By Chris Cunningham
EUGENE, ORE.--"I'm very much aware of the challenges that personal problems can pose for students," says Bruce Sanchez, who has been teaching anthropology and philosophy part-time at Lane Community College since 1992.
Over a span of 20 years, Sanchez attended classes at the University of Oregon and LCC, while he was working in the lumber and steel fabrication industries and raising three children as a single father.
"I enrolled at LCC in September 1966, before there was a central campus," he says. "I went to classes that were distributed throughout the Eugene-Springfield area."
But uncertain of the direction he wanted to take, he dropped out of school two months later and joined the Army. After his discharge, he re-enrolled at LCC in 1970 to bring up his grade point average before continuing his studies at the UO.
Sanchez says he had never planned to be a teacher until the wood products company he worked for began to downsize. He remembers thinking that he might be able "to use the master's degrees" he had earned from the UO in anthropology (1975) and philosophy (1985).
Even so, in 1992, Sanchez also earned an Associate of Applied Science degree from Lane in computer programming. From 2000 to 2008, he worked at Hynix in west Eugene, where he manufactured memory chips.
Colleagues have praised Sanchez, who is Mexican-American, for his contributions to Lane's ethnic studies curricula, creating two anthropology classes that each span three terms: one on Native North American Indian cultures, and the other on peoples of Mexican and Mexican American heritage.
Based on his own experience, Sanchez notes that Lane plays an invaluable role in the community by providing "introductory courses at a reasonable cost."
Now 67, Sanchez continues to teach part-time. "I love teaching. I get to talk, think and read about subjects that interest me." He also is a part-time cultural anthropology instructor at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany, OR.
Working at Lane "has been a great and rewarding experience," Sanchez says.
###
Published by Lane Community College Marketing and Public Relations January 2015