Still here after all these years

Michael Beu

Austin man attends ACC, then and now

In autumn of 1973, Michael Beu made local history when he and a buddy enrolled in college. They became part of the inaugural class of Austin Community College, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this academic year.

Beu was 17 when he drove from north Austin, where he lived with his mom, to the old Austin High School on Rio Grande Street so he could register for a Texas Government class. Fortunately, registration was easy for a guy whose last name falls at the start of the alphabet.

“There were maybe 200 people there when I registered,” he says. “I heard later that lots more people kept coming.” Eventually 1,726 students would enroll that semester, including Beu.

Today, Beu lives in Oak Hill and works near the Arboretum. He is an electronics engineer with AT&T, managing the company’s wireless communications lab. He stopped by the old Austin High School – today’s Rio Grande Campus – in December to talk about his experiences at ACC.

It is midday during finals time. “When I first came here at 17, I was a hare-brained kid,” Beu recalls, speaking over the din of a cafeteria packed with students relaxing and studying together. “It was the early ‘70s, a pretty wild time in Austin.”

As he looks around him, Beu talks about his special connection with the Rio Grande Campus. “I love it here,” he says. “My grandmother went to this as a high school in the 1920s. My mother graduated from here in 1950. This building has character.”

An open-door college was a long time coming to Austin, so by the time classes started on September 17, 1973, most of the students had a pent-up thirst for a college education. Not Beu, unfortunately. “I didn’t get the credit,” he shrugs. “I made it halfway, but let it go.”

In higher education, that normally closes the door on a college career. Not at ACC.

“I came back,” he says. “To me this is major. ACC gave me a second chance.”

Beu returned in 1979. He was employed full time in an entry-level job with White Instruments in Oak Hill.

“I wanted to advance in the electronics industry but needed a college education,” Beu says. “I started taking ACC courses in Electronics Technology.”

His classes led to new discoveries – an aptitude for math and engineering and a new appreciation for his opportunities.

“If you had to work full time, where did you go to college?” Beu says. “You could try UT, but UT was not very friendly to the students who worked full time. ACC was open to full-time working students.”
Beu’s college education took off, and he remembers the instructors who helped him along the way. “If it weren’t for ACC, I wouldn’t have a degree,” he says.

“So many good instructors,” he recalls. “I remember Math Professors Mary Parker, Greg Foley, Steve Rhode. Physics Professor David Potter. That’s the thing about ACC compared with other institutions,” Beu adds, “You have professors who teach. They’re more accessible than some other places.”

He also remembers Physics Professor John Cise and his famed demonstration of angular momentum using a bowling ball. “I kept waiting for people to duck,” Beu laughs.

Today, Beu is 53 years old. He has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Texas at San Antonio and lives in the Oak Hill area. He enjoys Austin’s live music scene, plays with his amateur radio on weekends, takes ACC classes to maintain his professional skills, and intends to keep taking classes when he eventually retires.

“This is my motto about ACC: It’s a great way to fight Alzheimer’s. I’m going to keep going because I enjoy learning new things,” he says. “It’s not like I’m trying to work for a degree, but I am trying to stay current. From here on out, I’ll take one course a semester.”

Beu unwittingly became a part of ACC history in 1973, but it was his choice in 1986. Unlike other Texas community colleges, ACC was established without a local tax base and depended on two funding sources – students and the state. That was to change when voters considered a proposal to establish a local tax district to support college operations.

“I remember when ACC was created they didn’t have a tax base, and that made things fairly difficult initially,” Beu recalls. “When they got that vote, I did vote.”

“I voted ‘For.’”

“I knew the value of ACC,” Beu says. “It has given a lot more people a chance to get an education. It’s created a lot of opportunities; it’s trained a lot of people for the industries here that need graduates.”

“It’s 100 percent worth it.”

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