Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

New PCC Hillsboro Center Meets with Success

Photos and story by James Hill

HILLSBORO, Ore. – PCC built it and they came. In fact, the first month of the PCC Hillsboro Center has met with resounding community support. The college opened the doors on Jan. 7 with 46 classes – 32 lower-division college transfer and 14 English as a second language courses. There were 747 enrollments for winter term, translating to a full-time-equivalent (FTE) student count of 59."We had projected a class size of 12,"said Bill Christopher, executive dean of the Rock Creek Campus, "realizing it would take a while for word to spread, but our class size is over 16 students. It is indicative of the demand,"he said. The PCC Hillsboro Center is the culmination of two years of discussions with Washington County – who owns the building – to provide greater access to education for western Washington County residents. The 9,000-square-foot center, a parking structure with the street level devoted to retail space – is located at 102 S.W. Washington in downtown Hillsboro. In addition to classrooms, the center features a computer lab, a conference room, testing area and offices. The center is on the MAX line and is near the Cornelius and Forest Grove bus lines. "Opening the center in Hillsboro,"said Christopher, "is meeting our mission of providing more education options and choices for our community. It is also a recognition that we are out of space at Rock Creek (campus). These 750 enrollments would not have been possible,"he said. Classes this winter are offered in a wide variety of subjects, including art, business, building construction technology, computer applications, computer information systems, economics, English as a non-native language, English as a second language, geology, history, microelectronics technology, math, political science, reading, sociology, speech, Spanish and writing. Call 503-615-6801 at the Hillsboro Center for information and spring term classes.