Graphic design director plans to retire and unplug

She sits in her office, shrouded in books that sit on shelves.

Scanning along the periphery of this, a visitor finds that each spine reads with something relating to design. Post-It notes hang on adhesive limbs to each page and its partner, while neon pink and yellow bleed through the exposed top of them: highlighted sections of material, each with its own design and purpose. Everything in order.

For Chris Maier, director of Mt. Hood’s Graphic Design program, this is far from how earlier events in her life played out.

After 27 years of teaching at MHCC, Maier will retire from the classroom this spring – although she plans to lead an online course or two, into the fall.

When she originally arrived in 1988, the Integrated Media (IM) department structure looked vastly different.

“When I arrived, graphic design was the only career technical program in a department (full) of other transfer fine art classes,” she said. “Eventually Jack Schomer, the broadcasting director, and I converged all of these studies together to create an IM program.”

The next four years saw the addition of a photo program to round out a broad range of studies within IM.

The most rewarding feeling for her, as she reflects on her Mt. Hood career, was hearing of students’ success after they graduated from the program. “When I come across a mention of a former student on the news or Internet, it really makes me think of how far they have come with just the experience of the two-year program,” she said.

This feeling may come from an ingrained sense of satisfaction that most teachers covet while shaping young minds, but for Maier it has stayed with her from the beginning of her education and teaching career.

She was born and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, alongside six brothers and sisters. “My dad sent us all to Penn State (University), but I had applied to a school in Arizona and really wanted to go there,” she said. “I originally wanted to major in fine arts and study pottery … it just lost interest, though, because I wasn’t able to see the results quickly. There wasn’t enough control.”

From pottery, Maier moved on to graphic design. Penn State has a very good school for this study, but the instructors did not share her same values. “Unfortunately, the male teacher in charge of that department was acting very inappropriately, and I knew I couldn’t stay there,” she said. Instead, she set her sights on the West.

“I transferred to Arizona State (University) and it was the best thing I ever did,” she said. “I was back in Arizona where I wanted to be originally.” After graduating from ASU, Maier continued her education at the University of Kansas, where she served as a part-time instructor. The flat lands and gray skies of the wheat state didn’t provide enough inspiration for long, however.

“I had to get out of Kansas. I wanted more from my life and I knew I wouldn’t find it there,” Maier said. “I decided to go back to the University of Arizona and teach,” she said. It was there she met her husband, David Maier, and afterwards she moved to Oregon to teach at Mt. Hood.

For 27 years, it would turn out.

“The reason I stayed here so long was because I was always felt I was able to speak my mind and let my student’s voices be heard,” Maier said.

Now, Maier plans to unplug from the academic world and kick back.

“After more than 50 years of being in school, either as a student or an educator, I want to follow a non-academic calendar, spend a lot of time outside – off the grid – and explore the West,” she said.