This content was published: June 23, 2009. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Education center at Cascade gets OK by committee
Photos and story by Dana Haynes
Oh, man!
We just got a piece of incredible good news from the Legislature. We’d asked for a matching grant to help pay for a Center for Careers in Education on the Cascade Campus. At about 10:30 a.m. today (Tuesday, June 23), we were told it’s a go.
This is an incredibly cool proposal. The idea is to construct a building that would house many of PCC’s education-oriented programs. That would include:
‘ Training K-12 instructional assistants in fields such as library and media, special education, English as a second language and speech pathology.
‘ The Portland Teachers Program, which provides an innovative pathway into a teaching career for people of color.
‘ As people in the building trades retire, more and more of them express interest in starting a new career as a teacher. The center would serve people who have had industry experience but no teaching experience, so they can help train the next generation of workers.
‘ Adding a childcare learning lab for those training to work with the youngest students. High-quality childcare for PCC students also is being introduced at the Cascade Campus.
‘ Teacher re-licensing classes: Currently, 25 percent of students in PCC education classes already have their master’s degree, but need annual professional development programs. These classes are tremendously popular in our partner K-12 school districts.
In addition, the center would include general purpose classrooms and labs for lower-division classes such as math, writing and the sciences, which draw huge waiting lists each term. It is estimated that the center would draw 1,100 new, full-time equivalent students.
The total cost of the building would be $16.7 million. We went to Salem seeking an $8 million capital construction matching grant. Our end of matching grant comes from the successful November 2008 bond measure.
As exciting as the Cascade Campus grew after the 2000 bond measure, it’s about to get even better.
dana
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 »