Hannah Althea, Community Development StudentI am the product of a village of people who, throughout space and time, have been essential pillars to any amount of “success” I have achieved or will achieve, and whom I hope to emulate in terms of how I want to show up and be a caretaker of life. In an ideal manifestation of this world, no one would move through the world without the support of others. We know, of course, that this isn’t always the case, and this deep cultural wound is just one facet of why I’m a Community Development (CD) major.
Because of my village of support, I’m achieving what sometimes felt impossible: graduating with my bachelor’s degree in Community Development. This is no small achievement to me: a first-generation college student, someone navigating chronic ailments, and someone who simply has struggled with feeling empowered in academia.
After transferring to Portland State with my associate’s degrees in Sociology, Political Science, and Social Justice Studies, I made an unexpected shift to Biology out of a desire to learn more “hard skills” to mitigate climate change in the urban context. I quickly realized I deeply missed the political component that can be so lacking in the hard sciences. Upon this reevaluation, I was drawn to the Community Development program for its interdisciplinary approach to social justice issues, and it was immediately clear I had come to the right place.
I’m interested in the creation of more affordable housing. I long for housing that is not only accessible and affordable but that is beautiful, dignified, and deeply sustainable to live in, that elicits participation from the community members who will be living in it.
I initially moved to Portland in 2019, with the vague idea of eventually returning to school out of a love for learning and a desire to finish my degree, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like. Ultimately, I landed at PSU and, like so many other students who find themselves in the CD program, felt pulled in many different directions. The world was on fire, and I needed to know how to help. I was guided by a compass of curiosity for imaginative solutions, particularly to tend to the impacts of climate change for those most vulnerable and historically marginalized. I was inspired by brilliant thinkers like adrienne maree brown and Jane Jacobs and bell hooks, by clever grassroots efforts already happening in our communities, and a desire to salve the cultural wounds of white supremacy, patriarchy, and other systems of domination.
I love CD at Portland State because it has given me tangible solutions for getting to the root of some of these issues. It gives context, whether in rural or urban settings, to the products of inequity, such as homelessness, climate change, poverty, gentrification, and inequity in the built environment, to name a few.
I love college because it is a vehicle for lifetime learning and edification, but even the most progressive academia is not exempt from systems of oppression that cultivate harm. In its attempts to deviate from the status quo, the CD program not only nourishes students’ capacity to achieve academically but also honors the various other ways we learn, through living and being humans right next to each other. While we are all walking down similar paths of a not-always-amenable educational setting, I have often been met by PSU professors who have an equally strong practice of making the process individualized and manageable for students.
Many of the professors I’ve had the privilege of getting to know actively practice their ethos in the classroom. Each course I’ve taken has been a building block toward deeper understanding and tangible tools. The first of these classes in Fall 2020 was with Dr. Kacy McKinney, in their online Intro to Urban Studies course. Even in a pandemic-isolated world, the online environment Dr. McKinney cultivated was thorough and inspiring. It offered a window into concepts I hadn’t been exposed to before: How do we conceive cities? How and why is public art legitimized? What are the processes and policies that create inequality in major cities around the world? The class brought an ethos of critical race and gender theory to a new level of interdisciplinary engagement in the urban setting for me.
Nearly every class I’ve taken has energized me in this way, not only through discussions about overlapping and intersecting systems that co-create harm, but deeply challenging me to pursue what is on the other side of it. Whether it was laying more fundamentals, like Intro to CD with Dr. Moriah McGrath, or challenging our conceptions of the urban environment in Urban Environmental Issues with Dr. Rachel Slocum, or understanding the past and envisioning a sparkly future, like in Dr. Lisa Bates’ Theory & Philosophy of CD, each course strengthened my resolve for meaningful community engagement and change-shaping. The felt result of nearly every CD course I’ve taken is that there are so many ways to be capable.
Professionally, I’m interested in the creation of more affordable housing. I long for housing that is not only accessible and affordable but that is beautiful, dignified, and deeply sustainable to live in, that elicits participation from the community members who will be living in it. I imagine an urban housing landscape that is built with more sustainable resources; filled with community gardens and bike sheds, creative spaces, restful places; cool in the summer and warm in the winter; surrounded by art; affordable to even the lowest-wage workers; close to diverse food options and parks; and abundant with possibilities for community resilience. I want housing like this to be available widely, especially for past and present marginalized communities, to combat the pattern of displacement that can occur when neighborhoods are invested in monetarily.
My fears about our present landscape are now grounded in an abundance of wild possibilities and dreams for how we can create communities centered around care. The tapestry of work to be done is at times large, heavy, and overwhelming, but I have been equipped with my metaphorical sewing needle to try to repair my little piece of the cloth. And I know I am not alone. It is no small thing to be in this work with brilliant, caring, and passionate classmates and professors, each with sewing needle in hand, mending right alongside me. I will forever be in gratitude for the village of support for this gift.