Tim Cook, president of Clackamas Community College, has been running 32 miles a day for the last five weeks. He’s not training for a long-distance race, but running the equivalent of 57 marathons — more than 1,500 miles — over seven weeks to raise money for students’ basic needs at his campus and others across Oregon.
Cook started the run on June 16, and plans to make stops at each of the 17 community colleges in the state. Through the effort, he’s raised nearly $100,000, which will be divided up among the campuses.
Students at Oregon’s community colleges, as at two-year institutions nationally, struggle disproportionately to meet their basic needs while pursuing an education.
Cook’s goal is to raise awareness of and funds for three major problems: food insecurity, housing insecurity, and homelessness. His running blog cites data that found 52 percent of the state’s community-college students have faced some form of housing insecurity in the last year, with 20 percent experiencing homelessness.
Cook has been running marathons for the past 20 years, but he said covering that distance and more every day has been a different kind of challenge. The Chronicle spoke with him during his lunch break on Wednesday — day 37 of his run — with two weeks to go. The conversation has been edited for clarity.
I’m really curious as to how the idea to do this, specifically in the format of a run, came about.
The “why” was really about raising awareness about basic needs, and I felt like I needed to do something that was big and a little bit audacious to get some attention. During the pandemic I ran a marathon at my college by myself just to say thanks and to raise up students and faculty. And then a faculty member from a neighboring college in Astoria saw that, and ended up biking to all of the 17 community colleges by himself to raise money for students. And when he came to my college, that’s really the seed.
And what about specifically the desire to focus on basic needs?
The catalyst, really, that did it for me was, I was at a conference and went to a session on basic needs, and a well-meaning woman said, “I don’t see what the big deal is, I’d eat Top Ramen when I was in college, that’s just part of being a college student.” And I had a sort of visceral reaction. It’s much more serious than “Do I have to eat Top Ramen or mac and cheese tonight?” It’s really making choices about being fed or going to class.
You’ve been president for seven years, and part of the community-college system in Oregon for quite a bit longer than that. How have you seen these issues grow or change?
The best example I have is our foundation, like most college foundations, used to just raise money for scholarships and maybe some equipment. One of our biggest requests now is for help paying rent or help paying utility bills. So we’re actively fund raising with our foundation just for basic-needs support, so it feels to me like this issue has gotten much, much larger. Where students need scholarships now it’s almost like they need a basic-needs support fund too alongside that.
What do you understand solutions to be — in the context of community colleges, in your state, in your system, or nationally?
Community-college students often don’t qualify for Pell because they may be part time, and if they do qualify, they’re not getting their full Pell Grant. There’s been a push for years, to really lower eligibility, which would benefit a lot of part-time students and community-college students primarily.
I’m really concerned about the recent changes to cut SNAP benefits and Medicaid, and those are directly going to harm students. I really worry about what I see as a large problem, even getting bigger.
Statewide we have bills to raise some funds and some awareness for basic needs, support for college students in general. That is something I’d like to see, just some stable funding for this.
I’m glad that this run’s getting attention, but I also don’t want people to think, we can have a bake sale or jog-a-thon to fix this problem. We need to find some real, stable, long-term solutions.
In your experience and understanding, how are these problems barriers to the mission of any educational institution, but specifically a community college? How are they barriers to providing education?
I go back to Maslow’s hierarchy. Somebody that’s not sure where they’re sleeping tonight or hasn’t eaten — I’m not sure how they can be successful in classes.
I was talking to a person last night who was staying at this house that we were at. And I was explaining what I was doing and he goes, “Well, don’t they live on campus, and can’t they just eat in the dorms?”
Our students are 30-year-olds, they’re parents, they’re working. They’re not the traditional living-on-campus students. For traditional-age students who have full financial aid or parental support, it’s probably not as much of an issue as it is for students on the margins, which tend to be more community-college students.
Over 70 percent of our students at my college are part time because they’re working. It’s harder to explain to people that think this is a Top Ramen issue or something else.
I know that you said that this is not an issue that can be solved with a jog-a-thon. But what specifically is the funding from this run going toward?
We got great sponsors that covered all of our costs, so all the money that we raise goes right back to students. The way we set it up is, it’s being funneled through my college’s foundation, for logistics, but as people donate, they choose which community college they want it to go to. We’re up to $95,000 today. All of that money goes back to each of the college’s foundations.
It was important to me that I didn’t say how a college should spend their money or what they should do with it, because each of these communities has their own needs, and they’ll decide how they’re going to allocate it.
Do you know where it will go at your college?
We do things like pay electric bills. The story I like to tell is we paid somebody’s car insurance because their car was going to be repossessed, and that was literally their home. We’ve helped people pay for gas or pay for other things like that too.
We used to call it an emergency fund, and now we call it basic-needs fund because it’s all an emergency. It’s just how we think about it and how we keep students in school basically.
With our foundation we’re looking at establishing a basic-needs endowment fund like you would any other kind of endowments or scholarships. To be able to have some stable funding coming from that I think would be more practical than waiting for state or federal solutions at this time.
Going back to the run itself, I’ve seen on your blog that people have joined you or run different parts with you. What’s that been like?
It’s been probably the most rewarding part of this. When I was in some of the rural parts of the state and running by myself down these roads, people would stop in their cars because they’re not used to seeing somebody running down the street and just ask what I was doing. And then once they heard about it, they wanted to know more.
I’ve got a satellite tracker on, so if people want to find me they can. I’ve had people just show up places saying, “We’re tracking you and wanted to say hi.” It’s a little weird, but it’s super inspiring. Beyond just seeing the social-media stuff, running in these places gives us an opportunity to talk about the issue and talk about community colleges. It’s been fantastic in that way. I can’t describe how, how much fun that’s been.
People that have literally stopped me and said, community colleges saved my life. Community colleges are how I’m here today.
So you’re running by yourself, and people join you for stretches, and then it’s your wife in a van alongside and a team?
So she’s been kind of the crew chief, along for the entire thing. We got a Sprinter van donated to us, so that’s got all of our stuff in it. And then we basically enlisted our friends.
Basically they go up about five miles ahead of me, and I run to them and if I need more water, Gatorade, or food or something they make sure I have that. And then they’re figuring out if anything is on the route that I need to be aware of. The deal was, all I had to worry about was running. They manage all the other logistics.
How much longer do you have to go?
About two weeks. Tomorrow we’ll hit our 11th out of 17 colleges. They’re coming kind of fast and furious, not as far apart. I’ve got less than 400 miles left, so about two weeks and then we’ll finish up.
And once you’re done running, what’s next?
I’ve been asked to get involved in some state work around this, so I definitely think there’s probably an opportunity to continue advocating working through that. I’ll do what I can to continue so it doesn’t just kind of die off, and I’m sure I’ll write something about this. I’m also just thinking about how I help leaders and others. You don’t need to go out and run 1,500 miles, but how do you really amplify an issue, and work through that, either statewide or community-wide too.
