This content was published: May 29, 2009. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Please call senators today
Photos and story by Dana Haynes
The fight for the community colleges’ budget isn’t over. And we need your help.
Not to convince lawmakers that an 18 percent cut to community colleges is unacceptable (it is, but we’re making that case to the lawmakers who disagree or who simply don’t understand that the proposed budget, released last week, does just that).
No, we need you to call the heroes in the Senate who are fighting for us. And to tell them, “Thank you!”
You also can send them e-mails by clicking the links below.
Sen. Rod Monroe, (503) 986-1724, is working tirelessly to make sure the community colleges aren’t cut by a much higher percentage than K-12 schools and the Oregon University System.
Sen. Margaret Carter, (503) 986-1722, is right there in the midst of the battle alongside Sen. Monroe. She formerly worked at the Cascade Campus and the Skill Center there is named in her honor. Nobody “gets” us more than Sen. Carter.
Sen. Betsy Johnson, (503) 986-1716, is in the thick of it, too. She understands that, in a recession, people turn to community colleges as a “first responder” to the economic crisis; to get new training, a new job, to fend off a lay-off or to get recertified. She gets that our enrollment is up 18 percent, year over year, and that that isn’t coincidence. She knows that we’re creating the trained workforce that will help drive us out of the recession.
If you get a chance, please call these senators and let them know that we know who’s fighting for the community colleges, and for the recession-hit Oregonians we serve.
For more about PCC and the 2009 Legislature.
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About Dana Haynes
Dana Haynes, joined PCC in 2007 as the manager of the Office of Public Affairs, directing the college's media and government relations. Haynes spent the previous 20 years as a reporter, columnist and editor for Oregon newspapers, including ... more »