Faculty Spotlight on Bethany Rice

Monday, October 30, 2023

Bethany Rice is the Archives Faculty Director at Bakersfield College, where she is responsible for leadership, operations, planning, personnel, and the preservation of artifacts of the
Bakersfield College Archives which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

She was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, and later graduated from North High School in 2008. While attending North High School she was simultaneously enrolled in courses at Bakersfield College. She says, “I remember one of my first courses was US History and I took it as an ITV class which entailed recording the lecture off a certain channel at the same time every week and then reviewing the VHS tape.”

Bethany continued her academics at Bakersfield College for two years between 2008 and 2010. She graduated in 2010 with an AA in History and Anthropology. Following her graduation she transferred to the University of California, Davis where she received her BA in History with a minor in Anthropology. 

As Bethany went on to continue pursuing her educational goals, she moved back home to Bakersfield and attended San Jose State University as an online student where she earned her Master's in Library and Information Science.

She is now in a role that she says is a lifelong dream of hers, though she worked in many other positions at Bakersfield College as a student employee during her academic career. Her first on-campus position was at the student health office as a student-assistant secretary where she worked her first year at Bakersfield College. Then, she joined the Student Government Association where she was an Activities Liaison in her second year. In addition, after she came back to Bakersfield following her graduation at UC Davis, she worked as a professional expert on a special project for the BC foundation that involved digitizing the contact information in the alumni database and she served as secretary on the alumni board as a volunteer. In spring of 2022, she joined the renegade family as an Adjunct Librarian and just recently became the Archives Director last May.

Bethany really enjoys her current role, she says, “I enjoy helping individual students and giving them the tools they need to conduct their own research and succeed as a student. Preserving the history of those same students and the ones before them has been such an honor. Sharing the 110 year legacy of our Renegades at Bakersfield College and knowing I'll have the chance to watch our story continue to grow is just amazing.” When she first got the position, she said it felt like coming home. She spent most of her life on the campus in one capacity or another, and her admiration for our professors and administration continues to grow to this day. She is thrilled to be part of the Renegade team who puts students first and helps them succeed. 

When Bethany isn’t at work devoting much of her time to students, and the archives, she enjoys reading, baking, crocheting, and brunching on the weekends. And, of course, playing with her dogs Theodore and Fiefel, and cat Indigo Montoya.