By Ward Peck
I’ve dispensed with the editorial and gave Zack the week off from writing his excellent “Reporter’s Notebook” feature this week to share some personal thoughts on Southern Maine Community College’s 60th anniversary.

How can I do that? Because I’m the editor. That’s how.

Eight or so years ago, the idea that I would be in charge of a news organization, however modest, would have seemed implausible. The fact is, I’m a college dropout. Actually, I didn’t “drop out,” I got kicked out for poor grades. Twice.

My first effort at college wasn’t much of an effort at all. I got into Gettysburg College largely as a favor to my guidance councilor, which is kind of like the middle-class white person’s version of affirmative action. I did everything a kid sent off to college does, except the studying, turning in assignments and going to class part. It was little wonder that by the end of that year I had a G.P.A that was closer to zero than a C-average. The school told me not to come back in the fall and try again in a year.

I did. I returned as something between a freshman and a sophomore as my original classmates began their junior year. Although this second effort was more sincere than the first, I lacked the skills to turn desire into accomplishment– I didn’t know how to study or research a paper or write well-constructed sentences (a skill some of you believe I still haven’t mastered). After three semesters of mediocrity, I was asked to leave again.

I returned to New Jersey feeling like a loser. When you feel like a loser, you start acting like one, too. A cycle of poor decisions reinforcing the sense of worthlessness threatened to tighten into a spiral of self-destruction.

Luckily, it never got that far. I managed to hold on to the conviction that I was smarter than a lot of my high school classmates who managed to get college degrees. I was determined to get mine.

I enrolled in classes at the local community college to stay in the habit of being in a classroom and work on the skills I never developed.

I took economics classes for no particular reason; I took accounting classes because my employer would pay for them. I took philosophy, history, and government classes. Over three years I took at least one night class each term. It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually I learned how to be student. Something else happened: I became a nerd and I liked it. I sought out the seat front and center. I got mad if I got a “B” on a test. I became “Ward, destroyer of grade-curves.”

My community college experience ended shortly after a teacher pulled me aside after class.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

He wasn't seeing the person who was flailing through life three years earlier. His comment was the exact opposite of the one made to me by the dean of first year students at Gettysburg, who predicted my failure and told me “You don't belong here.”

His question signaled to me that I had accomplished what I had set out to do. By the fall I left my cushy-but-unfulfilling office job and enrolled full time in a local public four-year college. With the skills I had learned and the credits I earned in community college, I graduated in two years with honors in my major, my minor and overall.

When I hear people complain about the adverse impacts (the traffic, the kids) SMCC has on their lives, I can’t help but feel a little insulted. The benefits of having a place where kids and adults have an opportunity for a first, second or third chance to improve their lot outweigh what amounts to inconveniences to its neighbors.

SMCC is 60 years old, but it’s life as a community college is in its infancy. On it’s anniversary, I wish the institution well.

I’m only returning the favor.

Jersey Tawk is printed every other week in the Scarborough Leader newspaper.

Ward Peck may be contacted at editor@southportlandsentry.com