Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Dept. of Education renews PCC's 'Talent Search' grant for $1.1 million

Photos and story by James Hill

PORTLAND, Ore. – The U.S. Department of Education has awarded another five-year, $1.1 million “Talent Search” grant to Portland Community College’s Rock Creek Talent Search (RCTS) Program.

The grant will help PCC to continue to provide educational services to 600 low-income and potential first-generation college students in the Beaverton and Forest Grove School districts to help them graduate from high school, and to enter and succeed in post-secondary programs. In 2002, the college received a five-year, $950,000 “Talent Search” grant from the Department of Education to start the project.

“We are thrilled about the renewal of our grant funding,” said Eduardo Martinez Zapata, RCTS Program Director. “The program staff, particularly our advisors, Sylvia Barajas-Everson and Melinda Nuñez, has had a very positive impact on the students we serve. On average, our seniors have enrolled in college at a rate of 85 percent. This despite the social and economic hardships they face as barriers to higher education. This college-going rate is almost twice as much as the average for all Americans.”

The Rock Creek Campus (17705 N.W. Springville Road) has coordinated the grant and set up outreach efforts to work on site at Forest Grove School District’s Neil Armstrong Middle School and Forest Grove High School; Beaverton School District’s Five Oaks, Meadow Park, Mountain and Whitford middle schools, and Aloha, Beaverton, Merlo Station and Sunset high schools.

In the targeted area, there are more than 10,200 low-income households and the number of Hispanic residents has increased by more than 50 percent since 2000. Studies have shown that Hispanic families in the target area are more likely to be poor and less educated, and Hispanic students are more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to enroll in college.

The five-year grant will support a variety of activities. These include bilingual workshops on receiving financial aid and scholarships; preparing for the SAT; help for students who are re-entering college; visiting college campuses and cultural events; and workshops for middle school students and their parents on how students can succeed in high school. In addition, the program offers a college survival course for high school seniors and an innovative mentoring program that calls on Talent Search graduates to mentor high school age participants. Other activities are designed to involve parents in students’ success, career exploration and planning, ESL and computer classes, and self-esteem classes.

For more information about this program, call 503-614-7149.

Portland Community College is the largest post-secondary institution in Oregon, serving approximately 91,000 full- and part-time students. For more PCC news, please visit us on the Web at www.pcc.edu/news. PCC has three comprehensive campuses, five workforce training and education centers, and 200 community locations in the Portland metropolitan area. The PCC district encompasses a 1,500-square-mile area in northwest Oregon and offers two-year degrees, one-year certificate programs, short-term training, alternative education, pre-college courses and life-long learning.