PCC changes lives one student at a time

Pamlico Community College's tag line promoting its image for more than a year has been "changing lives" Why this tag line? Learning about student experiences before enrolling at PCC can easily lead one to the conclusion that this college is all about changing lives.

Allyson Rice lives on Goose Creek Road near Arapahoe. Her father, Fred Wayne, is a veteran logger. As a young woman, always interested in being outdoors, she begged her father to let her work for him. Recognizing the improbability of a really petite female making a go of it in the log woods, he spurned her pleas. Not until she dated a logger did she get the opportunity to actually operate a skidder as timber fell to the ground all around her.

With four children, two of them grown, and with grandchildren on the way, going from the log woods to being a store clerk did not paint the future Rice wanted. Having earned her GED at PCC years ago, she re-visited the campus and spoke with the college counselor, Kim Wallace. After learning of Rice's continued and passionate interest in working outdoors, Wallace led her to the Environmental Science curriculum.

Has enrolling in this curriculum actually changed Allyson Rice's life?

"It certainly has," she says. "It's opened my eyes, not just in my own neighborhood and county, but outside my country, all over the world. And on top of that, Mr. Miller is making me use correct English."

Rice added, "I want to be somebody some day. I want to do something good."

Entering school making up for lost time has not deterred her ambitions. She wants to take advantage of the articulation agreement between PCC and North Carolina State University in Environmental Science to pursue a bachelor's degree. "I hope that someday I can manage and maintain a protected eco-system for wildlife or waterfowl. I have always loved animals. I would always bring anything live home if I could when I was growing up," she said.

Rice, admitting that her life has changed, wants to also bring about change. One of her ambitions is to find a way for NCSU classes in Environmental Science to be taught in this area to help people like her complete a bachelor's degree without having to move to Raleigh for the last half of the program. Such an opportunity exists for prospective school teachers who complete the first half of a four-year degree at Pamlico Community College and the last half living at home while taking ECU classes taught by ECU instructors at Craven Community College in New Bern.

Allyson Rice's life has changed. Pamlico Community College - and all community colleges - are in the business of changing lives.