Tours

Colleges Tour: Mt. Hood Community College and Portland State University

Thursday, November 5

1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Cost = $18

Ticket required. Space is limited to 24 people.

Pre-register using the conference registration process.

  • 1:00 pm – Depart from Doubletree Hotel
  • 5:00 pm – Return to Doubletree Hotel

Mt. Hood Community College

Mt. Hood’s tour includes a visit to the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Program and Learning Success Center, which comprise one Student Services department and are housed in the same location for easy access for students.


AVID at MHCC is a unique program that helps new college students get started on the right track and builds connections between staff, faculty, and other students through Learning Communities. The primary function of the AVID Learning Communities and AVID Center is to support new college students by shrinking down the size of the college. It serves as a home base for students who know that the Center is a safe and welcoming place to find help and answers. The Center provides academic and institutional support. Not only do staff help students with academics, they help students absorb college culture – focusing on many of the soft skills that students are expected to have, but are too rarely taught. While the focus of the AVID Program is on new students and largely developmental education student populations, the center is open to all.

The Learning Success Center (LSC) has been providing tutoring services and support to MHCC students for nearly thirty years and offers drop-in tutoring in a variety of subjects including mathematics, science, modern languages, engineering, accounting, and visual and performing arts. We also offer programming for English Language Learners and computer skills support in our own computer lab. In addition to drop-in tutoring, students may also make an hour long appointment to work on study skills and learning strategies with a Learning Specialist, or visit the AVID Center for a 15-20 minute appointment with a Writing Tutor. Lastly, the LSC offers eTutoring Support for students that want to access a tutor while off campus and around the clock. Students coming to the LSC are sure to find answers to their content or MHCC questions, and if not, we’ll take them to who can.

Portland State University

The Learning Center at Portland State University is a vibrant hub of student support. Last year, peer tutors helped freshmen through graduate students in nearly 10,500 sessions. In addition to face to face tutoring they offer etutoring, an online service.

PSU’s Learning Center offers a flexible coaching program that allows students to work with coaches in creating measurable plans to meet their academic goals. These goals may address school/life balance, active learning strategies and various approaches to studying course content, improving communication skills, and learning of resources on and off campus. Coaches are graduate students, and coaching is open to all PSU students.

During your visit we will share information about our Roads to Success (R2S) program. Roads to Success is a Portland State University early start program for new freshmen. First offered in 2009, Roads provides sixty students the opportunity to learn valuable skills and be exposed to campus resources prior to their first term at PSU.

Portland State University also offers a success course, College Success. It is a comprehensive course designed to enhance student success and retention. In this course, students learn many proven strategies for creating greater academic, professional, and personal success.

Underbelly to Beer Belly

Friday, November

6:30 pm – 9:30

Cost = $35 (cost of light rail tickets and dinner not incuded)

Ticket required. Space is limited to 14 people.

Pre-register using the conference registration process.

  • 6:30 pm – Depart from Doubletree to take MAX Light Rail to start of tour (cost of round trip light rail tickets is $5)
  • 7:00 pm – Start tour from Brew Stop
  • 9:00 pm – Return to Brew Stop and take Light Rail back to hotel
  • 9:30 pm – Return to Doubletree Hotel

Underbelly to Beer Belly

This guided walking tour will take you through the historic northwest district of Portland and cover its early, sometime unseemly, history, its beer culture roots and how Oregon has come to be the mecca of craft beer that it is today. The tour includes multiple beer tasting and covers about two miles. It ends with a shanghai tunnel tour under Old Town Pizza, a legendary haunted spot. The tour will return to its starting location, but you may choose to stay to have dinner or drinks. If you do not return with the group, you will be responsible for your own transportation back to the hotel. Wear warm clothes and walking shoes!

Powells' Bookstore and Voodoo Doughnut

Saturday, November 7

7:00 pm – 11:00 pm

Cost = $17 (cost of doughnuts not included)

Ticket required. Space is limited to 54 people.

Pre-register using the conference registration process.

  • 7:00 pm – Bus departs from Doubletree Hotel to Powell's City of Books
  • 9:50 pm – Meet at designated location in Powell's to go to Voodoo Doughnut
  • 11:00 pm – Bus returns to Doubletree Hotel

Powells' Bookstore and Voodoo Doughnut

Visit two of Portland’s most famous landmarks: Powell’s Bookstore and VooDoo Doughnut. From humble storefront beginnings in 1971, Powell’s has grown into a Portland landmark and one of the world’s great bookstores. Covering an entire city block, Powell’s City of Books contains more than 1.5 million books in 3,500 different sections. Get a cup of joe at the in-store coffee shop, grab a map to the nine color-coded rooms, and lose yourself in the largest used and new bookstore on Earth.

Voodoo Doughnut is one of the city’s most unusual and delicious culinary destinations. The doughnuts, topped with creative ingredients such as bacon, Captain Crunch and Oreos, are almost as fun to look at as they are to eat. They even offer vegan doughtnuts. Locals and visitors line up 24 hours a day for what may be the most innovative doughnuts in the world. Please note that Voodoo Doughnut only accepts cash.

Columbia River Gorge Waterfall Tour

Sunday, November 8

1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Cost = $50

Ticket required. Space is limited to 24 people.

Pre-register using the conference registration process.

  • 1:00 pm – Depart from Doubletree Hotel
  • 5:00 pm – Return to Doubletree Hotel

Columbia River Gorge Waterfall Tour

Portland is known as one of the top spots in the U.S. to experience the great outdoors. The Columbia River Gorge is an 80 mile long swath carved out by ancient floodwaters with many spectacular waterfalls fed by snowmelt and winter rains. This tour takes you to the Columbia River Gorge to view several of the waterfalls including Latourell Falls, Shepperds Dell Falls, and Wahkeena Falls as well as the Woman’s Forum Overlook and Crown Point. This is a bus tour, but it may require a short walk to get a closer look at some of the falls.

Sites visited include:

  • Historic Columbia River Hwy
  • Latourell Falls
  • Shepperds Dell Falls
  • Wahkeena Falls
  • Multnomah Falls
  • Horsetail Falls
  • Crown Point
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