College’s founding president leaves legacy of learning

Amo DeBernardis fought hard for creation of Rock Creek campus

The Beaverton Valley Times, Feb 25, 2010, Updated Feb 26, 2010

A pioneer

DeBernardis pioneered concepts that today are integral to PCC’s mission, such as fostering a robust open campus, cultivating business partnerships and designing curriculum aimed at giving students and employers what they want.

“When we started Portland Community College in 1961 the name of the game was ‘students come first and everything else about the college is supportive and secondary,’” wrote DeBernardis in the PCC historical book “They Just Did It.”

“This perception of what a college should be should never change.”

In 1961, DeBernardis was named administrator of the newly founded Portland Community College while remaining assistant superintendent of Portland Public Schools. PCC had been the Vocational and Adult Education Division of PPS in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, the state Legislature approved a bill authorizing the formation of community colleges in Oregon.

Detractors advised DeBernardis that a community college would never make it in Portland. Yet his passion for education and his forceful nature meant he refused to be stopped. An administrator at the time said that if the college refused to be born naturally, DeBernardis would have taken a scalpel in hand and performed a caesarean to make it happen.

PCC would soon have space in the 22-classroom building in the old Failing Elementary School, which would later be renamed the Ross Island Center. DeBernardis pulled up stakes from his own office at Portland Public Schools and moved to a room at the building. He had been warned it was a poor career move and that he was tying his future to a hopeless cause.

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