been collaboration. It's huge. There are so many working parts to a construction project. I have meetings with accountants, I have meetings with project managers, and I have meetings with superintendents. We all work together."

A conversation between two new friends with an Onondaga Community College connection brought an amazing event to campus. Dr. Nikia Dennis is a Professor and School Specialist in OCC's School of Health. Debra McClendon-Boddie retired from OCC in 2014 after working here for nearly 35 years. "We met through a professional and business sorority, Lamda Kappa Mu, that does community service in Syracuse and we hit it off right away," said Dennis. "We were talking about a way to help students and we thought we could bring everything here and make a difference," added McClendon-Boddie.

It's been 10 years since Saurav Sharma and his family immigrated to the United States from Nepal. He's found Onondaga Community College to be his happy place in America. "Campus is like a community rather than being on your own. Coming here was the best decision I've made."

When Sharma arrived in the U.S. he knew very little English. He learned the language by observing different types of media. His English improved significantly by the time he became a student at Liverpool High School. "I did pretty well as a student but wasn't involved in anything outside of class."