The seating area at the Oregon Emergency Board meeting Dec. 14 was a sea of green scrubs, the attire of a group of displaced ITT Technical Institute nursing students whose futures weighed in the balance.

About 300 students were left without recourse when ITT Technical Institute of Portland shuttered operations in September, after the federal government imposed a series of crippling sanctions on the college chain.

Ben Cannon, executive director of the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, had negotiated an arrangement with Portland Community College to develop a temporary program that would allow about half of the displaced nursing students – those closest to finishing the program – to complete their RN program at PCC, but the community college needed financial assistance to the tune of $1.4 million to make the program work.

The Emergency Board was about to consider the proposal Dec. 14 in front of the nervous crowd of nursing students.

“It was actually Lars Larson who first raised this to statewide attention,” said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a member of the Emergency Board. “Some of the nurses called his show saying: Is there any assistance anywhere?”

Johnson and other lawmakers approached Cannon to find a solution.

“He took this cause on in a way he didn’t have to but he did, and I think it is a credit to his character that he cared about these kids enough, that he cared about the plight they were in, that he cared about the paucity of RNs we have in this state,” Johnson said. “He was willing to go to bat to find a solution.”

The Emergency Board unanimously approved the $1.4 million for PCC to operate the program, but the nursing students didn’t seem to know what had happened.

“Because the students weren’t familiar with the process, I don’t think they fully understood the process,” Johnson said. “Then the presiding officer … moved on to the next item.”

Rep. Peter Buckley, an outgoing Democrat from Ashland, paused the proceedings and told the students: “It’s over. The money has been approved.”

“These people literally threw each other into each other’s arms,” Johnson said. “They were sobbing. One young woman in the front had her hands buried in her face, and she was audibly sobbing.”

“That will go down in my memory as one of the most meaningful days of my legislative service being able to help those kids who’d gotten stuck through no fault of their own,” Johnson said. “It’s one of those instances where I think the Legislature and by extension, the people of Oregon, did right by these kids.”

Under the plan, students will pay the standard PCC tuition. The program begins in January.