PSU Magazine Fall 1995

From 78s to CDs rom Vanport to the Park Blocks; from 3-0 glasses to CD ROM; from World War II to Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, Portland State students have seen it all-and lived it too. For a look at how times have changed since the Vanport campus opened in 1946, we profiled five students whose educational experiences spanned the five decades since Portland State's founding. The result was surprising: While the student body is more complex and diverse than ever, its needs and lifestyle are much the same today as in 1946. Even 50 years ago, many of this school's students didn't fit the stereotype. Then, as now, the collegiate lifestyle revolved most often around work, family, and studies, rather than the more traditional preppy pastimes of parties, beer kegs, and hot dates. Vanport Extension Center was born as a temporary campus to handle the overflow of World War II veter– ans entering school on the GI Bill, an across-the– board college scholarship program for ex-soldiers, funded by the federal government. Officials planned to shut Vanport down once the student glut ran its course. Instead, the institution slowly built itself from a stopgap social program to a metropolitan University. The former and current students profiled here agree that Portland State's programs, its ties to business and government, and its mission as an inner-city campus community-one that serves students on many levels outside the classroom-puts PSU square on the cutting edge of higher education. And looking back, perhaps it always has. 14 PSU MAGAZINE FALL 1995 1946: In the Beginning W hen the Vanport Extension Center of the Oregon State System of Higher Education opened in 1946, those who had spent their childhood in the hungry Depression years and come of age during the second World War already knew a few things about pain, hard work, and planning for the future. Supplies were limited; classrooms were packed. But the young veterans' enthusiasm, wedded to a newfound maturity, infu ed the abandoned– factory-tumed-makeshift-campus in north Portland. Its affordable student hous ing was a criti – cal resource, serving bachelors and' many newly married couples. John Hakanson was 25 yea rs old when he left the South Pacific battlegrounds of WWII as a captain in the infantry. In 1946, he and his bride, Helen, enrolled in college; she in nursing at Oregon Health Sciences University, he at Vanport. "We knew, for one thing, a lot more about life than we had known before the war," he says. "I think it's quite true that the more experience and background you bring with you the deeper the education." The war experience gave many students a liberal political perspective, remembers Hakanson. Meeting people of other races and cultures changed the way these young men-the Generation X of half a century ago-saw their home state and its citizens. After fighting in Japan, the Philippines, New Guinea, and the Hawaiian Islands, "We were awakening to the realities of racial prejudice in Oregon," he says. Hakanson-who in 1949 wrote the legisla– tion, adopted by state lawmakers, to make Vanport a permanent institution-retired as pres– ident of Clackamas Community College in 1984. A past member of the PSU Alumni Board, he's been married to Helen now for 49 years, and they enjoy their four children and 10 grandchil– dren.