About Clackamas Community College
For more than 50 years, Clackamas Community College has offered high-quality education and training opportunities, lifetime learning and robust student life programming.
The college believes in Education That Works. Whether you want to earn a degree or certificate, get an affordable jumpstart to transfer to a four-year university, or explore other possibilities, CCC has the services and classes to get you where you want to go.
Recognized for its committed, supportive faculty and staff, CCC offers programs and services in career technical, college transfer, literacy/basic skills, community education and business training to a diverse student body totaling more than 26,000 at three active campuses.
CCC fosters an open, collaborative decision-making process in which every voice is important. Staff, faculty and students actively contribute their views to help shape decisions and the culture of the college.
The college is governed by a seven-member Board of Education. Members are elected to four-year terms and represent each of the seven zones in the college's service district, which has approximately 320,000 people.
CCC Mission
As our community's college, we cultivate equitable, innovative, and responsive education.
About the area
CCC is located in Clackamas County and is one of the four counties that make up the Portland metropolitan area. The county offers something for everyone, from skiing on Mt. Hood, to boating on our many rivers, from camping in our forests to visiting the fertile Willamette Valley farms and wineries. The county is also rich in the arts, featuring an abundance of festivals, performances and cultural events.
Clackamas Community College is conveniently located just 18 miles to downtown Portland, 50 miles to Mt. Hood and 90 miles to the Oregon Coast. From oceans to mountains to desert, Oregon's natural wonders include its beautiful coast, the Columbia River Gorge, Mt. Hood, the Painted Hills, Smith Rock, the Wallowas mountain range and Crater Lake – one of the deepest lakes in the world.
Oregon City, home of Clackamas Community College's main campus, marks the end of the Oregon Trail. At the confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas rivers, the city is home to shopping, recreation and a variety of historical and cultural attractions, including Willamette Falls – the second largest by volume waterfall in the United States.
The History of CCC
In May 1966, following four years of work by a grassroots citizens' planning committee, 62 percent of the voters in the proposed district in Clackamas County supported the formation of the Clackamas Community College District. When students started enrolling for classes the following fall, Clackamas became Oregon's eighth community college.
Clackamas Community College opened with 93 part-time students taking classes at Gladstone High School, and by the end of the first school year, the college had added 600 more students. The college was briefly located at a campus on Warner-Milne Road, but by 1968 voters and the Board of Education approved the permanent site on 165 acres in Oregon City, and soon after broke ground on the CCC's first permanent home - the Clairmont Building. The college continued to grow and expand and was granted full accreditation in 1971.
The college community broke ground on the Wilsonville campus in 1991. Wilsonville was originally home to the college's high-tech manufacturing programs before partnering with PGE and Pacific Corp in 2000 and becoming the premiere location for utility-based training in the area. The Harmony campus specializes in health sciences education from dental and clinical lab assisting to nursing, paramedics and more.
The Harmony campus was established in 1988. In addition to Health Science offerings, the Harmony Campus is home to Community Education and the Small Business Development Center. Students can complete their AAOT, complete a four-year degree, work on their English skills or complete their GED. Harmony also offers full student services including testing, advising, registration and more.
In 2000, voters approved a $47 million bond measure to pay for six new buildings at the Oregon City campus to keep providing quality education and job training close to home for Clackamas County residents. Fourteen years later, the college again responded to community needs by asking voters to approve a $90 million capital improvement bond. The bond passed in November 2014.
With a steady focus on progress and community spirit, the college has grown to serve a diverse student body of wide-ranging ages, backgrounds and program interests, with more than 1,300 classes taught each term.