Members of Holyoke Community College celebrate its new its Marieb Adult Learner Success Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony.
Reminder Publishing photo by Tyler Garnet
HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College celebrated the grand opening of its Marieb Adult Learner Success Center, a new support program for adult learners and student-parents, on Dec. 11.
The new center includes a new lounge and studying space for student-parents who are working to get an education while raising children.
HCC Associate Director of Enrollment and Recruitment Anne Medina talked more about the space and said, “We are a space dedicated to our adult learner and student-parent community where students who are 24 or older, or any student-parent, can receive admissions counseling, holistic advising and career counseling, or attend workshops. It’s also a space where student-parents can bring their children and study without feeling like they are being a distraction.”
The Marieb Adult Learner Success Center is a small lounge and study area with adjoining staff offices. The nearby Parent Learning Center is a much larger space that contains a special desk with an attached and secure play or napping area for small children, a pack and play, changing station, large screen TV, conference table, art easel and learning corner with children’s books and toys.
Medina talked about how the Parent Learning Center can be beneficial to those adults or parents looking to study or learn.
She said, “It is a workspace where students can bring their laptops, sit and work on group projects, or just kick back and relax for a while, where they can have their kids with them and feel safe and welcome.”
The Marieb Adult Learner Success Center and the Parent Learning Center are funded through a $1 million gift from the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Foundation, which was established by the late professor emerita and HCC alum Elaine Marieb, a long-time member of the biology faculty who went on to become a best-selling author of anatomy and physiology textbooks.
Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs Sharale Mathis said she was happy to receive the gift and immediately thought it should be used to support the adult students and particularly the parent students.
Mathis said, “Through a collaborative effort with many members of HCC, we have this. We have the Marieb Adult Learner Success Center and we also have the Parent Learning Center and this was an important addition to it. We have many students that are parents, many that are part-time and our job as a community college is to support every student that walks through this door with everything that they walk through the door with and how best can we support our adult students and our parent students by letting them know that we see them, we want them and we will support them.”
Medina said that the gift was generous and helped with the new space and program.
She explained, “In her generosity and love of lifelong learning, she earmarked this money for the adult learner and student-parent community. She herself was an adult learner and understood the unique challenges adult learners face as older students. She firmly believed that they needed dedicated programs and spaces on campus to be successful in their studies.”
Also, sometime in 2025, the college’s Itsy Bitsy Child Watch Center will relocate to a new and larger space on the second floor of the Frost Building, close to the Marieb Adult Learner Success Center and Parent Learning Center.
“We’re going to hear a lot more little ones roaming our hallways,” said Medina. “It’s certainly going to bring life to this hallway.”
HCC President George Timmons also talked about the benefits of the new space.
He said, “What an amazing space that we have here to serve our adult learners and just very grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve. I got to say this is truly a turnaround moment for us as an institution as we continue to respond, yet another example of how we respond to free community college for all and providing opportunities to support our students. We always say we are unapologetic about removing barriers to students’ success and this is just another example of how we treat and support the whole student.”
