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City of Roses
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VolumeXLIV
Number 44
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wwwportlandobserver.com
Wednesday • November 5.
5, 2014
Right Kind of
‘Dear White People ’
takes on privilege,
identity and race
see Metro, page 9
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, preSlden* o f Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus, embraces a campus ‘without fences or gates ’ as it welcomes all students
and integrates educational services for north and northeast Portland residents
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People In
New college leader
sees PCC Cascade
as go-to place
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T he P ortland O bserver
by
Dr. Karin Edwards, the new president at
the Cascade Campus at Portland Community
College, has travelled a long journey in her
pursuit of providing higher education to the
public. She started her first semester with
PCC this fall, and says she has long appreci­
ated the way community colleges serve stu­
dents in need and transform lives.
“I’ve seen drug dealers become drug
rehabilitation counselors, English learners
become English teachers, through commu­
nity colleges,” Edwards says of her passion
for community colleges and the positive
transformations students have earned by
enrolling in classes.
Edwards herself was raised in the South
Bronx of New York City, the last of eight
children. Her early experience in education
was in New York City public schools. Her life
changed when a science teacher found an
opportunity many children in Edwards posi­
tion would not have - a chance to attend a
private prep school in midtown Manhattan.
“What a difference education makes,”
said Edwards reminiscing on her luck. “It was
my exposure to a quality education system
that opened me up to other things, got me
into college and through college,” she said.
Edwards would go on to get her doctorate
in Educational Leadership from Johnson and
Wales University in Rhode Island, along
with a master’s degree in Higher Education
Administration from the University of Al-
bany-SUNY.
“So many of my friends who stayed in the
South Bronx did not see similar outcomes.
The only difference was education, the route
I took, and the route I was allowed to take,”
she said.
By knowing how education affected her,
she uses her own experience to send a mes­
sage that it doesn’t matter where one starts.
From high school, edwards went on to
attend college in Albany, N.Y. At the time,
she wanted to be a guidance counselor. She
continued
on page 2