Lizzie Gregory

What made you want to come to Lewis & Clark?

When I was a senior in high school, L&C had a fly-in program. I had never been to Portland before so I was excited about the free trip. Honestly, I didn’t think I would actually choose to commit, but after meeting others on the fly-in and seeing how beautiful the campus was, I felt I could actually build a community here. The beauty of the campus and the friendly feel of the community made me choose L&C and I’m so glad that I did.

What have you been doing since graduation?

Since graduation, I’ve spent a year basically organizing my life. Because by the time you graduate college, you’ve spent the majority of your life in school, I decided a needed a little break before continuing my education. I’ve been working and preparing for another trip abroad, taking the LSAT, and catching up on trips with friends and family. I plan to teach English in Spain for a few months while working on applying to law school for the 2024 school year.

What would you say is the most important thing you learned at Lewis & Clark?

The thing I learned most about was very unexpected for me. As a black woman I didn’t think that a predominantly white institution could teach me anything about diversity and inclusion, I honestly thought I might teach them something about it, but I did learn a lot about respecting and honoring different identities and backgrounds.

How do you stay connected to Lewis & Clark as an alum?

I still use the weight room on campus at least twice a week and I’ve even gone to some events on campus that I never had time to experience as a student. Because L&C is a pretty small and tight community, I made a lot of friends in different years of college than me so I still have quite a few friends that still attend Lewis & Clark so I don’t feel too estranged from campus life yet.

Where did you find your community on campus?

I found my community through clubs. I felt a little uncomfortable being such an obvious minority so after joining the Black Student Union, I was able to get connected to a lot of other clubs and activities through BSU. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on on campus and joining clubs is an easy way to be in the know of when and where it’s going on.