On the Street with Mt. Hood Students

This issue’s special section is on the “State of the College” (timed along with the presidential State of the Union speech on March 7) – so we needed to gauge student’s feelings on Mt. Hood Community College and how they can improve. We approached this task with a two-pronged approach: one through a survey published in the last issue of The Advocate, and another by interviewing people on campus. In the former, 77% of respondents said that the college is generally doing a good job. However, we see a flip in responses when it comes to students supporting a proposed student fee increase (50 cents for each credit hour, for the 2024-25 academic year): 69% of respondents said they don’t support a student fee increase at this time.

As expected, one major issue brought up was food and water on campus.

One respondent to the survey said, “The fact that no student can get food on campus after 2 p.m., other than the meager snacks at the Student Union, is absolutely terrible for retaining students since it is not in support of their health.” This point was echoed by our other respondents. Currently on campus there is only one spot to buy food, the café in the Library. This café closes at 2 p.m. and serves only cold food, although customers may warm it up in the microwave.

(A recent interview with the ASMHCC (student government) president and vice president made clear they are well aware of this issue, but we probably won’t see additional dining options open on campus this academic year.)

Meantime, we did receive positive feedback regarding services on campus, such as Barney’s Pantry in the Student Union.

The problem with available drinking water is also a huge issue on campus. One respondent said, “I feel like I am not having my basic human needs/rights met. I have to basically go hiking whenever I need to use the restroom or find drinking water.” This was a sentiment heard throughout the in-person interviews, due mostly to outdoor water fountains being shut down due to the cold winter weather.

One interesting point we discovered was an animal problem in the Visual Arts buildings.

Student Dustyn Warner described the arts buildings as “falling apart.” She went on to note that there were some problems with rodents in the buildings – further corroborated when we spoke with another student, Gabriel Plesha, who noted hearing about ferrets and other rodents in that area.

Gabriel Plesha

While there were specific issues brought up, a lot of people seemed very happy with the college. For example, Warner opened the interview by exclaiming, “I think the current state of the college is incredible,” before going into her experiences.

It seems that while there are some serious issues to address on campus, the benefits that students perceive from MHCC seems to outweigh the problems.