Chris Gray, Ph.D.
Founding President, Erie County Community College of Pennsylvania
As the semester starts to wind down, I'm approximately halfway through my fifth year here at EC3. Maybe it's just this time of year as the days grow darker and colder, or maybe it's simply that five years is long enough to appreciate what a rare privilege it is to build something that matters and to watch it grow in ways we could never have scripted.
Five years.
Five years of hoping, planning, revising, and beginning again.
Five years of turning blank spaces into classrooms and classrooms into futures.
Five years of watching students — our students — take chances and take ownership of their futures.
There's so much here to be thankful for.
When we began EC3, we didn't know the faces of the people it would change. But now I carry them with me, and their stories have become my own: the hardworking adults returning to school after years away, the first-generation students daring to imagine a different tomorrow, the young people who didn't know if college was meant for them until they walked through our doors and saw that it absolutely was, the students who leave our doors ready to change our community and our world. It's happening, and it's real:
Two hundred and thirty graduates.
Two hundred and thirty stories rewritten.
Two hundred and thirty reminders of why this work matters.
Every time a student crosses that stage, I feel the same quiet swell in my chest, which I can only describe as a mixture of pride and awe. They are the heartbeat, the very lifeblood, of EC3. Their resilience and ambition give meaning to every single meeting and every decision that we wrestle with behind the scenes. They remind me that education is not an institution; it is a pledge that we make to every student who trusts us enough to begin to chase a different future with us.
And the trust of this community? Well, that is something I never take lightly. Serving Erie County has been the greatest honor of my career. EC3 belongs to all of you, and its success is a testament to the collective belief that opportunity shouldn't depend on background or circumstance. It should depend on potential alone, and that is something our students never run out of.
These past five years have not always been easy. The world has felt a kilter, and times have sometimes been darker than we expected. But even – or especially – within that darkness, EC3 has been a lantern. A steady light beaming forth like that emitted from the old lighthouses standing guard over Lake Erie's waves. We have become a place where hope is not simply spoken but practiced day after day, class after class, student after student. And so, we will continue to be.
As I look toward the holidays ahead, my gratitude deepens. There is still more to build, more partnerships to forge, and more students to support as they rewrite their futures. We've come so far, but there's so much further to go. If the past few years have taught me anything, it is this: when a community commits itself to education, transformation becomes inevitable. And what a glorious feeling that is!
Thank you to all of you for standing with us and for believing that EC3 could become exactly what our students deserve.
Our community: your college.
