Three Rivers faculty object to CSCU leadership plan

Proposal to consolidate community colleges’ administration is pushing forward amid concerns

Norwich — Three Rivers Community College faculty this week joined other state schools in claiming that Connecticut State Colleges and Universities’ push to consolidate administration of 12 community colleges demonstrates a “lack of effective leadership.”

In a resolution Wednesday, Three Rivers’ College Congress, which represents faculty and administrative staff, said the “failure to obtain approval is the latest event in a history of failures in funding, planning and leadership.”

The resolution called on lawmakers “to take immediate steps to correct both the fiscal shortfalls and organizational ineffectiveness that have hampered publicly funded post-secondary education.”

But CSCU President Mark Ojakian, who recently has faced calls to resign, said Friday he would move forward with a modified plan he argued could streamline administration, save tens of millions of dollars and keep all campuses open without hiking tuition beyond affordability.

A few years ago the state Board of Regents tasked Ojakian with devising a management plan to resolve a structural deficit of more than $60 million, largely driven by dwindling financial backing from the state. CSCU’s “Students First” initiative called for reducing 200 administrators to eliminate redundancies among the state’s 12 community colleges.

“Does it make sense to have the same level of administration at all

12?” Ojakian said Friday. “Especially when budget cuts come down from Hartford. What they don’t cut is institution; they cut the student service area. Libraries close at noon on Friday — how is that helpful for students studying for exams? Some campuses close altogether on weekends. Tutors have had to reduce their hours. When the support services that students need and expect are not there, then that’s when we have to take a serious look at how we’re prioritizing.”

But the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, an accrediting agency, rejected the proposal in late April, deeming it unrealistic. NEASC determined the plan would require the consolidated colleges to complete an accreditation process as a single institution, a process Ojakian said might not be done before the schools were insolvent.

NEASC also said the institution would lack sufficient support to align hundreds of academic and certificate programs in the proposed twoyear window.

While the plan called for no cuts to faculty, teachers and administrators alike objected to the proposal.

The Connecticut State University-American Association of University Professors, the Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges and the State College Organization of Administrative Faculty “have maintained that this massive consolidation was ill-researched and underestimated in scope,” according to a CSUAAUP statement in April.

William O’Hare, Three Rivers professor of anthropology and College Congress president, said Wednesday’s resolution arose in part because he “wanted to see some discussion and response from a community college” directly.

Previously, the CSCU plan came under fire from faculty at Central Connecticut State University. Louise Williams, president of the faculty union at Central, called for Ojakian to resign and objected to any modified merger plan, the Hartford Courant reported.

Ojakian said he was “a little disappointed” about Three Rivers’ and other schools’ faculty expressing dissatisfaction with CSCU’s and the Board of Regents’ direction.

But he said he wasn’t going anywhere, and added he hasn’t heard legitimate alternatives from people calling for him to step down.

“If all the students were clamoring for me to go, I’d have a different thought process,” he said. “But we still have a lot of work to do.”

Ojakian said some regional moves, such as not replacing two college presidents, have paid off and helped lead to savings, more shared services and increased enrollment.

“We are working with legislators in hopes of securing funding to stabilize the colleges’ budgets in the short term to mitigate cuts that will negatively impact students,” Matt Fleury, chairman of the Board of Regents, said in a statement with Ojakian earlier this month.

In June, CSCU will present a modified approach “to get to a single institution in the future,” Ojakian said.

“I believe we can do many of the things we’ve wanted without having accreditation issues,” he said, adding he and the Board of Regents were “open to getting suggestions, comments and proposals.”