May 25 to June 4 – Supplemental Trip Back out Again

          The initial trip across the country may have ended earlier than I would have liked due to weather and circumstances.  But it was a good thing I made it back home early as it allowed me to take care of a few of my local responsibilities such as filing my taxes, attending a few board meeting and temporarily defacing the Science building in honor of a colleague who was retiring after 47 years at CCSF.  After a few weeks at home there was still enough of the semester left to plan a short trip back out again.

            Over the Memorial Day weekend I loaded up the camping gear again and took a trip to Mariposa CA to attend the BMW Norcal annual 49er motorcycle rally.  The annual event and gathering of BMW enthusiasts was made more enjoyable by the inclusion of my brother who drove up from southern California on his beat up Kawasaki retired police bike to meet me and camp for a few days.  A few weeks earlier I had attended a Florida Harley rally on a BMW so I had sympathy for how he must have felt being the only Kawasaki rider at the BMW event.  At least my comrades gave him a hat to wear that matched his police bike….

            The following week my wife and I had our anniversary.  We made last minute plans to continue the semester long travel by making a trip together up to Portland Oregon.  As it turns out the Portland trip was a perfect way to buttonhole the semester of travel.  On the road I have been staying at some less than luxurious budget accommodations.  As the Portland trip was not taken alone and was an anniversary no less I looked for someplace more upscale and unique.  What I found could not have been a more appropriate environment in which to formally end a semester spen

t visiting schools and colleges.  We stayed at the Kennedy School in suburban Portland.  For those not familiar with the Kennedy School it is an old elementary school that closed in 1975 and was bought by the McMenamins concern.  McMenamins owns a series of bars, concert halls and hotels throughout Oregon all of which share a hip, artistic vibe to them.  At the Kennedy School instead of demolishing the school they revised it as a school themed resort destination.  They converted the classrooms to hotel rooms and installed a brewery, multiple bars, gardens and a soaking pool in the school.  The auditorium serves as a movie theater and the cafeteria was converted into a restaurant.

            The walls of the Kennedy School are covered in school themed artwork that celebrates the teachers and students who worked, learned and participated in the long history of the school.  Preserved are double doors, and long hallways murals depict the history of the faculty who worked in the building with joy and honor.   My previous months of college visits had impressed upon me how much a school is more than an education, or place to mint students; it is a destination, not a pathwa

y, it is a center of a community, it is a place where people change and grow.  It is an anchor of common denominator for the diverse people from the surrounding communities who come together in its halls and classrooms to nurture their children, themselves, and contribute to a better vision of the future.  Sure student matriculate and leave but the importance of the community resides in what remains and why it existed in the first place.   When the Kennedy school closed due to busing and changing demographics, the community did not want to see the symbol of their community demolished and they rallied to protect it.  The business compromise produced something unique, and something that celebrates and keeps alive the history of the school.  It really was quite unexpected and a perfect place to pause, reflect and end my semester long educational odyssey.

Mt. Hood Community College

            On the last day of our stay in Portland my wife and I were on our way to observe waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge when we saw a road sign for Mt. Hood Community College.  As a result of this semester I think I will forever be diverting myself to community colleges as I travel, and with a little encouragement from my spouse I added one more stop to the trip.  The main trip had left me a little over exposed to colleges and I recognized I was approaching this campus with a fatigued perspective.  Nevertheless classes were still in session and upon seeking out the anatomy labs we found ourselves at the front desk of the mortuary science program.

            At Mt. Hood anatomy laboratories take place in joint facilities with the mortuary sciences program.  As luck would have it a biology class was on a field trip to the lab when we arrived and I was able to quietly tour the facilities as the class had its lesson.  Some salient issues of note:  While Mt. Hood was the first anatomy facility I have encountered that had a refrigerated cadaver facility (due to the mortuary program) the biology demonstration cadaver has been the same body in use for many years.  It is incredibly well perfused and has held up well to much educational service.  This is of note for the CCSF anatomy program, which is being asked to replace our specimens on a regular basis due to the requirements of our local university partners in the willed body programs.  Economically this regulatory turnover comes at a very high maintenance cost as most of the time and work goes into preparing the specimens for demonstrations.  The facilities at Mt. Hood were designed with mortuary science in mind and they include a two-story laboratory amphitheater set up.  Above the laboratory space is a second room accessed by an adjacent staircase.  The small room above has a large square hole with guardrails situated in the middle of the floor, which lines up directly with the center of the laboratory below.  This allows students to use the upstairs viewing area when classes are too large to be accommodated by the floor space below.  Having had to break up demonstrations to small groups or seen firsthand the lack of interest that comes with visual sightlines being compromised during demonstrations, I was jealous of this architectural feature which resembles the old surgery amphitheaters of medical schools.