My View: PCC Southeast campus will renew area

Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 18, 2014

Transformation, that’s what the new Southeast Campus of Portland Community College will do for Southeast Portland. Beginning this fall, the former PCC Southeast Center — a fixture in the area since the early 1970s — will outgrow its historical role as one of the college’s major outposts.

Its evolution from a center to a campus will create widespread opportunity for the area as only a first-class community college can with the facilities, technology, array of academic choices and critical service functions on-site that lead to success for students. On Oct. 18, the college will celebrate the birth of its newest campus in style, with festivities for the community at large. Before jumping to the future, though, it’s important to journey back in time, to understand the center’s rich history as part of Portland’s Southeast landscape.

The college first offered classes in this area using rented classrooms at the old St. Anthony School. In 1978, PCC purchased a large industrial building on Southeast 82nd Avenue — now home to the Fubonn Shopping Center — that became the original PCC Southeast Center. Its offerings included apprenticeship programs, Fire Science and Emergency Medical Services, GED preparation courses, various work-force programs and a number of transfer courses. PCC Southeast moved to its current location at Division Street and 82nd Avenue in 2004, the result of renovating an existing Builders Square and adding another building to house the college’s alternative high school programs. Named Mt. Tabor and Mt. Scott Halls in honor of the region, these buildings enabled the

center to grow and offer more courses.

Jumping ahead to 2008: Portland voters approved PCC’s $374 million bond measure, a huge vote of confidence for the college and a historic opportunity to bring PCC Southeast into its own. Bond construction began in October 2012, resulting in two new LEED-certified buildings and the renovation of one of the oldest extant structures in Southeast Portland: the red-brick, four-story German-American Society’s Altenheim.

When construction wraps up this fall, PCC will unveil its fourth comprehensive, full-service campus representing 18 acres, 200,000 square feet, five buildings, and enough classes to allow students to complete an associate’s degree without needing to travel to another PCC location.

Yet the blueprint for the campus landscape isn’t the only change under way; enrollment at PCC Southeast has skyrocketed. From 2007 to 2012, the number of students here jumped 43.5 percent, more than at any PCC campus during that time. And while post-recession recovery has resulted in declining enrollments at colleges and universities regionally and nationally, PCC Southeast has continued to grow.

Some of this is due to the college addressing significant need in Southeast Portland. However, part of the enrollment climb speaks to how PCC Southeast is offering so much more to the area community than ever before: state-of-the-art science and technical labs, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Center, full-service library open seven days a week, tutoring and computer centers, women’s resource center and multicultural center, expanded bookstore, and many more classrooms and offerings.

Additionally, the college’s Small Business Development Center soon will be located on-site, providing a wide array of technical assistance and advising to the small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs whose ventures characterize the physical and economic landscape of Southeast Portland. PCC’s commitment to support local business and the area economy also is evident in the street-level retail space, a rare find in this part of the city, which has been built into the new buildings for local business occupancy.

Despite its external transformation, PCC Southeast remains committed to its roots. It continues its association with work-force training by offering programs in Computer-Aided Design and Drafting, Computer Applications Systems, Aviation Science, Welding (located on Swan Island), and Management and Supervisory Development. English for Speakers of Other Languages, long a staple of the center’s offerings, will continue to serve the area’s varied immigrant communities, both as stand-alone courses and as components of contextualized, accelerated instruction related to specific career pathways.

Already PCC Southeast looks bigger and more modern. It has newfound green space and looks like what it soon will be: a college campus. Yet its transformation is more than just physical: Its evolution is reflected in its conception and realization, in its very essence. The soon-to-be campus has grown with its community and remained steadfastly focused on it — making connections and creating partnerships, meeting local needs, and working together with neighbors.

Ultimately, PCC Southeast is a reflection of all that the area is and can be — distinctive, multifaceted, resourceful, robust and poised to succeed. And on Oct. 18, you’ll see this in Technicolor.

Jessica Howard is president of Portland Community College Southeast.