Portland Community College

Portland Community College is the largest community college in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in Portland, it serves 1.9 million residents in the five-county area of Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, Clackamas, and Columbia counties. PCC enrolls over 83,000 students annually in this area of 1500sqmi in northwest Oregon.HistoryThe college was founded in 1961 as an adult education program for the local public school system, operating out of the former Elementary School since 1959 and renamed Portland Community College in 1961. Voters approved the establishment of an independent district for the college in 1968. Amo DeBernardis (1913-2010), former assistant superintendent of Portland Public Schools, was the founding president of the school, serving from 1961 to 1979.The Cascade Campus opened in Northeast Portland in 1971, and the Rock Creek Campus opened in Washington County in 1976. The district passed a $374 million bond measure in 2008. PCC's $25 million Willow Creek Center opened in 2009 and earned a platinum LEED certification the next year. The Newberg Center opened in October 2011, replacing a temporary arrangement in use for the 2010–11 school year, in which PCC courses were offered at the Chehalem Cultural Center. The center's 13,000sqft building is a LEED platinum-designed building, the first net-zero higher education building in Oregon.