Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 2015)
B PRINT O o LLALKAM Ab The teacher files EDITORIAL Sociology instructor keeps it real Co Editor-In-Chief Andrew Koczian chiefed@ciadcamas.edu BY KATIE ARCHER Co Editor-In-Chief Megan McCoy It’s about second chances. Not only his, but the second chances of the students he teaches. Sociology instructor Erich Pfeifer has been at Clackamas Community College about eight years now. Pfeifer also teaches a pre-fall college success class for incoming athletes, before fall term starts. The Clackamas Print: How did you get to CCC? Erich Pfeifer: Let’s see. I have been in the Army. I worked at a diversionary program for kids who have been arrested for different things, so I was a lead counselor there for a number of years. I worked on a program, in Portland, trying to help young kids make a positive connection with education. I went to PCC [Portland Community College] and I felt like they didn’t respect the students that they were working with, at least the people that I was around. I did a consulting job out here. I met people at Clackamas and I found th at there were some good people out here, so th a t’s what brought me to Clackamas. I grew up in southern California and I didn’t like school, didn’t have a good relationship w ith school growing up. So I had to turn things around for myself and figure out how to be a good student. Having gone through all that, I had some good experiences as a student at the community college, so I like the community college and what it makes available to people. I decided to come back to the community college because I wanted to try to help other people who are trying to do what I was trying to do, when I was trying to get an education. TCP: W hat life experiences do you use to teach your classes? Pfeifer: Everything I’ve been through, my whole life comes into how I teach. Some of the most im portant life experiences are that I didn’t grow up in the easiest way, so I’ve been a lot of things as a person myself, so I have a lot of respect of anybody who’s struggling with things in their life and trying to turn their life around with an education. The most im portant experience I’ve ever had in my life that prepared me was working in Portland at a place called Albina Head Start, where I worked for five years. In that period of time, I was pretty much the only white person everywhere I went. In my job, I learned the most important lessons in my life about how to treat other people, see other people, how to get past the stereotypes we have in our society and see who people really are on the inside and reach across the things that divide us to see that we’re all the same. chiefed@cladcamas.edu News Editor Saige Keikkala newsed@ciacicamas.edu Arts & Culture Matthew Rowning aced@clacicamas.edu Associate Arts & Culture Blake Swan Sports Editor Katie Archer sportsed@clackamas.edu Copy Editor Shaylyn Struna copyed@clackamas.edu Photo Editor Austin Boltz photoed@clackamas.edu W eb Editor Read more of this interview at TheClackamasPrint.com. Chelsea Pagan webeditor@clackamas.edu This interview has been edited for clarity and space. TCP: W hat do you hope to accomplish w hen you teach your students? Pfeifer: I want to help people succeed in college so that they can earn a degree and be able to use that degree in the real world to make their lives better. I hope to encourage people to think for themselves and try to dismantle some of the misunderstanding that we have in our society that result in people leading lives th at are not authentic and real to who they want to be and what they want to do. I want to help people question things, figure out answers for themselves, ask questions about the society and how we share things with each other, but ultimately I want to help people learn how to be successful in college so that they can get a degree, in a credential society, that requires a degree to get access to a certain standard of living and quality of life. I want them to not only learn to succeed in college but learn how to use th at degree in the real world to make their life better. Ad Manager Robin Scott admgr@clackamas.edu Design Editor 8 b ° fag ' • ' Brandon Chorum f STAFF WRITERS SR« & PHOTOGRAPHERS Cassidy White Debbie Fox E o u c a (A (Q E (Q U (0 >■■1 U CD Lily Shaver Merari Calderon Ruiz Victoria Tinker PRODUCTION Justan Honer Taras Kovch JOURNALISM ADVISER Melissa Jones melissaj@clackamas.edu The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased and professional manner. Content published in The Print is not screened or subject to censorship. Email comments, concerns or tips to: chiefed@clackamas.edu or call us at 503-594-6266 ON THE COVER: Former PSU cross country runner, Jose Macias, now runs for CCC. Photo by Katie Archer. Cover design by Brandon Chorum. 19600 Molalla Ave. Oregon City, OR 97045
