beyond the classroom:

with Faren Leader

words and photo by KATIE REYNOLDS

major changes for college students experiencing financial insecurities are coming in 2023. These changes could make resources more difficult to find and programs more problematic to navigate. This makes a position like Faren Leader’s as the Affordability Resources Coordinator all the more important.

LBCC has many resources for students who struggle with food, housing, and financial insecurities. In 2021, however, the Oregon Legislature realized more was needed and, thanks to Oregon House Bill 2835, the state created a position on every public college campus to help students navigate the choppy resource waters.

Faren Leader, 36, was hired at LBCC to do just that. The State of Oregon calls the position a Benefits Navigator, but Leader prefers to use the title LBCC chose for her position, Affordability Resources Coordinator, as it better describes the work that she does. She is, essentially, a walking phone book. Students needing to find some kind of assistance can meet with Leader, discuss their situation, and she can help point them in the right direction, as well as assist with often confusing applications.

Leader has held many positions before coming to LB, such as in health services, substitute teacher, teacher and more. But no other position has offered her a chance to be the advisor she has always desired, until now.

“This work culture here is probably the healthiest workplace I've ever been in and so I try to make sure I transfer that to students,” said Leader.

“You know when I meet with students, often the first thing I ask them is ‘Have you had lunch yet?’ ‘Have you eaten anything today?’ ‘How are you doing on water?’ ‘Do you wanna walk together and go fill up your water bottle, cuz you didn't stop at the drinking fountain cuz you were worried you were running late to this meeting?’ ‘Do you want to walk around and talk … like if you're feeling anxious being in this enclosed office?’ ‘Do you wanna walk and talk?’

“I just feel like you know it's a trickle down, in a good way, of, you know, when the work culture is healthy then I feel more energized to be able to pass that care down to other people.” takes to get back and forth to school or the wear and tear on the vehicle to do so.

Today’s students are facing a tremendous amount of stress. Many are having to figure out how to pay their rent and put food on their table. In 2020, 41% of students in Oregon reported food insecurities, according to a survey done by the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice.

In an answer to this crisis, HB2835 mandated that a Benefits Navigator be available on all 17 community college campuses, as well as the seven public university campuses in the state of Oregon. Twenty-four navigators exist to find answers for these students facing significant insecurities by forming a consortium and coming together every month to share information.

With such a tumultuous task before them, their jobs are about to become more difficult. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) applications for food assistance may become more difficult this year and emergency pandemic funding will be ending at the end of the fiscal year, which is in June 2023. Navigators, like Leader, will be more important than ever.

Then came the pandemic and prices skyrocketed. Food wasn’t the only insecurity faced by students. Housing became a real problem as well.

The authors of HB2835 “recognized a crisis of basic needs and security among college students, which is contributing to some of the worst dropout rates the colleges have seen since the Great Depression,” said Leader.

“Enrollments are down across-theboard and the students we already have are leaving in droves because they can’t afford to be here. They can’t afford to be here for lots of reasons … which is that not only is college expensive, but financial aid is complicated and hard to get.”

As students face these challenges, they often seek full-time employment while carrying a full credit load at school. Often feeling like less than full-time employment is not an option, students are struggling to pay their rent, utilities, phone and other bills, not to mention paying for the gas it

This line of work, however, can often wreak havoc on the mental health of the navigators, so self-care is an integral component for each of them. For Leader, her 15-year-old son, gardening, and other self-care activities allow her to renew and refresh to be ready for meeting new challenges. And it works, as she is excited to meet with students to help them deal with challenges. She loves helping and desires to remove some of the insecurity burdens from their shoulders.

Many ask her what they can do to help the situation. Donations to the LBCC Foundation are wonderful and always accepted, but right now the legislature is working on the state budget for the next fiscal year. Leader encourages everyone to call, email, or stop by the capitol to express support for full funding of the bill.

As LB’s student advocates remind their fellow students, “Our legislators can't do good work for the community if we don't tell them what we want.”

In the meantime, it is important for students who are struggling to know that they are not alone.

Leader is one of many on campus who wants to help. There are resources available through the STEP program, RoadRunner Resources, and the LBCC Foundation as well.

Comics are an art form everyone can relate to. We see them in the Sunday paper full color, one stacked on top of the next; or as a man dressed in spandex, saving a city from certain doom in a 30-page comic book.

This type of relationship with comics is what made Daniel Lopez's comic series, "Boys I Had a Crush on Before I Came Out," stand out. The series is framed in simple black frames with white matting in the North Santiam Hall Gallery at LBCC’s Albany campus.

Each installment is a short story about the time spent thinking about a boy that enters and exits Lopez's life as a young man and the innocent interactions they shared. A time before he came out.

Your comic series, “Boys I Had a Crush on Before I Came Out” is on display outside my classroom, room 108 in LBCC’s North Santiam Hall. Tell how that topic came up? What was your process?

I didn’t have an interest in comics growing up, a lot of it seemed too overtly masculine. I wasn’t interested in gendered activities, neither girly stuff nor masculine stuff. But then I discovered indie comics about more real-life experiences, and that was probably around 2019.

I have this Australian internet friend who does queer comics, a lot of them are about being gray asexual, and I just realized like “Oh yeah, I’m also marginalized and I have these identities and yeah, these things do need to be heard.”

I came out at 25 and with that came a lot of repressions beforehand. And realizing, I’m a Brown person, I’m a queer person, I’m gray asexual and I’m a relationship anarchist. I’m all these things that aren’t the typical narrative and my friend told me that it’s important to get these stories out because not everyone can relate to them and visibility is really important.

So it's a combination of wanting to be visible as well as wanting to learn how to make comics.

Artists have an evolution and you don’t always end up where you start out. So if you weren’t initially into comics or necessarily good at drawing, how’d you start off on this art path?

My very first aspiration as a kid was to be a neon artist. I always knew I wanted to be an artist, and eventually, I picked up photography when I realized I didn’t have to have great hand-eye coordination to do it. So I did a lot of photography in my undergrad. I wasn’t very good at it, I had provocative ideas rather than good ideas.

I am not very good at things but for me, it’s pushing myself to learn new things to accomplish what I want to do at the moment. So for me, making comics is weird and new but I wanted to push myself. I think that’s incredibly important to do, to push yourself to do things you’re uncomfortable with. So, art has been a lifelong process but comics are new.

Now I get to teach art, which is great, I can maintain my artistic integrity. This is something I can get in trouble for because I’ve always been somewhat of a rebel. I like to break the rules but also play around within the system I exist in. Exploiting the boundaries from the inside. My students do it to me and I think it’s great. I’m very much about questioning everything, especially myself.

What kinds of questions are your students asking you?

“Why are we doing it this way?” I’ve been using Photoshop and Illustrator for a long time but I'm not an expert and so students can push back and it makes me question myself like, “Do we have to do it this way?” They bring up a good question and they are using their critical thinking skills. Yeah, I’ll allow that; as long as it conforms to what needs to be done according to the state curriculum.

So you mentioned your education a couple of times, where did you end up going to school?

I did my undergrad in Southern California, and my master’s at the University of Oregon. I graduated from UO in 2016. I was asked to teach digital art soon after that, so I just sort of started making more digital art basically just because I had to learn it and teach it, so I might as well make it. I ended up taking a couple of years off and now I'm teaching here at LBCC and I’ve been here since 2018.

Earlier you talked about being a photographer and later having to learn digital art. Were you not originally doing digital photography?

No, it’s funny because most of my undergrad was in film photography. Half of my work from that time was black and white and half was color, which is pretty obsolete now. Plus, I think there are only about five labs in the country that develop color film. Again, I did this because of a lack of hand-eye coordination. I have good composition skills and how to play around with that, and I know how to make photos so I always tried to push to weirder stuff. My color photos were more like color phonograms, which is basically painting with light. So I essentially was playing around with photography, seeing what it can do and what it cannot do.

Do you prefer one or the other? Do you have a preference between film and digital photography?

Definitely digital, because the film is expensive. Also, I don’t know about any film photo labs. I like the process once you get into it but I don’t know of any color photo labs and I don’t like black and white cause it’s just a lot of liquids and waiting and I’m just not good at it.

Do you have any artists you pull inspiration from?

Yes, furry art is pretty much my favorite thing right now. I’m a casual furry. I don’t own a fur suit, I’m too claustrophobic for any costume. I just love art about fun, cool animals. I also have mixed feelings about AI art. I like the surrealness of it and how AI takes art places humans probably won’t, but I don’t like how images are stolen from artists. I’m also not a much of a fan of NFTs because it’s money-first art. I’m all about artists who have fun artwork that's not hateful and inclusive and loving. So just fun, cute stuff, and weird surreal stuff. I like dark depressing stuff, I like lots of different things.

As a teacher do you have any advice for students who want to work in the art field?

It’s a lot of work. It’s one of those things where you have to want it, you have to be passionate about it. It’s not easy to get a job, it’s not easy to maintain a living from art, obviously.

Yes the opportunities are few and it’s hard to maintain but if you want it bad enough you will find a way. I had a lot of luck, a friend let me know there was an opening at LBCC.

So it’s a combination of needing to do art in some way and keeping your connections open. Be nice to people, don’t burn bridges, even people you don’t necessarily like, they could present some opportunities.

So what are you working on now? Do you have any projects in the works?

I do. I have a stack of canvases in my living room that I want to get rid of so I have to do a bunch of quick silly paintings that I’ll use for bartering with other people. I don’t want people to buy my work if possible. I’d rather barter for something more useful, like once I bartered for a Nintendo Wii. I think art for me is more about giving rather than taking, which is why I like comics because it is a mass medium and anyone can look at them.

It’s really interesting that you are bartering for your artwork. What kinds of things besides Nintendo Wiis are you bartering for?

In my grad school show, for example, all of my pieces were for barter. I’ve definitely bartered for a burrito before. A weighted blanket. Sometimes it’s an action, like texting someone that you love them or taking me out for ice cream. You know, experiences. Money comes and goes but these experiences and game consoles last longer.

I don’t identify with any economic system, so I can’t call myself an anarchist or communist or socialist, or capitalist. I don't really identify with any of those because I’m not smart enough to know the intricacies of each and I don't want to claim something I don’t know about. But I definitely believe in a giving and trading and bartering system rather than an exchange of money if possible.

The term that popped into my head, maybe I just made this up, was “gentle chaos.”

Yes! I like that a lot (laughter). Yep, pretty much.