On Jan. 13, 2021, The Torch Editor-in-Chief Chandlor Henderson had a chance to sit with Lane Community College President Margaret Hamilton and Vice President Paul Jarrell. The main topic covered was Measure 20-306, which provided the school $121.5 million in bond money.
Henderson: How did you become the president of the school?
Hamilton: There’s a certain trajectory most of us take to getting wherever we are. I don’t think I followed a routine one to a college presidency. My passion was nursing as a kid. First I started out practicing [nursing]. I’d be out there giving those injections right now if my life had made a different term. But doing that for a short period, I realized I wanted to teach. So teaching got me involved. With first teaching nursing, then administration, then being a dean. I was a dean, then I was an assistant vice president. I was an assistant for curriculum and instruction, institutional effectiveness, even administration. So what happens is you wind up like a jack-of-all-trades working in a college. And the only job I hadn’t had yet was its presidency, but I trained at least three presidents in my last job. So I decided, “Heck, I can do this.” So that’s basically what happens. You become somebody’s assistant, and then you finally figure you can maybe do this. So, why Oregon? Because I was intrigued by Eugene. I’d been out here on vacation a couple of times to visit family and fell in love with the place.
Henderson to Jarrell: How did you come to being here?
Jarrell: So not too unlike Marge. I started by teaching biology at a community college in Southern California 20 years ago. My son was born in Eugene, and my daughter was born in Medford when I was in graduate school here at UO. I always thought I would stay in teaching in Southern California, but life kind of got me into administration. I’d had this similar role down in Southern California at a couple of community colleges. Then both my kids started their adult lives in Portland, and we just thought, “Let’s try to get a little bit closer to family.” We don’t — neither my wife nor I — have family out here (other than our children), so we decided to move. We ended up coming back to Oregon and ending up at Lane, and I’m pleased. I can’t imagine doing anything else. There’s the satisfaction of working at a community college where you get to help students.
Henderson: My next question is for either one of you, whomever you feel best. What would be your main goal with the bond that was passed? What would you do with the funds from this bond?
Hamilton: You know, Chandlor, if you go on the website, you can still see its [the bond] goals. But I laughed to myself when I re-read it and I said, “You know what? The real goal was, getting it passed.”
That was the first goal because I didn’t think we would get this thing passed because of the pandemic. We were told, this is almost impossible. Yet Lane county voted for it. I mean, I am indebted to this county for the voters for voting it for us. The second goal is to be accountable to those wonderful people [the voters]. That’s a lot of money and we need to make sure we do what we said we were going to do. So there were three goals: safety, security, and accessibility. It was updating the classrooms, Paul’s whole area, teaching, and learning. And then leveraging some of that money to build a new health sciences building. Because the dental facility was in such bad shape on campus, they moved it downtown. Number one goal, though, I gotta tell you, has to be safety and security and accessibility because it has to be. And that’s everything, starting from putting locks on the doors. We have to protect ourselves from active shooters. We have to protect ourselves from cybersecurity. You’ve got to protect yourself from crime in general. So, you know, we need cameras. We need bright lights. We need curbs that aren’t broken for wheelchairs to get up. Even having a warm building with a roof that isn’t leaking. So your HVAC systems need updating, and also seismic retrofitting.
Jarrell: My role here is as the chief instructional officer. And really anything that interacts with students is something that I have some leadership responsibilities. We really want to invest in the student experience. We want to invest this money in creating value for students. By that, I mean making sure that the programs we’re offering deliver those skills that students will need to get good-paying jobs or transfer to institutions if they need to. So that value piece is important. This allows us to be more convenient for students. So we’re investing a lot in technology that will provide multiple ways for students to be able to interact in a learning environment. It really is about convenience. It’s about value. It’s about the student experience and investing to feel like we’ve been good stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars that they’re giving us. And that students that come and work with us here are going to walk away with a skill set that really provides them some upward mobility.
Henderson: How long do you think it would take to implement some of these things that you’d like to do?
Hamilton: I think within the next five years you’re going to see the college transformed. It’s always slow getting started. We had architects and planners here before the bond went out, but you have to make that come to life. The board had to vote on and approve an oversight committee to make sure we were accountable to the taxpayers. Then RFP’s [request for proposal] have to go out. Small projects are just happening. Over the summer they repaved one of the big parking lots. There will be a constant renewal of roofs, then a seismic retrofit.
Henderson: What do you see that needs the most help around campus?
Hamilton: Safety is what keeps Paul and I up at night. Knowing that these roofs are going to be all replaced. Knowing that you walk into a classroom in the fall and there’s going to be a heat or this summer air conditioning that works. And locks on the doors. Two years ago, it was all about the active shooters that were all over the news. I want to get those locks all replaced. I want to get the lights brighter and bigger on campus.
Jarrell: Part of it thinking about what the learning environment is like here on campus. Feeling safe is really important for having a good, positive learning environment. Making this environment not only safe from that physical sense but feel welcoming. How do we interact with students? How do we make them feel like they belong here? How do we treat our colleagues? All of these things are more important now from a social perspective than probably ever before. Even though there’s not much diversity here, I think the people at the college recognized the need for students’ unique cultural experiences. We have to try and create a space for them. Initiatives, not only with the bond but with some other grants that we’ve gotten to do just that, create that holistic, nurturing, welcoming environment for students and truly support students in their journey here.
Hamilton: COVID-19 has taught us many lessons. One is that we can no longer be bound to time-and-place teaching. Technology has never been more important. We can now look at more of a hybrid model to offer teaching and learning so that we’re not just time and place-bound. It will be much more equitable because if you’re a working parent, you can now use simulations and simulation labs to learn a lot of these skills, but they were unaffordable before. So we’re kind of hoping that we could apply this money across the major career technical professions and become cutting edge for students.
Henderson: Would either of you like to make a statement for students?
Jarrell: If I could give a statement to students it would simply be, “Let us help you. We are here to help you. Let us help you. Let us be part of the solution.”
Hamilton: We’re a little concerned that they’re not feeling outstanding right now. My message is, “Things are going to be better.” They are pretty bad right now, Paul and I are not naive. But it is going to get better. Every generation has dealt with its own crises. When I was a kid, it was Vietnam. I thought the world was coming to an end. I still remember it. There was a great racial divide, there was an energy crisis, and then there was Watergate. We hit pretty much all the boxes back then, and yet you pushed on. My message overwhelmingly is we have to stay optimistic and feel responsible to be a part of the change. That’s where I want to leave the students to be optimistic and work with us, and we really want to help them have a better future.
