Portland State graduates are an impressive bunch. Whether it’s being the first one in their family to go to college, balancing school with a job or a family or restarting college after a long break, our students are known for overcoming challenges to build a better life for themselves and their families. The class of 2023 is no exception. Learn more about three of this year’s outstanding graduates who exemplify the spirit of Portland State.

Ayan Abdi Salat

Ayan Abdi Salat’s journey to PSU began on another continent. She was born in Somalia and lived there until the civil war forced her and her family to become refugees in Kenya. They stayed in Kenya for 10 years until they came to Portland in 2015, just in time for Ayan to start high school. 

“It was very hard to go into high school with everything that was going on,” says Ayan. But she says she benefited from having great teachers who helped her work at her own pace as she grew in her English proficiency. 

After graduating from high school, Ayan decided to stay local for college. “I definitely wanted to stay close to my mom,” she says. During the war, her mother was injured and Ayan had siblings who died. Ayan didn’t want her mom to feel like she was losing her, too. She applied to Portland State and was awarded a Diversity Scholarship and a couple of other scholarships. 

When Ayan joined PSU, she soon learned that there was a wealth of resources at her disposal if she just asked. 

“One of the things that I'm really grateful for was I had at least five different tutors,” she says. “One was helping me find scholarships, another was helping me be a good planner and another one was helping me be connected to the school.”

Besides tutors, Ayan has found support from her professors. She was especially touched when a Women’s Studies professor gave her a book by a Kenyan author during one of her first courses at PSU. 

“I really loved how she made me feel in her class and it was one of the classes that I used to look forward to,” says Ayan. “The way that professor made her way to find a connection was really something that made me fall in love with this school more.“

Another instructor, Sarah Dougher, who taught Ayan’s Health, Happiness, and Human Rights course, became a trusted mentor.

"I am really glad to have met her and worked with her because she offered me the hand when I needed it the most and was my guide to everything,” Ayan says. “She offered me a safe space and was the one professor that I went to whenever I wanted to have some questions answered.” 

Ayan also discovered some comforting places on campus, including the Pan-African Commons, the library, and the meditation room in the basement of Smith. Both the library and meditation room contain space and supplies for Muslim students like Ayan to do their prayers. 

I feel like Portland State is a part of me.

“The fact that the school had the time to actually build that for its Muslim community, that’s a huge thing to me,” she says. 

Ayan has kept very busy as a student. She is majoring in both Political Science and Public Health Administration and earning a minor in Law and Legal Studies, all while helping translate for her parents, and working full-time as a community health worker for the Center for African Immigrants and Refugees Organization (CAIRO) and doing Islamic Studies. 

During the pandemic, she worked with CAIRO to provide vital resources for immigrants and to make public health information accessible in a culturally sensitive way. 

“I know what it is like when you don't really have support, especially when you've come to a new country,” she says. 

This work furthered her passion in public health and encouraged her to apply for the OHSU-PSU’s Master of Public Health program. When she learned she was accepted, she realized that meant she had the added bonus of not having to say goodbye to a place she loves so much. 

“I feel like Portland State is a part of me,” she says. 

After her MPH, Ayan plans to continue her schooling at PSU and become a counselor in clinical mental health. She wants to blend Western psychology and Islamic practices into a holistic approach.

“While finding therapists who look like you is harder to find when you are Black, it's even harder to find therapists that also share the same religion with you,” she says. “It's hard to talk to someone who doesn't understand the questions that run wild in your head."

Ayan is ecstatic to be walking at commencement and to celebrate with her family. “I’m going to be the first person in my family to graduate,” she says. “I know that’s going to bring a lot of joy. Hooyo iyo Aabo, this is for you” 

Nancy MacKenzie

Nancy MacKenzie, who will be receiving a bachelor’s degree in biomedical physics, had a nonlinear path to Portland State. 

Despite being an avid learner, a college degree wasn’t originally in the cards for MacKenzie. She dropped out of high school, and no one in her family had a degree. 

“I never saw myself going to university because it just seemed so far outside of the realm of possibilities for me,” she says. “I always had this interest to learn, but it just seemed not feasible.”

Throughout her 20s, MacKenzie worked multiple jobs, living paycheck to paycheck while struggling with a chronic health condition. That didn’t stop her from learning, though. She frequently found herself falling down various research rabbit holes, and she started to wonder what it would be like to have a career in scientific research. She was inspired to learn more about neuroscience after reading a book about neuroplasticity. 

“I was just always interested in learning, and neuroscience seemed to be an undercurrent because it helped me build a coping toolkit for my illness,” she says. 

In 2017, a confluence of events suddenly made going to a university a viable option for MacKenzie. She received treatment for her chronic illness, and she learned about Portland State’s Transfers Finish Free (now Tuition-Free Degree) program. The ability to attend PSU without accumulating debt was a game changer.

“I was living paycheck to paycheck, and I had debt and the idea of taking on more debt didn’t seem worth the risk and like a degree was inaccessible because of that,” she says. “[Transfers Finish Free] broke that boundary for me, and I was able to see myself as going towards this goal.”

With her goal of being a researcher suddenly seeming possible, MacKenzie enrolled in classes at Portland Community College (PCC). While re-entry was challenging, two professors affirmed her excitement about her path and wrote her recommendations for PSU’s BUILD EXITO undergraduate research training program. 

She was accepted to the program and enrolled at PSU. She jumped straight into the deep end, taking a difficult biophysics class that was held online due to the pandemic. It was especially challenging because MacKenzie hadn’t taken much physics yet. But the instructor was so impressed with how MacKenzie applied what she did know from other subjects to her work that she nominated her for the Dawn Dressler Health Science Studies Award. 

Through the BUILD EXITO program, MacKenzie has worked in the lab of Christof Teuscher, professor of electrical and computer engineering, for three years where she has been researching artificial neural networks. She says it has been both challenging and exciting to be working on a real research project. It has also been great preparation for her next move following graduation when she will enter a PhD program in neuroscience at the University of Washington. 

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean that you can’t do it.

“I’m really grateful, and I’m really excited,” says MacKenzie about going to graduate school. She chose University of Washington because the program is respected for its computational neuroscience research and because it has outreach and teaching opportunities built in. Throughout her time at PSU, MacKenzie has been a dedicated tutor and mentor for other students. 

“Being a non-traditional student, I've always liked to offer advice if I have it for someone,” says MacKenzie. “I am passionate about mentoring students in STEM, particularly those entering math and computation who may not fit the traditional mold. I encountered a lot of great mentors who encouraged me along the way, and I want to pay it forward by helping other students find a sense of belonging.”

Her biggest piece of advice for other nontraditional students?  “Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean that you can’t do it,” she says.   

Eventually, MacKenzie plans to become a professor and run her own lab where she can mentor students and work toward better understanding the brain.

In the meantime, MacKenzie—who is graduating summa cum laude—is excited to walk at commencement in front of her family. Since she didn’t graduate from high school, it will be her first time on the graduation stage.

“I’m probably going to be a little bit emotional,” she says. 

Thomas Crouch

Thomas Crouch will be receiving his master’s degree in piano performance, and it has been quite a journey to get to the commencement stage. 

Crouch first began playing piano as a rambunctious eight-year-old in a small farm town in southern Virginia. At the beginning, he struggled to sit still at the piano bench, but the instrument soon grew on him. When his family moved to Vancouver, Wash., at 14, he decided to get serious about his training and auditioned with a well-known piano teacher from Russia.

“I played a piece of video game music for my audition because I didn’t know any better,” he says. “She sat me down and told me what she expected and from there I really started to fall in love with piano.” 

Crouch became so dedicated to the instrument that he majored in piano performance in college and entered a master’s program at the University of Washington soon after. Life was good. He was pursuing his dream.

Then, toward the end of his first semester, disaster struck. 

He broke his left arm in an accident. Doctors told him that if he wanted to be able to play again, he wouldn’t be able to use his arm for a year so it could heal. Crouch couldn’t do that. Forced to drop out of his master’s program, he needed to work to earn money—and that meant using his arm. 

“I'm generally a very congenial, very nice person, and I was not a congenial, nice person for six months because I was mad at the world,” he says. “It was devastating. It was heartbreaking. My entire life changed.” 

He got a job at Nordstrom and stayed there for seven and a half years, working his way up to business manager. Throughout most of that time, he never touched a piano. 

One day Crouch realized that he wasn’t happy—and that he no longer had pain in his arm. He met with doctors to see if he could consider playing again. They said he could if he took it slow. Then his sister offered to let him live with her—and her piano—for free so he could start to play again. Things were coming together. 

He started making connections with other pianists, including Susan Chan, professor of music at Portland State. 

Ten years after breaking his arm, he enrolled at PSU to restart his master’s degree, with Chan as his mentor.  

“The first quarter I was very caught up in making sure that I was good enough,” he says. “But that quickly faded away because I was getting back into what I wanted to do.”

Keep moving forward, at least with something, because you don't know where it's going to lead.

Crouch worked as a teaching assistant while earning his master’s and was happy to discover that there were other TAs in the music department around his age.

“PSU is a great place. I've heard it explained as a second chance school for a lot of people like me, where we're coming back,” says Crouch. “I think you have a lot more diversity in terms of where people are in their path.”

He also found that some of the skills he learned in the business world—like being detail-oriented and knowing how to keep a schedule—have helped him excel as a student and teacher. In fact, they were some of the reasons why Chan decided to mentor him.  

Last term Crouch performed his master’s recital, his first full-blown performance since breaking his arm. Instead of feeling like a gauntlet to overcome as it is for many students, it was a joyful experience for Crouch.  

“The very first piece I played was the very last piece I had started working on before I broke my arm. I actually had it tattooed on my arm because it was the last thing I worked on,” says Crouch. “To finally perform it 10 years later and use it to get farther in my schooling was just a fantastic feeling.”

After commencement, Crouch will head to James Madison University where he will be pursuing a combined doctorate in piano performance and pedagogy. He hopes to become a professor, like his mentor Professor Chan, and possibly have a studio where he can help high school students get serious about their training, just like his teacher in Vancouver helped him. 

His advice to others who have experienced a serious bump in the road during their education? “It sounds cheesy, but don't give up. Keep moving forward, at least with something, because you don't know where it's going to lead,” he says. “For me it was a full circle moment. It might not be that way for everybody, but just know that showing that you're willing to grow and develop will always pay off somehow, even if it's not in the way you originally intended.”