To say that Laurie Cornelius has had an impact on Clark College’s Child and Family Studies program is a bit like saying that Dr. Seuss may have influenced children’s literature—you’ve definitely indulged in understatement. Cornelius, who retired fall quarter after 35 years at Clark, has served in just about every position the program has: first as a teacher of toddlers and preschoolers, then moving on to serve as parent education faculty, early childhood education faculty, lab coordinator, and, for the past 16 years, as director of the program. And while Cornelius is quick to point out that she never considered CFS “her” program, the fact remains that she was instrumental in making it the statewide model that it is today. The program currently serves three main functions: providing affordable, high-quality child care for Clark students and staff, as well as for the larger community; operating as a lab school for students in the college’s early childhood education program; and educating parents. (All parents are automatically enrolled in a one-credit elective each quarter, which they pass by completing homework that covers everything from handling tantrums to encouraging scientific inquiry in toddlers.) Clark 24/7 sat down with Cornelius before she left to talk about how the program developed into its current form, including its nationally recognized outdoor play area, the 2011 opening of its beautiful Oliva Family Early Learning Center, and why it’s important for kids to get really, really muddy.

Laurie Cornelius speaks at the 2010 groundbreaking of the Oliva Family Early Learning Center.

Tell me about how you first came to this program.

I walked in as a parent, pregnant, 40 years ago. I was a visitor to see what an infant-parent class looked like. Later on down the road, I had my twins, and some of the lactating moms here donated breast milk. I started working here as a teacher in 1980.

When I became director in 1999, I knew it wasn’t “my” program. I inherited this program on the foundational efforts of so many outstanding people who preceded me. I tell the staff all the time that we don’t own the program, that we’re temporary keepers of the program, and how we are with each other in the course of every day, be it with children or with each other, will be the culture of the program that we hand off to others in the future. And that’s the heart and soul of a program.

I think it’s a myth to think that one person is responsible for innovative and creative work, because if you are going to build vision for a program, it has to be shared with others and others have to own it. It can’t be just one person. I believe firmly in that. A lot of my work and some of the success and achievement that I can feel good about, that I would say are my legacy work here, it couldn’t have existed without a whole community of people embracing the idea and contributing to it. Whenever you have people contributing to something, it always becomes much richer and thoughtful than it could have been in the beginning with just one person thinking about it.

Keeping that in mind, though, what are the innovations at CFS that you feel most personally attached to, that you would consider your “legacy” work?

Not putting them in order, but … the first is, when I was teaching, I realized that people thought of childcare as separate from education. In our world, it becomes preschool or childcare. Preschool is valued. We would have students say, “I want to be a preschool teacher, not a childcare worker.” That’s the value judgment being placed. When with all of the brain research showing what children need, with 90 percent of their brain development in the first five years, it’s really clear that children need programs and environments that are nurturing and investigative at the same time. That means you combine it—in our field, we often call it “educare”—so their needs are being met and attended to.

So we had three separate programs at the time. We had our PRIDE [early intervention] program, we had our Parent Education Department, and we had Childcare Services. They were all separate. Most of the families in Parent Ed, the bulk of them were stay-at-home moms, and they were mostly highly educated, not very diverse, and seeking out a quality preschool program. It was a parent co-op founded post-World War II and had a high parent involvement and sense of community.

The Childcare side of the house was also the ECE [Early Childhood Education] lab school, and that was for student childcare services and training for students getting their degree in ECE. It had no family involvement, no connection with the family. The parents basically just arrived and dropped off, there were no programs, no gatherings, nothing.

In the Early Intervention program, they had a separate classroom for children with identified delays or disabilities, with individual therapy appointment that weren’t in natural environments.

So they were all different. And so at that time, I was frustrated with this separation of childcare and preschool, and started thinking about what it would look like if we integrated all of these programs. So in the year 2000, we started to do the work to integrate. And I used to have lunch meetings—I used to call them my Hot Tomato Meetings, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to survive them! [Laughs.] People were angry with the concept of integration. We had parents from Parent Ed who said, “We’re not going to watch Childcare children. We’re going to get head lice from them.” There were biases. It was the tension between at-home and working families—somehow one’s better than the other—it was that kind of tension. The reality was that, with us doing lots of talking and sorting it out—and some parents left, but most stayed—we came up with a model that was integrated.

And given the trends and research that has happened since that time, we realize that we were spot-on. You know, that we were really leading and advancing the work forward. The state board did a report recommending that the Parent Ed model in the state broaden to more diverse populations. That’s exactly what we did. So I take pride in that we created a program that put this model forward. In the old model, if a parent in the Parent Ed program got divorced and had to go to work, they had to move their child. So now that doesn’t happen. A family’s circumstances can change, and the child doesn’t have to leave. Our model allows for flexibility and options for families. I think that has been invaluable.

The concept, or the value, was universal access. I used a phrase—in fact, we put it up in the Haag Lounge when we were working on it—“Is everybody safe and warm inside?” My goal was to make sure that was happening. [Planning and Effectiveness Research, Reporting, and Data Professional] Susan Maxwell helped us do an anonymous survey a few years ago, and we were looking demographics like single parent, first generation in college. We looked at race, culture, ethnicity, all of that, with these basic questions about feeling welcome, and there was no distinction in the answers between groups. We were doing real well. The relationships were being made.

I’m not saying we have a perfect world. We’re certainly working on it. But I do take pride in the fact that we do see children and families as being special, and recognize the beauty of who they are when they come through our doors.

Whether you’re a student parent, a faculty/staff parent, or a community parent—if you’ve been a parent—you know we have the most important treasure of each and every family up here. And if we are going to have them housed here within the confines of a fence, then we have to make sure that the environment is investigative and nurturing so those kiddos can thrive.

People often will enter the program and be here a little bit, and they’re trying to figure it out. They’re saying, “This place is different.” And they don’t know why. They can’t quite put their finger on it. We speak of the environment as being a third teacher. And when we speak to that, it is both the emotional environment and the physical environment. We work really hard at being thoughtful about how we set up our environments.

Another legacy is definitely the outdoors. And that’s a passion I have. That’s the personal piece of me that was really, really important to me. It wasn’t a conscious starting down that road. We had built this building over here and there was no money for a playground. And so we started researching. And the place we started is where everybody starts: toy equipment catalogs. You ask, “How many kids can get on this? What kinds of things can they do?”

Laurie Cornelius at an Arbor Day tree planting at Child & Family Studies.

I grew up in Seattle but I grew up with a really rich outdoor experience with my parents. All seasons, we were out camping. And then in college I had the wonderful opportunity to work up at Mt. Rainier with Ranger naturalists and do campfire programs with families.

So I realized that if children are going to be in childcare for long hours, they needed more than a playground. They needed more than recess. They needed a rich environment. So we dumped the playground idea. We kept elements of it, and we said, “Well, what did we like to do? What are our play memories?” They were all outdoors. They were all playing hide-and-seek—if you play hide-and-seek, are there bushes and places to hide? If you played in barns, are there straw bales? If you played at the beach, where’s the water? If you camped, where are the woods, where are the rocks, where is the driftwood?

And so that birthed a whole new concept of how we designed outdoor play spaces. This was the early to mid-90s. So that brought on challenges, because we were licensed, and licensors did not want rocks, logs—didn’t see that as being a safe environment. The world is very litigious. In fact, I think Head Start had sent out an article on safety saying to saw the branches off of trees so children couldn’t climb them.

So I ended up, through my advocacy work and the development of this space, speaking to the State Convention of Licensors on the importance of risk in outdoor play and the need to change the WACs [Washington Administrative Codes]. It was really risky for me, because I was putting up slides of things from our program that kids weren’t allowed to do, and saying they needed to do it. So it really was pretty scary for me to do. But I did it, and lo and behold, things started changing. And now you can find rocks and driftwood and trees in many play areas around the state. That’s one of the legacies that I feel has been invaluable.

I really hammered on it. I was in City Council, school districts, all over the place, because I believe we need to change how we view our outdoor environments for kids. Right now they’re postage-stamp grass lots. And we need the woods. Kids need green spaces, they need flatlands.

It’s interesting because there’s a whole movement now toward “adventure playgrounds” that favor natural play features instead of the old swing sets and slides.

Right. There is a huge movement to start doing that kind of work. At the time, I think we were doing some very cutting-edge work with our play space, because not very many had done it. The University of Quebec published an article right around the same time we were opening on three play spaces in the United States that should be used as models for designing school spaces for Canada. We were one of them. I was very proud of that as well. Since that time, we’ve done tours, fly-ins. We’ve had national conferences in Portland, and one international conference, and our site has always been chosen to be one of three sites in the Portland-Vancouver area for touring. So we take a lot of pride in the environments and the work that we prepare.

So changing the WACs and creating the play space were huge. What we did was we used plants in the design of the outdoor space to have different focuses of play, so that when kids go outside—if they’re going to be in a huge group of kids and do everything in a room, we’ve got to get them out of that environment where they can be with one or two kids and have places to hide, we’ve got places to crawl into, we’ve got places of discovery.

[Recently retired Grounds Manager] Skip Jimerson has been such a partner in crime with me, oh my gosh. Because he loves it; he gets childhood. I’ll never forget when I told him, “We want a mud kitchen.” He said, “You want a what?” And I said, “We want logs and we want dirt, and we want kids to be able to play in the mud, make mud pies, drive trucks through the mud. We’ll clean ‘em up afterward. We want our kids to get muddy here.” And he was totally into it, he just laughed.

Laurie Cornelius, center, with Clark College Foundation President/CEO Lisa Gibert and former CFS parent Jan Oliva at the opening of the Oliva Family Early Learning Center.

And the Oliva Family Early Learning Center—I also see that as a legacy. Because in early learning, getting that type of building just is almost impossible, because there’s no money. Our field is devalued because of the image of babysitting and childcare. Often you’ll hear—and this is a huge challenge—people say, “Don’t advise people to go into childcare, because it’s low wages.” And yet it’s the most important job on earth, given the scope of a developing child. It is just critical because children can’t catch up if they’re not having opportunity while their brains are developing. And it’s been proven. By third grade, we’ve got kids going in with as much as a 2,000-word discrepancy in vocabulary. You’ve got children who have been read to and traveled and been to OMSI—and children who have never held a book. It’s just horrible.

So I would say those are the areas I’m most proud of. Those, and always—and this is probably the most important one—the attention to relationships within the program. That’s that culture of caring. And it’s a balance, because we’re in a bureaucracy, so we have all the rules and WACs and codes we have to follow. I always try to make sure that there is some caring to go along with that, so I try to think aloud. I try to explain my thoughts, and if I’m not sure of the answer I’ll just say, “Well, I’ve got to think it through. I’m gonna need a little more time.”

You’ve talked a bit about how CFS has changed over the years. How have you seen Clark as a whole change?

Oh, goodness. It’s a huge change, huge. When I started, before Gaiser got remodeled, there was a room maybe a third of the size of what Gaiser Student Center is now, and a small stage, and every single employee could fit on a folding chair in there on Opening Day, and you knew everybody. And maybe there would be three or four new hires, no more than that. Then, as the college grew, they started having to open a sliding wall that opened up into where Student Services offices were. And then pretty soon it got too big for that. There were employee directories with photos, so you could always see what a person looked like. Now there are so many employees that you just don’t know them. It’s just gotten so big. So that’s one big change.

I remember when email came in. And the campus was all set up for email except for us. The VP of Administrative Services at the time said, “Well, they’re up there with the children; they don’t need email.” And I complained. And his response to me was, “You can walk down to Foster every day and pick up your email.”

Children, young kids in our society—they’re pushed to the edges. They’re not embraced. On every campus, the childcare program is always on the edge. If we really were elevating and seeing the importance of how we as a community are raising kids, the childcare program should be in the middle of a circle instead of on the edge. Though now that the STEM Building is being built, we won’t be as much on the edge here.

I know my son’s loved watching the building go up—the Oliva Center’s windows look straight out onto it.

Child & Family Studies children perform and display artwork during Clark College’s annual Sakura Festival.

Oh yeah, it’s been great curriculum. But to go back to what I was saying about how we view kids—I mean, I’m speaking broadly of our society. You can’t be loud in a restaurant. You can’t cry on planes, evidently, given the news of late. There’s just a lot of intolerance of children. And I used to be of the opinion that that was how Clark viewed our children. Not anymore. I think that Clark has clearly demonstrated an exception to the rule. The reason I say that is that we now have so many areas of the campus that think of us and call us and connect with us. It’s amazing, the collaborations and richness of what some of the different departments are bringing to this program. We get our clay from the art department. The kids play down in the fountain. They’re part of the Sakura Festival every year. We’re part of the Seventh Generation powwow every year. Student Services always invites the children to attend different performances. We partner with the Japanese department and they have exchange students who spend time with us. We have collaborated in the past with the library; the kids have had story times down there. One year in the summer, there was a collaboration with PE fitness classes. They found that when they brought the kids down to play games with the adults, there was more laughter and movement in their class than just simply exercising—it was playful.

So I appreciate that. Fundraisers like our car wash and art show—we get great support from the campus, wonderful feedback. We want to do more of those collaborations and partnerships, both on and off campus.

More than a quarter of our student body at this point has dependent children. In a way, Clark’s commitment to this program is part of our commitment to them, and part of our commitment to social equity.

We try to keep a balance—I’d say 70 percent student parents. It fluctuates a bit. In that student population, we see high numbers of what have been identified as risk populations for retention. So one of the things, just before leaving, was Susan Maxwell was instrumental in helping us to create a way to track our student parents’ success rates. We’re doing that across the state with all childcare programs. We are going to be looking at retention and strategies with these populations. We also believe—and we don’t know this yet, it will have to be a research question—but we really want to know what our retention rate is. Because we’re so close to the families and we work with retention in supporting their children, and I want to see what the retention rate comparison is.

We have large numbers of students here who are first-generation in college. Our Family Life faculty do an amazing job of supporting student parents in school. And student families have stress. They have life happen to them. And by us having that option to have parent involvement, we can design specific involvement that will support them in whatever stress they are facing.

It happens here all the time. The support that this program can provide students is just amazing. They come in to withdraw their kids because they’re dropping out, and they’ll be sobbing. Maybe it’s something at home, maybe it’s the workload, maybe it’s trauma from their past that’s creating stress. And we bring them in and sit them down and connect them to resources—and they stay in school. Nobody dropping off or picking up their kid is going to see those stories. But they are here, lots and lots and lots of them.

It’s about supporting families—supporting them to be successful in a career path, but you’re also supporting them to start a journey of parenting and preparation for the K-12 system. And if we’re sending children who are healthy and excited about learning and ready to learn—who are open to inquiry, open to investigation—then we’re breaking cycles. We’re gaining an opportunity for a future Clarker to be successful here at the college.

We have third-generation families here in the program. We have students who work for us who were children here. We have grandchildren here of people who went to Clark. There’s a rich history, and lots of new families who are entering through our door all the time.

What advice do you have for whoever comes in to your position? [Ed note: At the time of this interview, Cornelius’s successor had not yet been named. Michele Volk is now the Director of Child & Family Studies.]

Oh, I’ve got pages and pages and pages of single-spaced writing already! [Laughs.] About the history, about the values. You know, it isn’t about staying the same. That goes back to the very beginning comments about how we are with each other. Every person who comes in the door here, even if they’re here for just a short period of time, they’re bringing something into the space and into our world, and we want to value that, we want to value their voice. So when a new person comes in and joins our staff, they’re bringing a beautiful dimension of who they are and what they can bring to our community. And we really believe in sharing the strengths and talents and joys between each other and with our children and families. Different teachers bring different passions and interests to the program. We all do that. The outdoors was definitely mine. We have a beautiful performance that we do every year, and that was Sarah Theberge’s gift. And Michelle Mallory’s bringing in the development of the art studio, the development of the library. You see the passion, you see the gifts, and they bring that into the program and it gets expressed. So the new director will come in and will have interests and passions and things that she or he will bring to the program, and it will thrive, and it will be wonderful.

That’s another reason why it’s always good to have some change. Also, you don’t pay attention to things you don’t like to do. That can create gaps. I’m not savvy with technology—I get by, but I don’t Facebook. We need somebody who can bring people up to speed. I bought iPad Air2’s for every classroom. They’re for electronic assessment—that’s the future, we need to be looking at the way we do our assessment of children and screening, we absolutely have to do it—and I don’t want to have anything to do with it! [Laughs.] That’s for the next generation.

So what comes next for you?

I’ve told everybody I’m taking one year off. I’ve had many approaches about consulting work, but I need a break from the early learning community for a year to reassess and then I’ll decide what I can and can’t do.

My oldest grandkid is in kindergarten, and the two youngest are both one—they’re four months apart. So I will definitely be spending time with them, and I’ll be traveling and gardening and working out and probably doing a fair amount of cleaning and tossing things out. I’ll be—oh! The kitchen! You were asking about legacy earlier. I’m really proud of getting our food program running, so our children can have hot, nutritious lunches made with healthy ingredients. Gosh, how did I forget that?

Well, 35 years—you can do an awful lot in that time, it seems like.

Yeah. [Laughs.] Yeah, I guess so.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Professor Veronica Brock

“This is where I grew up,” says Professor Veronica Brock from her office in O’Connell Sports Complex on Clark’s main campus. “My dad was a professor here, teaching physics and astronomy. I was a student here. I grew up with ‘Penguin blood,’ as we like to say.”

Brock, who recently marked 20 years of teaching at Clark, didn’t intend to follow in her father’s footsteps. After graduating from East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania with a Master of Science degree in cardiac rehabilitation and primary prevention, she remained on the East Coast working in cardiac rehabilitation. But gradually she began to realize that she didn’t love the clinical aspects of her work as much as she did teaching patients about their health.

“I’ve always just followed my heart when it came to career and jobs,” Brock says. “Every job I got, I’d say, ‘Oh, I like this aspect of the job—let’s do more of that.’ When I worked in cardiac rehab, I realized my favorite part of my job was the educational element.”

Brock began teaching health and physical education, and when she decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest, taking a position at Clark seemed like a natural fit. “It was a good match for my heart, with this job’s teaching and learning focus,” she says. “And I love the idea that, as an open enrollment institution, we provide an opportunity to everybody. That’s such a cool idea: If you want an education, you can get an education.”

Brock—who teaches health, physical education, fitness trainer, and health and physical education classes—says she loves seeing the changes her students make as they learn to develop new approaches toward their own health.

“In our curriculum, we don’t just want students to change their behavior during the class,” she says. “We want to teach lasting change, and that requires motivation. Motivation is two things: importance and confidence. You have to be able to define why it’s important for you to be doing this, and you have to be able to believe you can do it. If you don’t have motivation, you’re probably not going to stick with any exercise or health practice long-term.”

Brock’s certainly shown long-term motivation to make Clark a stronger institution. She has invested much of herself into Clark—professionally, personally, and financially. She has served on numerous committees, including the Healthy Penguin Nation Committee to promote employee health, and is a regular donor to the Clark College Foundation.

Brock says she began donating to the Foundation when her two children, now teenagers, were enrolled in the college’s Child & Family Studies program as preschoolers, making her family third-generation Penguins.

“My kids are the amazing people they are today because of that program,” she says. “So that really prompted me to give—I could see the program needed support.”

Since then, Brock has donated regularly to the Foundation, which supports capital improvements to the college as well as scholarships and programs to promote academic excellence.

“I like putting my money toward solving problems,” Brock says. “Education is a solution; if you educate the world, the world can change. It’s a very direct way to say, ‘I believe in what I’m doing and I believe in our students.’”

Read Veronica Brock’s Top 10 Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Does getting healthy feel so overwhelming to you that it doesn’t seem worth bothering to start? Health and Physical Education professor Veronica Brock has good news for you. “Just because you’re not eating carrots and walking a treadmill every day, that doesn’t mean you’re not healthy,” she says. “I’d love people to erase all the guilt they have about this, and to have an awareness that health is more than being physically healthy.”

Brock counsels those interested in developing healthier habits to start small. “Focus on baby steps to get to your end goal,” she says, adding that it’s important to clarify what that goal is. “Focus on why it’s important to you. Do you want to play with your grandkids more, or keep up with your own kids? Stay focused on that.”

Top 10 Tips

1. Get adequate amounts of sleep. The exact amount varies from person to person, but eight hours is the average.
2. Drink plenty of water (and no, sugary sodas are not an acceptable substitute).
3. Eat whole, unprocessed foods.
4. Eat primarily plants.
5. Eat mindfully. Be aware of when you’re hungry and not hungry, and don’t just eat on autopilot.
6. Be active at least 150 minutes a week.
7. Don’t sit for more than 30 minutes at a time. “Get up from the keyboard and take a quick walk,” Brock advises.
8. Be grateful. “Research shows gratitude helps with happiness,” Brock says. “Actively look for things to be grateful for in your life.”
9. Cultivate meaning and purpose in your life.
10. Cultivate healthy relationships. “Belong to something. Join something,” Brock advises. “Social connections help us stay healthy mentally, emotionally, and even physically.”

Dolly England

Clark College is pleased to announce that Dolly England, Diversity Outreach Manager, was recently appointed to the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs by Gov. Jay Inslee. As a commissioner for Southwest Washington, England will help shape policy and understanding regarding African-Americans in Washington State.

“Dolly England’s appointment to this important commission is a wonderful example of the important roles Clark College employees play in serving our community,” said Clark College President Robert K. Knight. “I am sure she will bring a wealth of insight and energy to the commission, just as she has done here at Clark.”

England, who has more than 15 years of experience working in community health and is the former vice president of the Vancouver NAACP, joined Clark College in January to help guide the college’s efforts to attract and retain diverse employees. Creating the Diversity Outreach Manager position is just one step in Clark’s effort to ensure the college continues to attract the best and brightest employee candidates. As part of this role, England is leading several efforts to expand and modernize the college’s outreach to potential new candidates. Some highlights of these new outreach efforts include:

• Members of the Clark’s Human Resources staff have begun attending regional community events and career fairs—totaling more than 15 by the end of 2015.
• Human Resources staff will attend national career fairs during the key faculty recruitment period of November – January.
• The college has recently contracted with social recruitment vendor CareerArc to strategically expand its job postings into the realm of social media.
• The college has set an ambitious new goal of ensuring the candidate pool for each new job opening is at least 25 percent diverse, a description which includes race, color, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, creed, and veteran status.
• Clark College is a participant in the newly formed Southwest Washington Community Human Resources Group, which was developed by local employers to share and develop strategies to diversify recruitment both within their respective organizations and in the region as a whole.

“This is an exciting time for Clark College,” says England. “By expanding our reach and using some of the same tools Fortune 500 companies use to recruit the best and brightest candidates from across the country, we can ensure that Clark is building a workforce that will maintain its high reputation for decades to come.”

Clark College employs 1,600 employees. As a nonprofit Washington State institution, Clark College offers faculty and staff the opportunity to serve the community by guiding individuals to achieve their educational and professional goals. The college also offers many attractive benefits for potential employees, including its location in the heart of the Pacific Northwest; its beautiful, 101-acre campus; access to discounted classes; fitness center membership; on-site child care; ample opportunities for professional development; high-quality teaching facilities; and teaching-focused faculty.

Photo: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Professor Michiyo Okuhara helps members of the Japanese Club teach children in Clark’s Child & Family Studies program about kimono in advance of the 2014 Sakura Festival.

Professor Michiyo Okuhara is well aware that students who enroll in her Japanese courses probably have a limited understanding of her home country’s culture.

“They see it in pop culture—anime, manga, Hello Kitty—or sometimes traditional things like samurai,” she says. “In class we don’t focus on animation or comic books. We try to inspire them to learn the language, but also a more complete sense of Japanese culture.”

Ironically, for someone who now teaches Japanese, Okuhara originally came to the United States to learn English. “I studied English in Japan, but I wanted to use it and live it,” she explains. She earned her master’s degree at Portland State University, also getting a certificate to teach Japanese as a foreign language from that institution, and in 1999 began teaching at Clark.

“At the time, the program was very small,” she remembers. “I had four classes a year, just Japanese 101 to 103.”

Today, thanks largely to Okuhara’s efforts, Clark offers two years of Japanese study. The college’s Japanese Club, which Okuhara helped found, is a vibrant and visible presence on the main campus. Okuhara has also been a key organizer of the college’s annual Sakura Festival, and has helped incorporate children from the college’s Child and Family Studies (CFS) program into the event—something she started after her own son, Anthony, graduated from the program’s daycare. (Okuhara’s daughter, Sakura, also has a Clark connection, having earned her associate here before transferring to Western Washington University.)

Okuhara, who received tenure in 2013, says she appreciates the partnerships she’s been able to develop at Clark. “We have great colleagues, great collaboration,” she says. “Like with CFS, and also International Programs are a great support for us. Or when we had a Japanese theater troupe visiting and needed a performance space; [drama professor] Gene Biby offered to let us use his stage. We’re a small department, but with other people’s help, we can do things we cannot do alone.”

This year, Okuhara received 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Award. “This instructor goes above and beyond, helping students outside of class and outside of her office hours,” wrote one student in her nomination. “She not only teaches the language, but she puts forth an extra energy to relate our lessons to Japanese culture. Her knowledge is not only shared to the class, but to the Clark community as well.”

Many of Okuhara’s former students return during Sakura to visit “Okuhara-sensei,” as they call her. Others write her from Japan to tell her about working there. Okuhara cherishes those stories, but feels that teaching world languages helps students even if they never leave their hometown.

“Not everyone gets to major in Japanese or work in Japan,” she says. “But part of what they learn is empathy for other cultures, and maybe patience with people from other countries who don’t speak English. I really enjoy seeing students learn. When they say Japanese is fun—that’s what I hope for.”

Learn about other recipients of the 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Awards.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Bakery instructor Alison Dolder shows off some of her students’ work.

Alison Dolder has got to have, hands-down, the best-smelling classroom at Clark College. The Bakery instructor and interim department head spends much of her time guiding students as they work in the program’s lab, which is also a fully functional bakery. Racks of pie shells and biscuits stand by the doorway, and the air is thick with the aromas of butter and sugar. Students in chef’s whites stand at tables, making croissants and baguettes to be sold in the college’s retail bakery in Gaiser Hall.

“The training here is very different from some culinary schools,” says Dolder. “Our students come in, and the very first day they’re put in their station and they’re forming, they’re cutting—everything they’ll be doing for the next two weeks till they switch stations. It’s as close to a production bakery as we can get. When they get out and enter the job market, they don’t require as much training [as other new graduates] because they’re used to the fast pace. They’re ready to jump right in.”

It’s that combination of practicality and enthusiasm—combined with empathy and support—that prompted students to nominate Dolder for the 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Award. “I joined the baking program on a whim and it has come to be the greatest decision of my life,” wrote one student in her nomination. “I feel like I can be not only the best baker or the best businesswoman around, but I can be the best of myself at all times, and for that I am grateful. Ms. Alison is so encouraging at times, she is tough at times, she is compassionate at times, and she can challenge you daily.”

Dolder encourages her students to express their creativity, whether it’s through experimenting with whole-wheat croissant dough or designing a steampunk-inspired layer cake.

Dolder came to baking almost by accident. She’d started college as a zoology major, but didn’t enjoy the math and chemistry courses and decided to leave school to regroup. “My husband was going to school full-time and working full-time, and so just as something to do, I took a cake-decorating class,” she says. “It turns out I was really good at it.”

Dolder worked in bakeries and taught cake decoration for more than a decade before deciding to return to school to learn her craft in-depth. Ironically, what appealed to her most was the chemistry involved. “I love how you can take all these ingredients and turn them into something else, something delicious,” she says.

Dolder graduated from Clark’s bakery program in 2000 and quickly landed a job at the nationally known Pearl Bakery in Portland. But while she loved the work, she realized it wasn’t compatible with having two young children. “I was really lucky to work with [former Pearl head baker and current Little T owner] Tim Healea, but it was 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.,” she says. When a teaching position opened up at Clark, she decided to apply.

Dolder makes sure her students understand the realities of life as a professional baker. “I tell them, ‘Don’t believe everything you see on TV,’” she says. “You know, there’s that illusion that ‘I’m going to start baking cakes and get my own show and be famous.’ Baking is hard work.”

Dolder is happy to have returned to Clark to share her love and knowledge of baking with today’s students. She’s looking forward to doing so in the college’s soon-to-be-remodeled Culinary Arts wing. “It’s so exciting,” she says. “I’m looking forward to introducing a new cohort model for our program in a shiny new facility.” A shiny new facility that, in short order, will probably once again turn into the best-smelling classroom on campus.

Learn about other recipients of the 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Awards.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

English instructor Matthew Gallaher.

Matthew Gallaher’s English Composition is winding down for the day. “If you have any last-minute questions, I’ll stick around,” the instructor tells his students, who are broken up into groups to “workshop” their papers with their classmates.

Gallaher sits down near one slump-shouldered student. “How are you doing?” he asks the student. “Do you have questions?”

“No,” sighs the student. “I just wish I had more time.”

“You do have time,” Gallaher responds with a smile. He points to the student’s paper. “This is only a first draft. You’re still going to do a second draft, and then revise it again before handing it in. Don’t give up on this!”

Imagine every possible permutation of the word “encourage,” and it shows up in students’ nominations of Gallaher for the 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Award, along with words like “fun,” “sincere,” and “enthusiasm.”

“The largest impact that Matthew has had on his students, and on me personally, is his ability to make students feel important, and that their individual success is valuable,” reads one. “He goes above and beyond to help others, and is encouraging to his students to continue to develop and share their skills.”

Gallaher’s enthusiasm and support led him to be recruited as advisor for Alpha Sigma Phi, the Clark College chapter of the international honor society Phi Theta Kappa that blends academic achievement with public service. After two years in that position, Gallaher is stepping down to focus on teaching, but he says he enjoyed mentoring students as they developed new ways to help their community, including annual food drives and a campaign to reduce and reuse electronic waste.

“I was in Boy Scouts as a kid and an Eagle Scout, and it kind of reminded me of that,” says Gallaher, who earned Phi Theta Kappa’s Paragon Award for New Advisors in 2013.

Much of Gallaher’s work at Clark contains echoes of his early years. “My whole family got their associate degrees,” he says. “My parents both came from working class families and could never have afforded college without community college. I went to community college as a high school student, St. Petersburg College in South Florida.”

Gallaher, who earned his bachelor’s degree from University of South Florida and his master’s in English from Portland State University, says he appreciates the diversity of students he encounters teaching at a community college. “You never know what kind of students you’re going to have,” he says. “There are vets from the last two conflicts, and there are students who have only been in this country a few months. There are older students and students who are still in high school. You get all these people together, and they don’t agree almost ever, and it’s kind of great to hear them get riled up as they hear opinions and viewpoints they’ve never been exposed to before.”

Gallaher says he was honored to discover students had nominated him for the award, especially because he is an adjunct instructor, teaching part-time at Clark and part-time at Portland Community College. “It was surprising and humbling,” he says. “Being an adjunct can be lonely. You don’t quite feel part of the community. Phi Theta Kappa really helped me feel more a part of Clark. And now this is just another way of saying, ‘Hey, you love Clark—and Clark loves you, too.’ That feels good.”

Learn about other recipients of the 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Awards.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Biology professor Steven Clark in his office.

Steven Clark’s office is full of animals. There’s the “Cats Against the Bomb” calendar; the poster of the grizzly bear; the woodblock print of a turtle; the vintage Audubon Society birdwatching chart; photos of bees, rodents, spiders, his dogs. The effect is something like walking into a natural history museum that’s been shoved into a filing cabinet.

“This room is reflective of my interests,” says Clark, glancing over at an illustration of wildflowers above his desk. And, indeed, a conversation with Clark is likely to take you through the intricacies of parasitic wasps, the difficulties involved in attaching radio monitors to pond turtles, and a startlingly accurate imitation of a pika—a small, rabbit-like creature whose populations in the Columbia Gorge Clark has been helping to monitor for years.

It’s hard not to look around this room and assume that Clark was destined to be a biology professor. But Clark, who received his Master of Special Education for the Hearing Impaired from Lewis & Clark College in 1986, began his career teaching almost everything but biology at the Washington School for the Deaf.

“I was attracted to the idea of teaching an underserved population,” he says. Eventually, however, Clark found himself drawn to the sciences, and in 2000 he left the School for the Deaf to pursue a master’s degree in Environmental Sciences and Resources at Portland State University. For four years, he worked as a field biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife while also teaching mathematics and biology at Clark as an adjunct instructor.

For Clark, teaching at a community college still fulfills that urge to help underserved populations. “There are great teachers at all colleges, I know that, but I think the mission of the community college—to teach the rank and file of our community—I like that,” he says. “My mother never got to go to college. But I used to think that if my mom had gone to college, she would have gone to a community college.”

Professor Clark at a STEM demonstration in 2015.

Clark, who received tenure in 2014, currently teaches the biology sequence for life sciences majors, a three-quarter series that has earned a reputation as a daunting academic challenge.

“It’s funny, because I think of myself as a warm person, but I know my class is often perceived as … rigorous,” Clark says, smiling and pausing as he searches for the right word. “I think some students get nervous at first when I explain the work load. But the reason I talk about it from the very beginning is that I want them to understand what they’re getting into. I invite students from the past year to talk about what worked in getting them to be successful. I’ll tell students to show me their notes so I can see where they’re missing something. And you know, I think by the middle of winter quarter, their [study] habits have gotten better and they’re starting to have fun.”

Clark’s theory is backed up by the many students who nominated him for a 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Award. “Biology may very well be the study of life, but without an enthusiastic instructor it can seem completely lifeless,” reads one nomination. “Steven Clark has somehow managed to maintain a strict and efficient authority over his classroom, while also making it incredibly fun and intriguing. I can honestly say that I have never seen those two concepts, authority and fun, incorporated into a class so well together. … He truly cares for his students, that is abundantly apparent.”

For Clark, his classes’ rigor is one of the ways he shows that he cares. “I like my students to know that they did all their hard stuff at community college, where the focus is on teaching and the tuition is lower and there’s more room to recover from mistakes,” he says. “The best thing for me is when former students email me and say, ‘I’m at Washington State University right now, and me and the other Clark students are in the top tier.’”

Learn about other recipients of the 2014-2015 Exceptional Faculty Awards.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Professor Donald Appert conducts the Clark College Orchestra in 2015 at the end of his 25th year of teaching music at the college.

The award-winning Clark College Orchestra concluded its 2014-2015 season with its annual spring concert on June 14—an event that also served to celebrate Clark Orchestra Director and Conductor Donald Appert’s 25th anniversary at the college. The concert was held at the Royal Durst Theatre in the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics.

Dr. Appert receives a “memory box” full of messages from friends, colleagues, and former students at his 25th anniversary of teaching at Clark. The box was presented by Dean Miles Jackson.

Featured on the program was pianist Renato Fabbro performing the U.S. premiere of Maestro Appert’s Piano Concerto in Mi. In addition the orchestra performed “Buckaroo Holiday” from Rodeo by Aaron Copland and Scheherazade by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov.

Clark College Band Director Richard Inouye, Music Department Program Coordinator Shelly Williams, Orchestra Director Donald Appert, and Vocal Music Program Director April Duvic gather to celebrate Prof. Appert’s 25th anniversary of teaching at Clark.

Dr. Appert was honored by the musicians, music department faculty, and college administration for his quarter-century of work at Clark College. Social Science and Fine Arts Dean Miles Jackson paid tribute to Appert after the concert for building the orchestra into a “fantastic program that keeps getting better and better each season.” He also applauded Appert’s commitment to the students in the classroom and in private instruction.

Clarinetist John Gibson, who played at Prof. Appert’s first Clark concert in 1990, returned to perform with him at his 25th anniversary concert on June 14, 2015.

Following the concert, Dr. Appert was further honored by long-time orchestra supporters and friends, as well as by the orchestra’s musicians, in a reception. Among those congratulating him were Kirsten Hisatomi Norvell and John Gibson, two musicians who played in the Clark Orchestra at Dr. Appert’s first Clark concert, which was held on December 5, 1990. Both Norvell and Gibson have played concerts with Dr. Appert throughout the years and performed in the June 14 concert.

Dr. Appert’s programming, which has won national awards through the years, is one of the artistic strengths that has built his reputation at Clark. In addition to programming standard orchestral repertoire, Appert has introduced Clark musicians to rarely performed works by lesser-known composers; premiered new works by contemporary composers; and performed a number of his own compositions. Dr. Appert also has a long history of bringing local, national, and international soloists and guest conductors to enhance the artistic experience of Clark College musicians. The 2014-2015 season featured baritone soloist David Wakeham (Australia) and guest conductor Paolo Biancalana (Italy) in addition to Fabbro, who teaches at the University of Portland.

Music Department Program Coordinator Shelly Williams contributed this article.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Kathleen Fockler smiles after receiving the news that she has received the 2015-2016 Community College President’s Scholarship.

About a month ago, Kathleen Fockler was on the way to a Beaverton testing facility to sit for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), the exam each nursing student must pass before officially becoming a Registered Nurse.

She was ready. It had taken her 20 years to reach this point, but she felt confident that the rigorous coursework of the Clark College Nursing Program had prepared her for the exam. Finally, after years of struggle, she was going to achieve her long-held dream of becoming a nurse.

And then her car broke down.

In the middle of the Route 26 tunnel.

During morning rush hour.

It could have been a disaster. But Kathleen Fockler, age 47, is not someone to submit to defeat. When the tow truck arrived, she persuaded the driver to take both her car and herself to the testing site. She had driven there the week before just to be sure of the route—“I didn’t want to get lost,” she explains—so she was able to direct him there swiftly.

“I got there just a couple minutes after the exam began, and when I explained my situation, they let me go ahead and take the test,” Fockler recalls.

From the beginning, Fockler’s road to becoming a nurse has been beset by unexpected detours and daunting challenges. And each time, Fockler has been able to overcome these roadblocks with a combination of preparation, persistence, and support from those around her. During the 2015 Commencement ceremony, her persistence was rewarded when Clark College President Robert K. Knight announced that she was the recipient of this year’s Community College President’s Award in honor of Val Ogden. This scholarship provides full tuition and fees for two years to a Clark graduate completing their bachelor’s degree at Washington State University Vancouver.

“I still can’t believe it,” Fockler says. “This is an incredible opportunity. A door has just been opened right up for me.”

Fockler began taking pre-nursing courses at Clark in 1994. However, her plans were derailed when her then-newborn son, Gabe, began experiencing seizures and developmental delays. “The timing was not right,” Fockler says. She decided to leave school and concentrate on supporting her son and her daughter, MaKenzie, who was born three years after Gabe.

Fockler held onto her dream even while spending many years working as a paraprofessional assistant in the Evergreen School District Early Childhood Center, helping support children with developmental delays. It was only when Gabe entered Clark through the Running Start program that Fockler felt the time was right for her to return to school as well.

At first, the experience of returning to school after 20 years was intimidating. Courses required online registration—Fockler didn’t even own a computer. But she quickly found the support she needed at Clark.

“The resources that Clark has are tremendous,” she says. “There’s a math lab, there are computer labs, there’s a retention specialist in the nursing department. There’s just so much in place to help the student.”

Fockler is quick to point out another resource that helped her on her journey: the college’s scholarships office. “When I applied to nursing school, I thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’” she recalls. “At the time, I was working two jobs, and I’d heard how demanding the nursing curriculum was.”

But Clark’s scholarship specialists quickly went into action, finding Fockler potential scholarship opportunities and encouraging her to apply. “[Outreach/Scholarship Coordinator] Lizette Drennan was like my cheerleader,” she recalls. “There was a postcard of the scholarship staff that I found, and I stuck it in my binder to remind me about the people who were supporting me. I had a picture of my family, and Lizette’s smiling face.”

2015-2016 Community College Presidential Scholarship recipient Kathleen Fockler takes a moment to hug and thank her nursing professors at commencement.

Fockler also found support from the nursing faculty, who encouraged her to keep going. Fockler gained confidence after working in the program’s state-of-the-art simulation lab, which helped her develop clinical skills before she even began her internship.

That internship proved to be another challenge. From the beginning, Fockler had set her sights on becoming a pediatric nurse working with medically fragile children, a goal formed through her experiences sitting in hospitals with Gabe early on. But Clark’s nursing program had only one pediatric internship opening per cohort.

A faculty member suggested Fockler volunteer at the Center for Medically Fragile Children (CMFC) at Providence in Portland to gain experience. Clark didn’t have an internship partnership set up with the CMFC; these agreements are labor-intensive and highly competitive. But Fockler so impressed the CMFC staff as a volunteer that they decided to create an internship partnership for her. Now, Clark has a regular internship opening at the center.

Throughout her studies, Fockler has shown a tireless work ethic. She went over notes while waiting in her children’s doctor offices. She reviewed cranial nerves while sitting beside her mother’s hospital bed after a surgery. And when Fockler herself had to undergo thyroid surgery, she didn’t skip a class, deciding to simply attend the evening lecture rather than her standard morning one.

“Each day, I try to learn everything I can,” she says.

On top of all that, Fockler found time to regularly volunteer with the Evergreen School District, the CFMC, SHARE House, and the Student Nurse Association of Clark College.

Despite her talent and perseverance, however, Fockler knew there was another huge hurdle standing between herself and her goal. In order to work in a specialized hospital setting like the CMFC, Fockler would need to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. Fockler—who lives in Vancouver with her children; husband, Bunnell; and mother-in-law, Beth LaViolette—has begun working with an in-home nursing care service for medically fragile children. Even so, she couldn’t see how she could afford university tuition for both herself and MaKenzie, who is entering the University of Washington in the fall. Receiving the Community College President’s Scholarship means her way is now clear to continue her education.

Fockler is effusive in her thanks to all the organizations who have provided scholarships to her, including the Clark College Foundation, Vancouver Rotary, and 40 et 8.

“I guess it really does take a village to raise a nurse,” says Fockler, who hopes one day to be able to fund her own nursing scholarship. “The community supported me tremendously, and working hard is my way of paying them back.”

Additional Scholarships

Through the support of the Clark College Foundation, two other finalists for the Community College President’s Scholarship were awarded $3,000 scholarships to continue their education. President Knight announced the scholarships to Julie Mercado and Melanie Brawley during the Commencement ceremony as well.

Photos: Clark College/Hannah Erickson (top) and Clark College/Jenny Shadley