Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Media Advisory: Commencement a community affair

Photos and story by James Hill

PORTLAND, Ore. – It is a community affair when Portland Community College, the largest post-secondary institution in the state, celebrates the accomplishments of close to 2,500 graduates for 2003. PCC students hail from all walks of life, ages and ethnic backgrounds, and with varied life stories make PCC’s ceremony the most diverse commencement in the state. This year, graduation is set for 7 to 9 p.m., Friday, June 13 at the Memorial Coliseum, One Center Court, 1401 N. Wheeler Ave. Youngest, oldest 2003 graduates exemplify PCC’s diversityIjang Ngando:The youngest 2003 PCC graduate is 17-year-old Ijang Ngando, who will earn her associate’s of science transfer degree. Ijang, a resident of Forest Grove, plans to attend Pacific University in the fall. She will earn her associate’s degree Friday night. “I’ll probably have about 20 people coming to my graduation,” she beamed. “My family, uncles, cousins, another sister who is visiting from West Africa, and friends from school (she lives in Forest Grove and attended Forest Grove High School before enrolling in PCC).”June will be especially busy for the Ngando family: Next week her father takes his citizenship exam. Ijang and her parents, plus two siblings, came to America in 1997 when she was 11. The youngest in her family, she has an older brother and sister who still live in Cameroon. Ijang speaks impeccable English with a slight British accent. Her former country is bilingual, English and French, plus the tribal dialects, thus her entire family speaks both languages. Her parents also speak the tribal dialect of their respective tribes.The 17-year-old decided to get ahead with her studies for one simple reason. “I want to be a neurologist,” she said. “I have a long ways to go, so it’s good I’m getting a head start.”But she isn’t just a college student, she also spends her weekends working at Subway in Forest Grove, a job she’s had since she was 15. She enrolled in PCC with a 4.0 GPA from Forest Grove High School, unsure of her decision and whether she would be happy in this new arrangement. “It was a hard decision, but it was worth it,” she said. “From the first day, I loved it (at PCC). I got a 4.0 my first term.” By spring term of 2002, she had earned her high school diploma through PCC and has been taking 18 to 20 college credits each term to graduate with a 3.3 GPA. How does a 17-year-old put that much into a heavy academic load, plus work three days a week?She laughed, “I don’t sleep much, but I always take the summer off. And my parents have really helped me a lot. My family has motivated me to stay focused. They are strict on me.”Ijang often gets up at 3 a.m. to study. She uses the college library and does laboratory assignments from 5 to 8 p.m. at the college after her classes. Weekends are spent at Subway. Rock Creek’s full complement of lower-division science courses has given her the opportunity to focus much of her studies on chemistry and physics. “I love Carmen,” she says of Rock Creek chemistry instructor Carmen Martinez. “And Laura Fellman in physics. She is easy to comprehend and really helps her students.” Donald Cook:The oldest graduate from PCC this year is 67-year-old Donald Cook of Hillsboro who earns his associate’s of applied science degree in accounting.Don Cook, 50 years older than Ijang, also attended PCC the last several years. The former tooling account manager lost his job with the downturn of the economy, a victim of the high-tech industry fallout. His company Puget Plastics Corp., which had made plastic injection molding for HP printers, closed its operation in Washington County and moved to Guadalajara, Mexico.“I took advantage of the NAFTA offer,” he said, which basically gave him money to go to school, and a food and housing allowance. “I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna do this for myself.’” Don had worked in the accounting field for more than 30 years, but didn’t have the degree. In fact, he has worked and lived all across the country doing accounting work for an international chemical company, for Bethlehem Steel, Floating Point Systems, IPEC-Planar and several others. Before that, he graduated from high school in Salt Lake City in 1954, served in the Navy and then the Coast Guard. While in the service, he spent time in Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong, and was also stationed in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba during the 1962-63 Cuban missile crisis.The accounting major will graduate with a 3.52 GPA. “I didn’t goof off,” he laughs. It was the first time he had been in school since 1954.Cook claims that all his instructors were excellent and that it wouldn’t be fair to comment on one. However, when pressed, he stressed the skills of Bill White, mathematics instructor, and Joel Magnuson, economics. “They make you think,” he pointed out, “and they throw you a rope and help you if you think you’re sinking.”He also mentioned the help from Don Aho, PCC admissions coordinator. “I didn’t know how to start this process and he took me through it.”In order to put his schedule together and complete studies this June with his associate’s degree, Don took classes at the Rock Creek, Cascade and Sylvania campuses, and at the Southeast and Capital centers. “I put quite a few miles on my old pick-up,” he said.