By 5 p.m. the outside lights are blazing across campus, parking lots have seen a great exodus, and city buses fill with people leaving campus.

And thus ends another day at Mt. Hood Community College, or so many people may think.

The truth is, MHCC has people on campus all day and all night. Custodians and public safety officers are present 24 hours a day. Students and instructors are in night classes, some of which run until 10 p.m. For some employees of Mt. Hood, the workday is just beginning.

The night begins ominously as the campus is noticeably darker than usual. The upper level main lights, the lights along the path between the main campus and the gym and some other lights scattered around campus are out. Fog is forming around the pond. The night is already chill. It also just happens to be Halloween.

Monday
5 p.m. “Business as usual” is done until tomorrow. Administration offices are closed; Human Resources, the business office and faculty office workers are gone, as are most full-time instructors.

6 p.m. Most night classes have begun and are in full swing. The custodial swing shift goes on duty, and the staff receives their marching orders from Lance Belnap, night lead custodian. “The majority of the cleaning gets done at night,” he said.

The custodial staff on shift during the day perform duties as things happen, like stocking restrooms, moving things for administration offices, and staffing events according to Cameron Moneco, a custodian on day shift.

Russ Johnson, the custodial and warehouse supervisor, said typically the swing and graveyard shift custodians break up into areas where they clean and perform other duties.
Director of Facilities Management Don Wallace said, “There’s a saying, ‘It’s as dead as three o’clock in the morning.’ Nothing too exciting happens.”

But from flaming garbage cans in the pool area to a mummified squirrel in an air vent, custodians have stories to tell, some of which, “I don’t think you can put in the paper,” according to Belnap. “It’s a whole different world at night.”

Custodian Barbara Smith had a scare one night when Smith heard noises coming from a trashcan. When she got closer to investigate the noise and to remove the trash bag, she found a squirrel that had gotten stuck between the plastic garbage can and the metal frame it sits in. “The squirrels around here are so fat, this one had gotten into the garbage and couldn’t get back out,” said Smith.

The swing shift custodians tell a story about a colleague on day shift who still has a mummified squirrel found in an air vent.

One problem the custodial staff admits to is a shortage of employees. “We are always shorthanded,” one custodian said.

Belnap said, “We back public safety up because there’s too few of them too.” If an alarm goes off at Maywood Park Campus, public safety has to leave the main campus to check it out. If there is only one officer on duty that night, the main campus is without security, so custodial keeps an eye on things.

All custodial staff carry radios, like public safety, so they can be in constant contact with one another in case there are any problems.

Chalea Whiteside, a custodian, said sometimes the panic alarm is triggered in the women’s locker room in the gym and the female custodians have to check out the building to see if there is a real problem or if it is a false alarm. When they check it out, there’s never anyone there, she said.

The custodians agree they have a good time together and enjoy working for the college.
Belnap said, “We really take ownership of this building. We might be putting lipstick on a pig, but we care about this place.”

6:50 p.m. The St. Helen’s Bistro is still open, but if students need a cup of java they better come and get it quick, because the Bistro closes at 7 p.m.

Valarie Valdez is straightening fixtures, filling cups and refrigerators and doing other activities to prepare the Bistro for the morning. Since most night classes start at six, the rush starts just before then, she said. “I could have 16 people in line.”

7:30 p.m. Multnomah Community Television
At Multnomah Community Television’s office, a group of individuals passionate about community and sharing their vision can be found, ready to extend assistance and advice to anyone from the neighborhood.

There is a photo in the lobby of MCTV’s office of the staff in 1988. Mike Canty, a technical specialist for the community television organization, said, “That’s probably the last time I let someone take a picture of me.” Canty’s “office” is in a room with video and electronic equipment floor to ceiling. MCTV manages eight cable channels, and the programs on these channels play simultaneously on eight separate monitors.

John Lugton, an equipment specialist, said, “We are community TV serving the East County. We do government, we do everything from the Christian right to naked people.”
For $25 anyone from the community can attend workshops on how to shoot video, edit and basic production. By becoming a member for $50, they can have access to a camera and tripod and the equipment at the station.

MCTV is moving to a new building in Gresham, so the office will be a little disrupted until the end of the year, but community members are still encouraged to come check MCTV out at their location on campus during the hours they are open to the public. Call 503-491-7636.

8:30 p.m. A ride along with Public Safety Officer Carl Stromseth is just the thing to cure the Halloween creeps. “I got about 20 calls about the lights being out,” he said.

By the time someone from maintenance had been contacted and arrived at the school, the problem had corrected itself, according to Stromseth. He theorized that the daylight saving clock change was part of the problem with the lights not coming on.

Asked about things that happen on a typical night shift, Stromseth laughs. “I haven’t worked a typical night shift in a long time,” he said. At night an officer might help someone find their car if they misplaced it, unlock classrooms for night instructors and escort people to their vehicles, along with their regular patrols.

“After dark we try to focus more on property and personal safety. We try to be more visible at night,” he said.

Stromseth pointed out that there are taverns nearby, and it isn’t uncommon for this to affect the campus. “Sometimes we get drunk people urinating on campus, and homeless people living in the woods behind campus during the summer,” he said.

8:53 Someone calls in looking for missing keys. “I’m surprised we haven’t gotten more dead battery calls,” Stromseth said. Student Viviana Sanchez met Stromseth in the public safety office to retrieve her keys.

9:13 Stromseth jumped a dead battery for Anna Hawley, the evening technical assistant in the library. Stromseth has advice for everyone who drives.

“It’s a good idea to keep a jumpstart kit in the car, an auxiliary battery. Keep it with chains and other emergency gear like Fix-A-Flat.” It’s a good idea for students to keep a can of fix a flat because public safety may be able to jump start a dead battery, but officers are not allowed to change tires. “We aren’t allowed to jack a car up, take lug nuts off, nothing.” Stromseth also reminds people that it’s a good idea to keep a spare key on your person, in a wallet or purse in case one locks their keys in the car.

9:25 Stromseth begins locking sections of the parking lots and roads on campus. The parking lots are mostly empty by now, with a few cars left in the lots closest to the flagpoles.

Tuesday
5 p.m. Katrinia McNeal sits by the window wall in the new Part-time Faculty Center working on a computer at a new desk.

McNeal has worked evenings since January and said the busiest nights of the year are the first two weeks of the term, when students are trying to find classes and need help in other areas.

“There’s the whole musical classroom thing, where the schedule says it’s in one room, but the computer says it’s in another room,” she said.

Since she started working in the Part-time Faculty Center, McNeal said things have been pretty quiet. She thinks the traffic will pick up “once the part time faculty know they have a place where they can come and use the computers and use a table and actually meet with students, because there’s a lot of space in here,” she said.

An email was sent to faculty members to let them know there is a place they can meet in the evenings, but McNeal thinks there is a grand re-opening planned to help get the word out that the office is open.

9:00 p.m. The silence in the library is deafening compared to the noise there during the day.

Eileen Neil, the library technical assistant, agrees that at night the atmosphere in the library is very different from regular business hours, when people are on their cell phones, classes are meeting, and noise spills over from the tutoring center upstairs.

“Mostly the people we see at night are very serious students, and they seem very courteous and respectful of each other. They’re very appreciative, and keep it calm and quiet.”

Neil said the beginning of the week is busiest and tapers off through the week.

“Teachers come in on Mondays to request videos and other media, but by Thursday and Friday it slows down,” Neil said.

In the evenings often there are classes being held in the library’s conference rooms.

“Today a Spanish class came up to do an assignment in the periodical room with the magazines,” she said.

Neil also said the library answers a lot of questions at night that aren’t related to the library. “Parents come in looking for the computer lab. We have a lot of high school students that take classes here and they do their work in the lab.”

The strangest experience Neil and Rob Mead, a part-time staff member, remember beyond the occasional bird getting caught inside the building is the night an instructor came into the library expecting to find her class there only to learn her class was being held at an off-site campus.

“She was very upset. We did the best we could to defuse the situation,” said Neil.

10 p.m. Teresa Garcia is a computer lab regular. She comes in at 7:30 a.m. when the lab opens and is there at 10 p.m. when they are closing, almost everyday.

At 10 p.m. there are five other people in the lab besides Garcia.

Sally Schenk is the lab supervisor, and Cecil Salmon, Meghan Romey and Zach Adamson are students who work as lab monitors. A friend of Adamson’s, Chris Peabody, is waiting for everyone to finish up.

The lab organizes the number of people that use the services there. Salmon checks a chart and says the lab averages 15 people after 5 p.m.

Schenk said the volume picks up around midterms and finals week and during that time, the lab gets very busy.

“End of term chaos” is how Romey describes the atmosphere at that time.

Schenk said the lab is also an information center of sorts. “People come in looking for information, escorts, and to use the phone. One guy came in one night to use the phone when his car was stolen.”

Salmon said, “When it rains everyone comes in here.”
Schenk said, “It’s a fun place to work. We like everyone who works here.”

What else can happen at 5 p.m.
MHCC has a very unique kiln in the Visual Arts Center.

It is unlike other kilns because it uses wood to heat and because of the volume it can hold. John McLaughlin, assistant ceramics technician, said the kiln is of the Anagama style, a method of firing developed in Japan.

The 75-cubic foot tunnel kiln fires for 42 to 48 hours and someone has to be present to feed more wood and to stoke the coals. The kiln has “mouseholes” on the top and to the sides that are large enough to put small pieces of wood in.

“There is a noticeable difference with a wood kiln from a gas kiln, depending on the clay body. Ash cones in the ceiling of the kiln melt and drip on pieces being fired, resulting in glassy spots on ceramics,” said McLaughlin.

It takes one day to load the kiln, which is usually done on a Friday, and then the kiln is preheated with natural gas. The next morning someone loads wood to build up a coal bed and keep it going to cone 12 or cone 14, a very high temperature.

The kiln isn’t fired often because, according to McLaughlin, it is sometimes hard to generate enough interest among students. The firing is labor intensive and students may have to pay to have pieces included to cover the cost of wood. Access to the kiln is not restricted to students; the technicians and some local artists will sometimes have pieces in the firing also.

The kiln has to be monitored, or “read” the entire time. “Weather affects the kiln, everything affects the firing. How the kiln is loaded, how fast it heats up, everything,” McLaughlin said. The kiln gets fired usually three times a year, but this year may see more firings because the National Council for Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) is holding its annual conference in Portland next March. McLaughlin said the ceramics department usually has firings, “In the fall, winter and maybe early spring. After that we don’t just because it’s a possible hazard. We do have screens over the top to keep embers from flying away.

“We have an advantage because we’re on the outskirts of town, we can have kilns like this, most campuses in cities won’t have a wood burning kiln like this. It freaks people out. You’ll get flames shooting out of the chimney, black smoke chugging away,” he said.
Tony Kempton, a fine art major taking ceramics and art history this term, has night instructor Don Sprague’s ceramics class, which meets Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Kempton, who helped build the new soda salt kiln, which uses soda and salt to affect the clay body, said there has to be enough pieces to fire the large wood-burning kiln, another reason it isn’t fired often.