Emeriti Spotlight: Dr. Bernadette Tchen

Dr. Bernadette Tchen has bright eyes and a warm smile. Having a conversation with her is easy, you feel as though you’ve known her for years and could talk to her for hours. This professor, Licensed therapist, francophone, and lifelong student started teaching at Los Angeles City College (LACC) in 1989 as an adjunct professor in the English department and has been dedicated to our community ever since. Dr. Tchen and her husband Ronald Gould, an LACC Emeriti English professor, are generous supporters of the foundation and have invested in their students in and out of the classroom.

Dr. Tchen’s career at LACC began with English and English as a second language classes, but her love of education started long before that. Originally from Laos, Dr. Tchen was educated in French and fell in love with the language and culture eventually making her way to the city of lights and attending the Universite de Paris Sorbonne where she graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English.

When asked how she knew she wanted to be a teacher she said, “I didn’t!” but countless students have benefitted from the twists of fate that lead her to education. From Paris, Dr. Tchen moved to the United States and fell in love with American universities, “the libraries were wonderful” she said, “compared to the French libraries the American system was heavenly.” Dr. Tchen’s husband Ronald was a graduate teaching assistant at USC at the time, so she had the opportunity to explore the university environment and attend some of the seminars with him. She loved being there so much that she decided to apply for admission to the graduate school herself and subsequently earned three degrees there, a masters’ in French, one in Teaching English as a Second Language, and a doctorate in Medieval French Literature.

While earning her doctorate, Dr. Tchen became an adjunct faculty member of the English Department at LACC, and after a few years, when LACC decided to start a Program for Accelerated College Education for returning students, she was hired as its founding director. Concurrently, she also started an afternoon college program for high school students to help minimize dropouts and to create a pathway for them to join LACC after they graduated. She worked diligently at recruiting adult students at their workplaces and teenagers at the LACC feeding high schools. She eventually established several on-site programs at a couple of Kaiser hospitals, a few Departments of Child Support Services, and at one elementary school. As PACE grew, the administration realized she needed to relinquish the high school program for which she had also started to bring students over to visit our cinema, dental tech, and theater programs. She

called it “A Day at City,” which was later adopted by the dean who took over the dual enrollment program. Dr. Tchen was extremely dedicated to these two programs. [noticed that new students had many resources available to them but returning students had little support. There were scholarships, and programs dedicated to students who were just starting out, but the students who were returning to college, those who had put their dreams on hold but found a way to come back, had nowhere to go for guidance. With that, she started the Program for Accelerated College Education or PACE program at LACC, which offered resources, support, and guidance to students desperate for a community at school.} She said, “I was there morning until night. If a PACE student was on campus, then so was I.” Dr. Tchen ensured that returning students knew where to turn when they were struggling or were not sure if they could make it. She was their advisor, “cheerleader,” and their active listener when they felt overwhelmed or frustrated. There were hard days and tough conversations but watching her students cross the stage at graduation with tears in their eyes made it all worth it.

In 2002 due to budget cuts the program ended at LACC, approximately 350 students together with Dr. Tchen were quite devastated. A couple of years later, the college tried to restart PACE as part of a dean’s duties, and some help volunteered by Dr. Tchen. But it was not easy without a coherent program. At the closure of PACE, in order to cope with her grave disappointment, she decided to enroll in a Master of Applied Psychology program and became a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. When she was not teaching, she was volunteering as a therapist at a free clinic.

Dr. Bernadette Tchen is an incredible individual and still teaches an English as a Second Language class at LACC. In the rest of her free time, she loves to read books in different genres. Lately, she has been enjoying reading works of fiction and non-fiction by Asian Americans, caring for her husband Ronald, taking continuing education classes to keep current in the field of therapy, attending plays and operas, and communicating via email with three of her former English teachers. When asked how she inspires her students, Dr. Tchen said, “I show them that learning is power, and if you want to become somebody, and have power over your own life, you learn, you learn how.”