This content was published: March 27, 2006. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Multimedia program graduates to the big time
Photos and story by James Hill
It’s the gem of Portland Community College that few people know about.
The Cascade Campus has the best equipped multimedia program in Portland. It also now has an associate’s degree program, which received state approval last term, that is starting to turn heads. Thanks to the recent expansion of the campus, PCC’s Multimedia program moved out of its one-room, 20-station lab and office in Terrell Hall on the second floor of the new state of the art Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building.
“No where else in Portland can students get training like this with these types of applications and computers,” said Beth Fitzgerald, interim faculty chair and instructor in multimedia. “This is a nice place to be. We have a nice pool of talent to draw from, we’re close to the city and right on the I-5 corridor. People don’t know what we have to offer. Once they do know, it will sell itself. ”
The program is stacked with the latest goodies. The labs contain Apple G-5 computers that have the top editing and software for its 3-D graphics and video production courses. As a result the students are getting noticed. The Oregon Convention Center commissioned the program to produce a six-minute video that is now being circulated to the producers of one of the most popular television shows on the air, Fox’s “24. ” Convention Center staffers hope to convince the makers of the hit drama to come to Portland to use its space.
Cascade Campus multimedia students along with Fitzgerald taped and edited the promotional video, which featured convention center staff as the “talent ” and a message to the show’s star, Keifer Sutherland, via members of the Portland Winter Hawks (the actor is Canadian and loves hockey).
“It was an opportunity to get our students out there and produce something, ” Fitzgerald said. “The multimedia industry is a creative service job where they have to solve problems and sell solutions. It’s what we’re supposed to be doing. We find solutions together.”
For Fitzgerald, the multimedia program’s emergence is part of her journey. In 1997, she had been laid off from the James River Plant where she had been making packaging for vegetables and cereals. She planned to work there for 40 years and had just bought a house. With the eight-hour-a-day job gone, she used displaced worker support to attend PCC.
After completing coursework at PCC and Portland State University, she joined the staff at PCC and helped now retired faculty chair Michael Cleghorn establish the Multimedia program. “Now, the possibilities abound,” according to Fitzgerald. Today, the Multimedia program is involved in everything from DVD’s, telephones, medical technology, interactive delivery systems, checking out groceries, and computer games.
“Our instructors are professionals in the industry, ” Fitzgerald said. “There is a synergy involved as the students work together. They feed off each other and it keeps them going. It’s pretty exciting to see that. It’s a Mentos moment for us.”
To learn more about the Multimedia Program at Cascade, call 503-978-5672.
About James Hill
James G. Hill, an award-winning journalist and public relations writer, is the Director of Public Relations at Portland Community College. A graduate of Portland State University, James has worked as a section editor for the Newberg Graphic... more »