SUMMIT Vol.7 by Olympic College Alumni Association

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PROMISING FUTURE Free college programs open doors across the country and in Bremerton

OC ALUMS

Stay in touch! We love hearing your news and seeing your photos! Please send accomplishments, stories and milestones to alumni@olympic.edu. And be sure to sign up for The Lookout, our bi-weekly alumni and friends E-News, at OlympicCollegeFoundation.org/ stay-in-the-loop.

SUMMIT ALU M N I & FR I EN DS MAGA ZI N E VO L .7 AUTU M N 201 8 SUMMIT is published by the Olympic College Foundation for the Alumni Association in the autumn and spring of each year. In these pages, we tell the story of Olympic College and celebrate the impact of its alumni, students, staff and programs. Thank you for picking up this copy. We hope you enjoy the read. Have a story idea? Contact us at alumni@olympic.edu. PUBLISHER David Emmons ART DIRECTOR Gretchen Ritter-Lopatowski WRITER & EDITOR Terri Gleich COPY EDITOR Herron Miller PHOTOGRAPHERS Logan Westom Photography Tiffany Diamond Photography Eric Morgensen ADDRESS CHANGES Email alumni@olympic.edu or call (360) 475-7120. ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICE 1600 Chester Avenue, CSC 530 Bremerton, WA 98337 (360) 475-7120 alumni@olympic.edu ON THE COVER Illustration by Gretchen Lund ’18, an emerging visual artist in Bremerton whose work can also be seen throughout the city. © 2018 Olympic College Foundation. Contents may be reprinted with permission of the editor. Please recycle when finished reading. This paper is biodegradable and made from 100% renewable resources.

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I N THIS ISSUE FEATURES

From Addicts to Counselors Students in OC’s chemical dependency professional program have overcome abuse, addiction and criminal records. Now they’re leaders in fighting the region’s drug crisis.

A Promising Revolution Free college programs are sweeping the country. In fall 2019, Olympic College will join the movement with a pilot program for 30 Bremerton high school graduates.

Documenting Hope Filmmaker Debora Lascelles knows what it’s like to be homeless and scared. That’s why the OC alum is passionate about Kitsap’s Coffee Oasis and finding solutions to youth homelessness.

DEPARTMENTS 3 3 6 25 27 29

VOICE OF THE PRESIDENT AROUND CAMPUS Art Gallery, Nursing Simulators & Tequila Too 5 QUESTIONS Baja Buggy SPOTLIGHT From homeless to celebrity publicist IN THE OC LOOP CALENDAR

Editor’s Note: Our AROUND CAMPUS section is expanding to give you more news and fun facts from our Bremerton, Shelton and Poulsbo campuses. Got ideas for this section? Contact us at alumni@olympic.edu.

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 2

AROUND CAMPUS

VO I C E

OF PRESIDENT M A RT Y C AVA L LUZ ZI

ine out of 10 students who enroll in Olympic College say they want to earn a degree or certificate, but after three years, only three out of 10 full-time students succeed. And for students of color, that number is even lower. Fewer than two out of 10 get their diplomas. We don’t know why those numbers are so low, but we’re determined to find out. That’s why OC has joined Achieving the Dream, a network of 220 community colleges across the country with a laser focus on improving student success and closing achievement gaps, particularly for low-income students, first-generation students and students of color. Many students put a lot on the line to come here, and the stakes are huge. If they leave without a degree or certificate, that’s a failure…for them and for the college. They’ve put their dreams on hold. They may have taken on debt. And the data shows they may not have any more skills than when they arrived. That doesn’t mean our faculty and staff are doing a bad job, and it doesn’t mean they don’t care. What it does mean is that we need to do things differently. It starts with studying the data, identifying achievement gaps and having a conversation about why some groups do better than others. Then we need to focus on practices that can close those gaps. In the same way we have tutoring, advising, financial aid and a veterans center to help some students be successful,

we must figure out what else we need to do to make all students successful. Perhaps first-generation college students need a team approach to helping them apply, register and stay on track, for example, just like surgical patients in a hospital have a dedicated team to take them from pre-op to recovery. Our goal is to increase the number of students who persist from quarter-to-quarter and to increase graduation rates across all groups. The good news is that some Achieving the Dream colleges are reporting tremendous increases in graduation rates. We know we can do better, and we will do better. Right now, we are open access but we are not open success and we just can’t be happy with that. To learn more about OC’s commitment to Achieving the Dream, go to www.olympic.edu/about-olympic-college/ achieving-dream.

OC BOARD OF TRUSTEES Harriette Bryant, Shannon Childs, Cheryl Miller, Jim Page '79, Stephen Warner

OC FOUNDATION BOARD MEMBERS Bill Baxter '81, John Berglind, Monica Blackwood '96, Peter Braun, Harriette Bryant, Dr. Marty Cavalluzzi, Vicki Collins, Gayle Dilling, David Emmons, Tracy Flood '92, Meredith Green, Mark Hughes '94, Cindy Lucarelli, Rita Mitchell, Leah Olson, Frank Portello, Noel Pyatt, Ruth Ross Saucier, Dr. Nathan Schlicher '99, Enrico Sio, Diana Smeland '82, Jim Sund, Sunny Wheeler, Kevin Wiley '93, Kate Wilson

EMERITUS BOARD MEMBERS Doug Berger, Jeff Brein, Shannon Childs, Tracy DiGiovanni, Duane Edwards, Lynn Finlay, Klaus Golombek, Marilee Hansen, Drew Hansen, Joan Hanten, William Harvey '59, Joanne Haselwood, Michael Levi, William Maiers, Arthur McCarty, Dr. David Mitchell, Jim Page '79, Carolyn Powers, James Robinson, Kathleen Sanford, Douglas Sayan, Dr. Pankaj Sharma, Barbara Stephenson, Dr. Warren Van Zee

OC Up Close Can you guess where this is? Turn the page to find out.

NEW VIEW When the old music and art buildings came down, the Bremerton campus got more parking and the Fireside Bistro got a view that goes all the way to downtown. Come check it out during Four-Course Fridays, when culinary arts students present internationally themed meals for $12. Reservations required. Email cnys@olympic.edu.

ALMOST ALIVE The newest trainers at OC’s nursing school aren’t human, but they’re amazingly lifelike. Just ask nursing student Brooke Cover. “I can feel the pulse, and I can hear her breathe. That’s really cool.” The two new medical mannequins, funded by a $30,000 grant from the Norcliffe Foundation, can bleed, gasp for breath and cry out in pain. All of which makes them very effective teachers. Nursing Professor Suzy Cook said their addition will allow OC to expand the number of simulation hours it requires of students, better preparing them for real-world scenarios. “Health care changes rapidly and needs change rapidly,” she said. “It’s hard to keep up, but this helps us tremendously.”

You just have to love them all, give them all attention and meet each need as much as you can. ~Susan Dillinger, who retired from the Sophia Bremer Child Development Center in July after 42 years

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AROUND CAMPUS

Did you know? OC Bremerton has two resident tarantulas, Tequila Too and Little Orphan Annie, who make their homes in separate terrariums on the second floor of the Science & Technology Building. The pair has been around for at least 10 years, according to Eric Thyren, the support technician who keeps them supplied with water and mealworms. Females are long-lived. Tequila Too’s predecessor Tequila lived about 17 years. Thyren said the arachnids produce little waste and are low-maintenance. “Like most spiders, they like to be alone and so I leave them. They’re just fun to observe.”

G O O D BY E , P H I L For 50 years, whenever Phil Schaeffer learned a fascinating tidbit about history, he couldn’t wait to share it with Olympic College students. “I always looked forward to Mondays, and I always thought vacations were too long,” said the professor, who retired in June after teaching more than 19,000 students. Legendary for his tough essay exams, Schaeffer joked that he could remember giving only two A’s during a career that began in September 1968. Still, he knew firsthand the value of an OC education and a second chance. He attended the college in 1961-62 after flunking out of the University of Washington and went on to earn both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history. “The thing about community college is there’s always been an opportunity here, if you’re willing to take it.” Former student Steve Sego ’78 is an admirer. “Phil Schaeffer taught me how to learn. It was the greatest experience I ever had in preparing me for life.” Reflecting on his tenure, Schaeffer still can’t believe he got paid to talk about his favorite subject. “Everything is history, so I could talk about everything. If I’d taught math, I would have retired 20 years ago.”

"After I graduate" - Students are invited to share their dreams for life after OC on these chalkboards outside the Rotunda Building. Email us at alumni@ olympic.edu to tell us what you did after graduation.

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President Harry S. Truman is an OC alum! He received the college’s first honorary degree during a visit to Bremerton on June 10, 1948.

5 QUESTIONS

ABOUT THE Baja Buggy

Olympic College has been participating in the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Baja competition since 2009, designing and building off-road vehicles that must meet stringent technical requirements and compete in maneuverability and endurance challenges. The only community college represented in an international field of up to 140 teams, OC had its best finish yet in 2018 despite a dramatic crash necessitating on-site repair. SUMMIT asked Welding Professor Al Kitchens for a tutorial:

WHAT’S THE SECRET TO BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL BAJA BUGGY? It’s all about the power-to-weight ratio. It has to be as light as possible, as strong as possible and as fast as possible.

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF THE COMPETITION? There’s a technical inspection. There are rock crawls and timed hill climbs. Some buggies don’t make it all the way to the top, but ours did. There’s a sales competition that tests student’s knowledge of manufacturing and industry. There’s a mock interview, and you’re trying to get them to invest. And there’s a four-hour endurance race.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO BUILD? The only time we could work on it was weekends and quarter breaks. We started over Christmas break and worked through winter quarter and into spring quarter for the competition in late May. We were here weekends and all hours. There were about five students who were here consistently. There are five departments involved – welding, precision machining, technical design, composites and electronics.

HOW DID YOU DO? We had our best year ever. We passed technical inspection, we competed in all events and we finished the endurance race.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE DURING THE COMPETITION? The whole steering wheel pulled out at 35 miles per hour after two laps of the endurance race. We crashed, and it bent the suspension. But we did a repair in the field, and we were able to do one more lap before the four-hour time limit to finish the race.

AROUND CAMPUS

Strength, Struggle, Survival EXHIBIT SHARES STORIES TO BUILD BRIDGES Olympic College’s new gallery brought together military veterans and First Nations peoples in spring 2018 to share stories of “past experience, current struggle and future hope.” Said Art Professor Marie Weichman: “We’re bringing two different groups together that people don’t necessarily think of at the same time, but they have the same struggle.”

THE EAGLE BOY ANNETTE FOURBEARS – Kansas Band of Delaware Indians She records Native American stories on her baskets to preserve for future generations. “If I don’t dream a design, I don’t have permission to use it yet.”

THEY SHALL RISE ON THE WINGS OF EAGLES CHARLES MARTIN – St. Regis Mohawk and Vietnam veteran

ON THE ROCKS RALPH DUNCAN – Retired Navy veteran “The ship had a life. It was built to withstand forces and be strong in operations, but somehow it ended up on the rocks. But it’s still there. It’s still struggling to stay alive.”

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“The act of creation is a necessity for our wellbeing. It’s where I find my balance. You cannot be destructive and creative at the same time.”

What's Next? OC’s new art gallery is a working classroom, a hub for collaboration and a versatile community space. Since opening in January, it’s already mounted three exhibits, showcasing an impressive array of professional and student work. “Galleries provide a space where conversations can be shared across time and space,” said Art Professor Marie Weichman. “No matter what you ever show in this room, you will teach the visitor something they may not have known about culture, history or the maker’s process. And it can also be a place to explore innovation. Those are all goals of this space.”

ALL MY ROMANTIC RELATIVES LINLEY B. LOGAN – Seneca “It was inspired by a Lakota leader who had a vision before the Custer attack. He dreamed that soldiers were falling from the sky.” The text is a response to “Sixty Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney who questioned what Native Americans had contributed to the culture. “The point of the text is if you invest in what Andy Rooney was saying, it can exhaust you. You have to transcend the ignorance....”

Speaking of the maker’s process, two 2,600-pound steamrollers are at the heart of the gallery’s fall show, which features prints from the summer’s Wayzgoose Kitsap Art Festival October 12 – November 16. Two dozen local artists carved linoleum blocks by hand, inked them and laid them atop cotton paper on a Bremerton street. The steamrollers did the rest, rolling over the carvings to create giant prints. OC was a sponsor of the arts festival, which also included children’s activities, art demonstrations, vendors and live music.

Here’s the gallery schedule for the rest of the academic year:

WOODFIRED CERAMICS & MORE JANUARY 25 – MARCH 1

ARTISTS’ BOOKS Collaboration with Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

APRIL 4 – MAY 10

ANNUAL STUDENT SHOW MAY 24 – JUNE 7

From Addicts to

Counsel BY TERRI GLEICH

PHOTOS BY LOGAN WESTOM PHOTOGRAPHY & TIFFANY DIAMOND PHOTOGRAPHY

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An OC program gives recovering drug users a fresh start and a way to give back

ors

s a job candidate, Danielle Soto didn’t have much going for her. An eight-year gap in her resume. A litany of criminal charges and jail time. Teeth damaged by drug use. “I was kind of unemployable,” she said.

But two decades of addiction had also honed a particular talent: “I noticed one of the things I could do was call other people out. I could see it a mile away. An addict knows another addict.” Soto enrolled at Olympic College because it was a requirement of Mason County’s Drug Court, but she soon found her calling in the chemical dependency professional program. Now she counsels some of the same people she once supplied with heroin, providing a powerful model of recovery.

“When they come in and see me and see how well I’m doing, they think, holy s***, if she can do it, I can do it. It’s uplifting.” Soto isn’t the only one who’s transformed her life through the program. In a decade at OC, Coordinator Mirelle Cohen said she’s had dozens of students who have made the leap from addict to community leader. “It’s part of recovery to want to help others,” she said. “It’s a natural fit to be attracted to the profession.” There’s also a practical consideration – addiction counselor is one of the few state-licensed professions in which a felony record is not an automatic disqualifier. Cohen meets privately with students to learn about their criminal histories, then coaches them on moving forward. “I know all their stories and I tell them, ‘Today’s a new day. We start from today.’” continues on next page

LIVING THE OPIOID CRISIS Danielle Soto tried heroin for the first time on her 30th birthday after a decade of being addicted to pain pills. “The first time I did it, it was like magic to me,” she recalled. “My tolerance for pain pills was so high and the price of it was ridiculous versus a really small amount of heroin that lasted all day. It made sense in the moment.” Soto, 38, had used drugs and struggled with addiction through her teens, but it wasn’t until she was prescribed pain pills for endometriosis that she lost control of her life. She took the opioids for a year until her doctor abruptly cut her off. It was her first experience with withdrawal. “I kept going to doctors and telling them all my symptoms. I thought it was part of my medical problems. I didn’t know it was a side effect of the pain pills.” She said her doctors didn’t understand the need to wean patients off opioids. “I thought the doctors aren’t helping me, I have to help myself.” When she couldn’t get prescription pills, she started buying them on the street and then turned to dealing. There were warrants out for her arrest in three counties when Soto finally went to detox and turned herself in. Mason County Judge Amber Finlay showed compassion, putting her into the drug court program. Now, after being trained as an addiction counselor at Olympic College and going to work for a treatment center in Shelton, Soto is back in Finlay’s courtroom in a different role. “I like showing my face over there. Some of us do get better, but the relapse rate is pretty high even with drug court. I have to show them why they should continue it.”

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FROM “MOST WANTED" TO SOBER DAD Addiction takes a toll. Just ask Jason Gomez, who started using methamphetamine and heroin at 13 and was in and out of the Kitsap County Jail 35 times between the ages of 18 and 35. He was thrown out of the Army. His marriage ended in divorce. He lost contact with his twin sons. Then, things got even worse. “In 2011, I put my mom on the ground by her throat until she was blue,” he said. “I almost killed my mom.” Gomez, 42, went on the run, appeared on the Kitsap

County sheriff’s “Most Wanted List” and careened from treatment to jail to more drugs. “I wanted to overdose and die.” The turning point came after his mom helped him get inpatient treatment. He’s been sober more than four years now and credits the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s Re-Entry Program and Olympic College Professor Mirelle Cohen with being instrumental in his recovery. He’s on track to graduate from OC’s chemical dependency professional program this school year and recently began working as a counselor for the tribe, which paid his college tuition. He’s not a tribal member, but his daughter is Port Gamble S’Klallam and he’s part of the tribal community. Gomez said his relationship with his daughter has blossomed since he got clean, and the two recently participated in the annual tribal canoe journey together. “The time I’ve lost with my children is what hurts the most,” Gomez said, looking back on his years of addiction. “If I can touch anybody going through what I went through and have them not go through the pain I’m going through of not having a relationship with my boys, then my job is well worth it.”

“Today's a new day. We start from today."

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hat was a powerful message for Jason Gomez, whose long battle with addiction cost him his relationship with his twin sons and landed him on the Kitsap County sheriff’s “Most Wanted List.” He’s now working as a counselor for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and is two quarters away from earning his associate’s degree. “I’m ashamed of my past, but it’s made me the person I am today,” he said. “Without the knowledge I have from my past and from my history, I don’t think I could treat my clients with the same respect and passion I have today.” The OC program was created about 15 years ago to fill a growing need for addiction counselors on the Kitsap Peninsula, according to Cohen. Demand has only grown. Students who successfully complete practicums at local treatment programs are frequently offered jobs right out of school.

RECLAIMING A LIFE Chaundra Bailey’s stepdad started her on methamphetamine when she was 8 years old and the drug became her way of coping in an abusive home. “It was like a morning cup of coffee for me,” she said.

Mosen Haksar, who manages the chemical dependency programs at Kitsap Mental Health, has employed 14 OCtrained counselors in the past year. “The ones we’ve hired, we’re very pleased with,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for that program and for Dr. Cohen.” A 2017 report from the Kitsap Public Health District illustrates why the need is so great. Non-opioid drug-related hospitalizations in the county nearly doubled between 2000 and 2015 and opioid-related hospital admissions increased more than threefold.

Addiction took over her life, but she didn’t realize how bad things had gotten until her three children were taken away by the state in 2015. “I thought I had control over it, but I really didn’t.”

Terri Roper, an adjunct professor in the OC program, said the shortage of addiction counselors locally and across the country is fueled in part by low pay that is not commensurate with increasing education requirements. Starting salaries are close to minimum wage.

Bailey, 29, got clean. Got the kids back. Relapsed. Lost the kids again. Had two more children. As the cycle repeated itself, she realized she needed to get sober for herself, not just for her children.

Still, she said, “it’s an intensely rewarding field and it tends to attract folks who have been down that path themselves. They bring a great deal of passion to that work and want to give back to their communities.”

She had a medical assisting license and was planning to go back to Olympic College for nursing. But after talking to Mirelle Cohen, coordinator of the chemical dependency professional program, she realized her experiences could help others. “Whatever people are going through, most likely I’ve gone through it too,” she said.

Cohen tells her students to aim high, encouraging many to pursue bachelor’s degrees. “There’s a lot of bias on our campus and in the world about addicts. I tell my students, you stand as a beacon in the community of what is possible.”

She enrolled last spring and is planning to get her bachelor’s degree after she finishes the OC program in summer 2019. “I’ve never done so well in school. I have a 3.9 GPA because I’m doing something I actually love doing now.” She has two goals: Professionally, she wants to work with adolescents to help head off addiction issues early in their lives. Personally, she wants to get off of state assistance and get the state out of her family’s life. “I want to hear from the (Department of Social and Health Services) that I no longer qualify for any of their programs.”

Chaundra Bailey is taking up that challenge. She’s on track to graduate from OC in summer 2019 and plans to get her bachelor’s degree online from Western Washington University. “Finally, I feel like I’m bettering myself,” she said, noting that she’s earned a 3.9 grade point average and recently got her first job in four years at the college library. “I’ve never done so well in school before,” said the 29-yearold, who began drinking and using marijuana at age 7 to cope with an abusive home life. She took her first steps toward recovery after losing custody of her three children in 2015 and now hopes to work with adolescent addicts. OC’s program is like a support group, she said. “It’s a big community and I love it. Even though we all have our own stories, we’ve all had the same experiences.”

“I tell my students, you stand as a beacon in the community of what is possible." Program Coordinator Mirelle Cohen Graduate Jeremiah Saucier said the program has been a family to him and Cohen is the mother hen. A former drug trafficker who served 10 years in federal prison, he’s now director of Crossroads Treatment Center in Lakewood and is leading the effort to build a 50-bed inpatient treatment center on the Key Peninsula.

“I would not be sitting in this chair if it weren’t for her guidance,” he said. “She saw something in me, and that’s what’s been the change in my life. Every once in a while, someone comes along who believes in me.”

THE HOPE FACTORY,

a 12-step recovery program sponsored by the chemical dependency training program, meets 10-11am every Friday at OC Bremerton in Business 205.

EX-TRAFFICKER BUILDS RECOVERY CENTER Jeremiah Saucier wasn’t planning to become an addiction counselor, he just wanted to share his story. After an abusive childhood, he began using drugs and got involved in California biker culture. He began dealing to get his highs for free and by the early 1990s, Saucier was running a coast-to-coast, multi-million-dollar methamphetamine network out of Norfolk, Va. He did a 10-year stint in federal prison, where he got treatment. After his release, he moved to Washington to be near his sister and continued his recovery at Crossroads Treatment Center in Lakewood. He became a mentor and began speaking at churches and treatment centers, where he was encouraged to get his credential and become a counselor. Now he owns Crossroads and is spearheading the effort to build Hope Recovery Center, a proposed 50-bed treatment facility on the Key Peninsula. The center will take a holistic approach to inpatient and outpatient services by including mental health therapy, educational resources and training in life skills, such as nutrition, health and financial planning. Saucier, 65, said he couldn’t have done it without Olympic College’s chemical dependency professional program and Coordinator Mirelle Cohen. “She had a way of talking to me that made me believe in myself and think that I could do this. I’d been told since I was a little kid that I wouldn’t amount to nothing. My wife and Dr. Cohen kept me focused, and I graduated (as a President’s Scholar), not that far from a 4.0 (GPA),” he said. “When I went there, I had a mission and they helped me get there. I’m a very blessed man.”

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 14

A Promising FREE COLLEGE PROGR A MS ARE OPENING DOORS TO STUDEN T SUCCESS BY TERRI GLEICH

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRETCHEN LUND '18

omething revolutionary is happening in higher education. Students who never thought they could afford to go to college are getting a lifechanging opportunity, thanks to a growing number of programs that promise free tuition. Spurred by the rising cost of college and recognition that the jobs of the future will require education beyond high school, more than 200 Promise programs have been created across the nation since 2005. The design varies, but most pay for one to two years of college, regardless of a student's finances or academic performance. The result is that first-generation college students, students of color and others who thought college was beyond their reach are finding an open door where they previously saw insurmountable barriers. “Imagine being a freshman coming to high school, knowing you can go to college,” said Ed Parks, a board member of the South Seattle College Foundation, which started a Promise

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program in 2008. “You build excitement. You’re building this whole vision of not having to work at McDonald’s for the rest of your life.” Surveys of the school’s “13th Year Scholars” back him up. Half said they would not have attended college without the program, which provides one tuition-free year at South. Olympic College is joining the revolution in fall 2019 with a pilot program for 30 Bremerton High School graduates. The OC Promise is still being designed but will likely include a scholarship that fills the gap between other sources of financial aid and the full cost of tuition and fees for one year. “I think it will be an incredible opportunity and have a huge impact on our students,” said Bremerton High School Principal Monica Sweet ‘89. “It removes the biggest barrier.” As part of the Campaign for Olympic College, the OC Foundation has set a goal of raising $2 million by 2020 to expand the pilot to all Bremerton graduates. Long-term plans, which will require additional fundraising, call for offering the Promise to all Kitsap and Mason county high school graduates.

Widespread Support

ne of the most intriguing things about the free college revolution is that it transcends partisan politics. Promise programs are operating in more than 40 states, including 16 with statewide programs. It might seem like a no-brainer for deep blue states like California and New York to embrace the idea, but red states like Tennessee and Kentucky are doing it, too. So are chambers of commerce and city leaders, who tout free college as both an economic development tool and a way to address inequality. The Promise movement started in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 2005, when a group of anonymous donors pledged to pay up to 100 percent of tuition at any Michigan college or university for graduates of Kalamazoo public schools. The payout depended on how long students had been in the district, ranging from 100 percent for students who started in kindergarten to 65 percent for students who came in as high school freshmen. The program has been successful in stopping the city’s population slide,

but other economic benefits are less clear, in part because of the Great Recession, which started in 2007. Benefits for students, however, are easier to demonstrate. A 2015 Brookings Institution analysis found participants were 14 percent more likely to enroll in college within six months after graduation than before the Promise, they attempted 15 percent more credits and the number of students achieving a post-secondary credential increased by 12 points from 36 percent to 48 percent. The study also found that results for low-income students and minority students were comparable or better than those for students who did not fall into those categories. Matt Caffrey of the College Promise Campaign, a national advocacy group, said areas with free college programs average a 20 percent enrollment increase among eligible students. Costs for last-dollar programs like the one OC is proposing, which fill the gap between financial aid and the full cost of tuition, typically range from $500 to $1,500 per student, he said. Support services, such as intensive case management, can add significantly to that price tag.

V EN TUR A PROMISE GI V ES BROTHERS A BOOST When twin brothers Sam and Adrian Ponce found out about the Ventura College Promise, they were high school seniors who feared they’d have to delay college at least a year to earn money for tuition. “Me and my brother had just had a talk about how to pay for college,” said Adrian. “We knew we didn’t have any money. When we found out (the Promise) helped cover the first year, it was a big relief.”

Both men graduated in May, Adrian with degrees in general studies, political science and global studies, Sam with a degree in psychology. And, both are headed to four-year universities in the fall, University of California Santa Barbara for Adrian and University of California Northridge for Sam. “(The Promise) helped me start right away, and right now I don’t have any debt school-wise, which is a great

Inspired by Kalamazoo

entura College was one of the first community colleges to follow Kalamazoo’s lead, and its results have been equally compelling. Since 2006, the program has served 12,000 students, whose persistence, completion and success rates have outstripped those of their non-Promise peers. A four-year study of fall 2012 VC Promise students showed they were 70 percent more likely to receive a degree or certificate within four years than students outside the group.

Jaimee Hanna, programs and events manager for the Ventura College Foundation, said demographics in the coastal community northwest of Los Angeles were the impetus for the program. “We have a population here where 70 percent of students come from a home that has a maximum income of $36,000 for a family of four,” she said. Even relatively affordable community college tuition seemed out of reach for those students, despite the availability of state and federal financial aid. Hanna said one goal of the program was to make more students aware of the opportunities and support systems in place for low-income and at-risk students. In a 2017 Forbes.com article, Greg Gillespie, chancellor of the Ventura County Community College District, reported that the VC Promise has provided a boost to some of the area’s

thing,” said Adrian, whose goal is to be U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan or Syria. Sam, who plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in academic counseling, said the Promise helped him broaden his ambitions. “Coming straight out of high school, I didn’t have the best grade point average and I couldn’t meet the requirements for a four-year university,” he said. “I saw the VC Promise kind of like

most underserved residents. Latinos in the program and young men overall continue their education at twice the rate of non-Promise students and African American students do so at three-and-a-half times the rate. “Results like these demonstrate just how hard students are willing to work when we invest in them,” wrote Gillespie, who is advocating expanding the program to add a second year of tuition and fee support. The VC Promise, which is the model for California’s new statewide program, is unique in a couple of ways: Because of the high percentage of Ventura students who qualify for state and federal financial aid, the program costs less than $400,000 a year. The Ventura College Foundation, which runs the program, controls costs by capping participation at the first 1,000 students to qualify. And it does not fund any additional support services for Promise students. However, it does require Promise participants to take advantage of the voluntary services offered to all Ventura students, including online orientation and meeting with a counselor to develop an academic plan.

a new door into a fresh start in life. I could start over with academics, boost my GPA and transfer to a four-year university and pursue my bachelor’s.” Sam became interested in academic counseling because of the programs at Ventura that helped the twins succeed. Both became peer mentors to help others get the same boost, and Sam was elected to student government.

the right programs they need to be successful,” said Sam, who believes Promise students work harder because they know the college and community have invested in them. The duo hopes to return the favor. Said Adrian: “I know a lot of people who are recipients of the Promise who hope to be donors one day, including my brother and me.”

“The Promise opens doors and builds connections and gets students into

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 18

The Seattle Experience

outh Seattle College was the first in Washington to join the free college revolution, led by foundation board members and inspired by research from the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges that showed one year of education beyond high school is critical for students to find living-wage jobs and/or continue their education.

“A year of additional higher education after high school is the tipping point that allows someone to become a taxpayer instead of a tax taker,” said Ed Parks, South Seattle College Foundation board member. The foundation raised nearly $8 million for an endowment to fund the program, which has grown from 20 students in 2008 to 154 in 2017-18. It costs about $320,000 a year with more than half the funds going for a host of support services, including:

•

A Readiness Academy offered during senior year of high school.

•

A week-long summer bridge program prior to students’ first college quarter.

•

A coordinator who acts as a single point of contact throughout the first year.

Rosie Rimando-Chareunsap, South’s vice president for student services, said one of the biggest lessons learned from the early days of the program was that it’s not enough to provide a scholarship. The school also needed to help students be successful once they got to South. “Now we look at this as a retention program and build in student supports and quarterly check-ins to maximize student success.” As a result, 43 percent of 13th Year Scholars earn a certificate or degree, which, she said, is significantly higher than the general student population. The program is set to expand this fall under an ambitious plan by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan to provide two free years of community college to all Seattle high school graduates. In addition to South, the Promise scholarships will be offered at Seattle Central College and North Seattle College. Durkan is proposing to fund the $6.3 million annual cost of the program with a public-private partnership that includes corporate donations and a proposed city education levy. For Durkan, the initiative is about preparing Seattle kids for Seattle jobs. At a March event to celebrate the plan, the mayor put it this way: “In the city of Seattle, you should be able to grow up and either work in those shiny new buildings downtown, build those shiny new buildings or own those shiny new buildings.”

SUPPORT K EY TO SEAT TLE STUDEN T 'S SUCCESS As a firstgeneration c o l l e g e student with immigrant parents and three siblings, Jacky Tran described his prospects for going to college immediately after high school as “kinda iffy.” “I want to say, ‘Yeah, I was planning on going to college,’ but considering our financial status, it wasn’t realistic,” he said. South Seattle College’s 13th Year

Promise Program changed all that, providing not only a tuition-free year of college for Tran, but support services to help him navigate registration, class selection, financial aid and other challenges. The 21-year-old earned his associate’s degree in June and is heading to Eastern Washington University in the fall to study mechanical engineering. A tinkerer by nature, Tran dreams of taking common objects and improving their design. “Whether it’s making elevators safer or reworking a traffic light, I just know I want to

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take something that exists and make it better,” he said. Tran was elected student body president in his second year at South and has become an ambassador for the 13th Year program. He contrasts his experience with that of his two older sisters, who attended college after high school but dropped out. Finances were an issue, he said, but so was a lack of support services. The two are back in school now after a four-year break. He credits the 13th Year program

“A year of additional higher education after high school is the tipping point that allows someone to become a taxpayer instead of a tax taker.”

REMOVING BARRIERS

for BREMERTON

The OC Promise is a bold plan to provide one tuition-free year of college to Kitsap and Mason county high school graduates, beginning with Bremerton High School. The program is still being developed, but OC is planning a pilot with 30 Bremerton graduates in fall 2019. Expanding the program schoolwide is dependent upon raising an estimated $2 million. SUMMIT talked to Bremerton High School Counselor Chris Swanson about the program’s impact.

W HAT WOULD THE OC PROMISE MEA N TO BREMERTON STUDEN TS? One of the big factors is finances, and I think we will have kids who maybe are just missing the College Bound Scholarship (a state program for lowincome students) who will say, ‘Wow, this is totally an option for me.' And we know that once we get kids enrolled for a year, we can help them navigate from there.

HOW MA N Y BREMERTON GR A DUATES G O ON TO COLLEGE OR POST-SECONDARY TR A INING PROGR A MS? Over the last five years (as of the class of 2016), the average is 52 percent of our students are enrolling in college versus 60 percent for the state. But 70 percent indicate in the spring of their senior year that their plan is to go to some type of college, so there’s an 18 percent discrepancy. And my experience, over the years, is that the majority of those kids are planning to go to OC, but they don’t get there. Finances would be one primary factor. To me this is a great opportunity. Probably about half of those kids would be great candidates for a program like this. with teaching him how to be a college student. “For someone like me, whose parents didn’t go to college, it’s not the easiest transition from high school. It was honestly overwhelming. I went into college blind.” For example, Tran said, he didn’t understand that he would be required to take a certain number of courses in different disciplines to earn a degree. “The free college is certainly a selling point,” he said, “but it’s all the support you get going into college that really makes the program what it is.”

W HAT PERCEN TAGE OF BREMERTON STUDEN TS ARE ELIGIBLE FOR FREE A ND REDUCED LU NCH? It’s 58 percent for the high school. But we have plenty of kids who don’t meet that cutoff, but they’re not much above it and that’s where the Promise could really make an impact. You have to sign up for the College Bound Scholarship in seventh or eighth grade. Some families who qualified for Free and Reduced Lunch start making a little more and you find out senior year, you’re no longer eligible. You’ve just entered the lower middle class and now you’re penalized for kind of putting things together. That’s where this can give some relief for families and also some hope. To learn more about the OC Promise, contact OC Foundation Executive Director David Emmons at (360) 475-7120.

" I can see the hope,

the light at the end of the tunnel for these kids."

DOCUMENTING

Hope

An OC grad taps into personal experience to tell the story of homeless teens BY TERRI GLEICH

PHOTOS BY LOGAN WESTOM PHOTOGRAPHY

efore Debora Lascelles ’08 befriended teens living in tents and cars throughout Kitsap County for her documentary about The Coffee Oasis, she already understood them.

As a young mom, she fled domestic violence and lived in a Bremerton shelter with her 3-year-old son, taking just a single bag of clothing with her. Now, she wants to shine a national spotlight on the causes of youth homelessness and possible solutions in a feature-length film titled Coffee for Hope. “If I’d had Coffee Oasis when I was younger, would I have made the same choices?” Lascelles wondered during a recent interview. She noted that many of the teens and staff at the nonprofit, which uses its coffee shops to fund youth programs, have been through similar experiences to hers. One even stayed at the same shelter. “I’ve kind of become a mentor for some of the kids, sharing my experiences.”

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 22

" I feel like it's something that's needed because there are a lot more homeless teenagers than people think."

ascelles and partner Jake Ortega met in film school at the University of Southern California and moved to Washington to raise their daughter Ellie, who is now 2. They were looking for a project when inspiration struck, appropriately, over coffee at Poulsbo’s Coffee Oasis. The two began volunteering with the organization and learned about the staff and programs before shifting to the point of view of young people living on the streets. “I feel like it’s something that’s needed because there are a lot more homeless teenagers than people think,” said Toby, 17, one of the youths featured in the film. Toby and Leo, 18, another teen that Lascelles and Ortega have been filming, said Coffee Oasis is more than just a place to hang out. “It’s a place that we can feel safe,” said Leo, who shared that his family doesn’t accept that he’s transgender.

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“Coffee Oasis is a really good place to go if you need love.” In 2017, the nonprofit served hundreds of youths through outreach, crisis intervention, case management, job training and more at four Kitsap locations and is poised to expand to Bainbridge Island and Pierce and Mason counties. The Olympic College Foundation has worked closely with the organization and is providing scholarships during the 201819 school year for homeless youth identified by Coffee Oasis staff as good candidates for taking college classes. Dave Frederick, who founded The Coffee Oasis 21 years ago, hopes the film project will help people connect with homeless youth. “This puts human faces to (the problem), it puts the real story out there, and that is huge just in terms of people wanting to do something about it.” Lascelles has always been interested in socially conscious filmmaking. She wanted to be a journalist when she enrolled

in Olympic College in 2005, but a newspaper internship changed her mind and a screenwriting class helped her find her passion. She earned a scholarship to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and since graduating has worked on various productions in Los Angeles and had short films selected for film festivals.

have put some of their own money in and have attracted support online, from service clubs and from the Suquamish Foundation. They plan to begin submitting the documentary to film festivals by the end of 2019 and are also hoping to distribute it via a streaming service, such as Netflix, and screen it at community events.

Ortega, who is co-directing Coffee for Hope with Lascelles, said her gift is connecting with people. “It’s about being human first, not just making a film.”

“I can see the end goal,” Lascelles said. “I can see the hope, the light at the end of the tunnel for these kids.”

The two have been working on the project for a year and plan to finish shooting in summer 2019. “We’re following some teens' lives, and we want to see how they change and how Coffee Oasis helps them. That’s not something that happens overnight,” Lascelles said.

Lisa Henderson, who manages outreach for The Coffee Oasis, said she’s eager to see the final cut. “(Debora and Jake) are just incredible people telling a really incredible story, and I’m excited to see what happens with it.” Find out more at www.facebook.com/coffeeforhopefilm.

The finished film will be about 90 minutes long and is being produced on a “microbudget” of $200,000. The couple

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 24

S P OT L I G H T

Resilient and Red-Carpet Ready ALUMNA GOES FROM HOMELESS TO CELEBRITY PUBLICIST

e’Andrea “Kiki” Ayers ’08 has had some ups and downs, but you’d never know it to look at her. In fact, no one on the red carpets of Los Angeles suspected she was homeless for 14 months before launching her public relations firm, Ayers Publicity. “I had a following on Instagram and I would borrow clothes from boutiques (in exchange for promoting them on social media) and get my hair done at salons and I looked like I belonged on the red carpet,” she said. The truth was the well-coiffed freelance reporter was in and out of hostels, crashing on friends’ couches and eventually spent the night in a hotel bathroom stall, shivering and wondering how she’d gotten there. Less than two years later, her firm boasts a celebrity-packed client list, she’s launching a clothing line for stars who want to dress their kids for the red carpet and she’s expecting her first child. “My mindset is if I lose it today, I’ll get it back tomorrow,” she said. “Because I’ve lost everything before, I’m less fearful. At the same time, it keeps me humble. No one’s better than anyone. We can all lose everything tomorrow.” Ayers grew up in Bremerton, where she was also homeless for a few months at age 16 after her mom fell behind on the rent. She attended Olympic College as a Running Start student, in part because many of her high school friends had gotten pregnant and were attending an alternative school. “OC prepared me to go to college,” she said, recalling that she struggled in English and biology her first quarter until she taught herself how to study and raised both grades to A's. “OC had amazing professors who stuck with you and didn’t give up on you. I felt I could do anything after that quarter.” She’d planned to transfer to Washington State University with her best friend, Ashlee Moore, but went to Howard University instead after Moore was killed in a car accident. As a broadcast journalism major, she landed internships at media heavy hitters like MTV, BET and NBC. After graduation, she worked for The Jerry Springer Show and MTV in New York City. An offer from rapper Sean “P. Diddy” Combs took her to L.A. to help launch music cable network REVOLT TV. She managed music

PORTRAIT BY ANDY SHEPARD

Legacy of Giving COUPLE INVESTS IN FUTURE OC STUDENTS programming and content, while also doing red-carpet interviews after hours to build her reporting resume. She left after REVOLT started cutting staff and that’s when she went from a pricey loft apartment to the hotel bathroom stall. That night of soul-searching inspired Ayers to become a publicist. She’d already been helping friends with public relations for free and had extensive media contacts. She earned $300 for her first job and now charges a $3,000 retainer for assignments such as managing press events for ESPN’s ESPY awards and orchestrating birthday parties for boxer Floyd Mayweather and actor Jamie Foxx. The celebrity events help pay the bills, but Ayers is most passionate about promoting women and people of color. Her website touts a story she helped place on Forbes.com about a 16-yearold black, female entrepreneur. “So many men get recognition in Forbes, but it’s really women who are the backbone of a lot of these companies and they’re not getting the recognition they deserve,” she said. Ayers shared her own story last summer as a keynote speaker at OC’s 2018 Diversity Conference. Part of her message: You can overcome life’s setbacks. “Any emotion you’re feeling, use it,” she said. “Take the bad things that happen and transform them. I did. I turned pain into profit.”

im Sund and Anne Mulligan believe in giving back – to their country, to their community and to Olympic College.

Sund is a retired Navy veteran who had a long career in business before buying North Kitsap Auto Rebuild in Poulsbo and running it for 20 years. He first got involved with the OC Foundation as a business sponsor of the Annual Community Luncheon, then joined the board and served as president from 2016 to 2018. Mulligan is a retired Navy nurse who came to OC in 2000 to develop the practical nursing program. Both are first-generation college graduates. They paid their own way through school and understand the sacrifices many OC students make to achieve their educational dreams. So, when it was time to create their estate plan, the couple endowed a scholarship for students going into the fields they’re most passionate about: nursing, other medical degrees and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). “I can’t think of a better place to give the money than to the Olympic College Foundation,” said Sund. “You can see clear results from these donations.” Agreed Mulligan: “Our community really needs skilled employees and professionals. Our community really needs more nurses. And the best way to get them is to grow our own here.” Sund regularly volunteers to read OC Foundation scholarship applications, learning about students’ financial hardships firsthand. “I really enjoy giving out scholarships. I’ve had people recognize me out in the community and come up to me and say, ‘A scholarship made such a difference in my career.’” In keeping with their example, Sund and Mulligan want their legacy gift to create a cycle of generosity. “We hope students who need (the scholarship) will take it and use it and then, in turn, give back to the community,” said Mulligan.

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 26

I N THE

OC LOOP 1

1. Adjunct Professor Matthew Blegen practices for a spring 2019 Carnegie Hall performance with his Mason County adult and youth choirs. 2. Mauricio Modestin Jr., a member of OC’s 2011 basketball team, mentors young players in Bremerton during breaks from his international hoops career. 3. Audrey Wolf '08, the OC Foundation’s new director of annual giving and alumni engagement, is all smiles at Bremerton’s Blackberry Festival with husband Phil.

6 2 P. 27 OLYMPIC COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

News of note on campus and around the community. Share your honors, milestones and stories at alumni@olympic.edu.

4. Talk about heavy art! Gretchen Lund ‘18 was among two dozen local artists creating steamroller prints at the Wayzgoose Kitsap Art Festival. See the impressive results at the OC Art Gallery October 12 - November 16. 5. OC students take top honors in the 70th Annual Armed Forces Festival Culinary Arts Competition. 6. Donors meet the students whose lives they’re transforming at the annual Donors & Scholars Celebration, giving out more than $420,000 in scholarships to 149 students. 7. Doug Berger, co-founder of both the OC Foundation and Leadership Kitsap, accepts the 2018 Leadership Kitsap Legacy Award. 8. Art Professor Marie Weichman participates in the Kitsap Sun’s Bridging Bremerton story walk at the Seaglass Village Art Walls. 9. Ahooga! OC’s Student Veterans of America chapter unveils its new submarine-shaped grill at a campus barbecue.

SUMMIT MAGAZINE | VOL.7 | AUTUMN 2018 P. 28

C ALEN DAR

2018-19 Events NOV 1 TH U R

SPEAKER SERIES Dr. Philip Mathew discusses how to be Stronger in the Broken Places in the William D. Harvey Theatre, CIC, at 6:30pm.

FRI

JAN 7 MON

MAR 5 TU E

FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIP SEASON BEGINS

MARDI GRAS SERVICE PARADE

Thinking of going back to school? Do you have friends or family attending OC? Go to OlympicCollegeFoundation.org/ scholarships

Vote for our OC Mardi Gras float at the Clearwater Casino & Resort!

25 FRI

Exhibit is open through March 1 in the CIC art gallery.

FEB 14 TH U R

Don't miss this impressive exhibit from prints created during the Wayzgoose Kitsap Art Festival. Exhibit closes November 16.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING "And they'll feast, feast, feast, feast!" ~Dr. Seuss

DEC

SAT

WOODFIRED CERAMICS & MORE EXHIBIT

LAST DAY FOR THE STEAMROLLER PRINT EXHIBIT

22 TH U R

ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE Wear your green and join us at downtown Bremerton's annual parade.

APR 4 TH U R ARTISTS' BOOKS EXHIBIT Collaboration with Bainbridge Island Museum of Art at the CIC art gallery.

ALUMNI VALENTINE DINNER Grab your sweetheart and join us for our annual Alumni Valentine Dinner at the Fireside Bistro. This event will sell out quickly, so call (360) 475-7120 now to reserve your spot.

SEASON'S GREETINGS! Warmest winter wishes for an enchanted season.

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TU E

KITSAP GREAT GIVE Support OC during Kitsap's biggest day of giving.

We've Transformed! Whether you're an alum looking for ways to connect, a student looking for scholarship information or a donor looking for how the OC Foundation makes a difference, OlympicCollegeFoundation.org has all the answers.

Be sure to bookmark OlympicCollegeAlumni.org to keep up with alumni news and events.

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1600 Chester Avenue, CSC 530 Bremerton, WA 98337

(360) 475-7120 alumni@olympic.edu OlympicCollegeAlumni.org Join us on Facebook

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K n ow a n OC a lu m wh o d ese r ves recog nition? Send your nominations for the Alumni Association's inaugural Distinguished Alumni Awards to OlympicCollegeFoundation.org/ distinguished-alumni.