The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Conn.’s top college official makes case for consolidation
Not long ago, when Connecticut State Colleges and Universities officials were asked about the shockingly low community college graduation rates, they would quickly cite the reasons the numbers did not accurately reflect the quality of the schools.
But lately, CSCU President Mark Ojakian has been leaning into those same low numbers and offering them as evidence the state needs to consolidate all 12 community colleges into a single institution.
At a legislative forum on the consolidation in March, Ojakian spoke about the merger, saying, “I fundamentally believe that if we don’t make changes as we’ve discussed here today, that students will be left behind.”
While some schools may flourish with “budget surpluses” and a “completion rate above 16 percent,” which he noted is the statewide average rate for the community colleges, Ojakian said, “that’s not fair to everybody in our community colleges.”
He has repeated this message a few times since then, most recently in October, when he told legislators that despite “heroic efforts by individual colleges over the years, outcomes, especially for students of color, continue to lag behind those of white students in most key performance indicators. For all our students, graduation rates, completion rates and success rates are not as high as those in our neighboring states.”
While no one would disagree with Ojakian that graduation rates should be improved and the achievement gap closed, some faculty members who have opposed Students First — as the consolidation plan is called — say they are surprised to see the emphasis on graduation rate numbers that all agree are flawed.
In addition, they say Ojakian seems to have shifted his sales pitch for the merger plan from emphasizing the financial benefits to improving student success and closing the racial and ethnic achievement gap evident in graduation rates.
Lauren Doninger, a professor at Gateway Community College, is one of those faculty members who questions the use of the graduation rate — 16 percent — as reported in federal data.
“The rate should be better, but the way the data is gathered does not do justice to the complexity and diversity of our students,” said Doninger. “The other issue is this narrative that keeps changing.”
Like some other members of the faculty, Doninger said the initial justification for consolidation seemed to be “all about money. We need to do this so we don’t close campuses.”
Now, she said, “it’s the equity agenda and the things we have to do to fix our graduation rates.”
Stephen Adair, a faculty member at Central Connecticut State University who served for years as a faculty representative on the governing board of regents for the CSCU system, said he has observed
“shifting rationales and justifications for Students First. It’s a continuing evolving of what those justifications are. I certainly say yes to finding ways to address the achievement gap, though to be honest I fail to see anything that Students First does to address that.”
Last spring’s community college graduation rate for white students was 21 percent, compared to 12 percent for Hispanic students and 8 percent for black students.
The plan to consolidate the 12 community colleges emerged in October 2017 after years of discussion among Board of Regents’ members about the need to restructure the system to avoid insolvency due to declining enrollment and eroding financial support from the state.
From the start, Ojakian’s plan has been to trim administrative positions and invest savings into faculty and staff who work directly with students. The projected annual savings for 2023, when the consolidation is expected to be in place, is $20.7 million — about 4.1 percent of the community college system budget. State officials estimated two years ago that the savings would be $28 million. Ben Barnes, chief financial officer for CSCU, said that since then $2 million to $3 million has already been saved through attrition.
A key component of the Students First plan is a new program called “Guided Pathways,” which CSCU leaders hope will improve outcomes for students of color.
Still, several faculty members said they were surprised when, during the March forum on consolidation, Ojakian told legislators that “the primary focus of this is not on saving money — saving money is an important component of it — but it really is about student success No. 1.”
“I remember it and so does every person who closely follows consolidation. He had been saying it was about saving money and then the pivot was stunning,” said Elle Der Mark, a faculty member at Asnuntuck Community College. “We sat stunned that day.”