Union: State community colleges understaffing affects students
Robert Henderson works what at many other colleges would be two separate jobs.
Henderson was hired by Manchester Community College to direct its internship program, helping with resumes and company placement that could later turn into full-time positions. In the three decades since, he was also enlisted to oversee the dual enrollment program, encouraging high school students to pursue higher education and take college classes.
To manage his workload, Henderson had a full-time coordinator for the high school program, an administrative assistant and two student workers. In recent years, that dropped to one student worker employed for 10 hours per week.
Henderson’s programs are among many that have lost staff in recent years. This summer, the Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges, or the “4Cs,” surveyed unionized staff from the state’s 12 community colleges on staffing and its impact on employees and students. The results, released last week, showed more than two-thirds of respondents reported at least one vacancy in their departments.
The ramifications are plenty, according to union representatives. Vacancies in some departments, like Henderson’s, have damaged college pathways for high school students, while fewer financial aid workers have impacted students’ ability to pay for college, staff reported.
“Our staff do the best job that they can to minimize the impact on students,” said Seth Freeman, the union president. “We hope that as few students as possible see the effects of understaffing.” But he also recognized that consequences are inevitable.
“The availability and quality of services for students suffer when our offices are understaffed,” Freeman said.
The 4Cs report included responses from 447 employees, a non-randomized sample of close to 40 percent of union members that could indicate understaffed areas in need of more attention. In an open-ended question, members said resignations and retirements have left their departments short-staffed, especially in recent years.
Respondents also pointed to an increase in their workloads and the need to work outside their contractual hours to meet student needs and complete projects on time, among other responsibilities.
“Frankly, this is because our staff is committed to serving students and best meeting deadlines, so they’re oftentimes willing to do that,” Freeman said. Full-time staff are supposed to work 35hour weeks, but the report found members on average work 45hour weeks.
Henderson tried managing the high school program by himself for a year but worked 65- to 80hour weeks, he said. Eventually, he scaled back the program — which was for many years a funnel to community college enrollment — from about 1,600 to 400 students.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot with that decision,” he said. “There are a lot of impacts on the community too. I think we lost a very valuable tool in being a force for equity.”
The union survey revealed several other understaffed areas that impact student services. Across campuses, students and staff have called attention to a lack of counselors to meet their mental health needs. And at one school, a librarian shortage has led to a reduction in library hours and closed the facility on Saturdays entirely, according to survey results.
Financial aid workers have a laundry list of job-specific responsibilities, including federal reporting requirements that let campuses offer need-based funding and other mandated tasks. Those types of duties will often take precedence over an individual’s circumstances but mean a student could lack the support they need to pay their bills and stay in school.
“We’re losing enrollment as a result of students having to wait so long for things,” said a financial aid staff member at one of the community colleges, who spoke with Hearst Connecticut Media on the condition of anonymity to protect their employment. “We have a lot of students who have unpaid balances, and we can’t do as much outreach for financial aid programs because there’s so few people to do it.”
Representatives for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities attributed some of the staffing problems to conditions beyond its control.
“Like many others, we do face some staffing challenges,” said Leigh Appleby, the director of communications, citing a national labor shortage that has led to “significant competition for candidates,” as well as a state government retirement benefits cliff that he said has accelerated resignations ahead of year-end.
“President (Terrence) Cheng recognized the need to speed up the hiring process and announced to the community that we will soon be allocating resources that will improve the process in real time,” he said.
Meanwhile, CSCU is in the midst of merging its 12 campuses into a single statewide community college by the 2023-24 school year. Part of those plans is to eliminate costly duplicated positions and services, which representatives for the colleges say will limit how staffing woes directly impact students.
“This is actually an argument for why we are moving toward the merger of the community colleges, a main pillar of which is the improvement of student services, including a significant ramp-up of advising services,” said Appleby. CSCU has hired more than 100 additional advisers so far, he added, with plans to hire hundreds more for the consolidated college.
But the union report suggested the merger could exacerbate problems on the ground with fewer student-facing positions. Appleby denied the characterization that the system is expanding statewide and regional positions, while cutting employees that directly serve students.
“Rather, CSCU management is simply not filling positions left vacant and transferring the workload to existing employees, which is resulting in a decline in services to students and staff working beyond their contracted hours without compensation,” the report concluded.
Henderson, the internship and high school program director, said he had plans to retire soon anyway, but has decided to leave at the end of this school year.
“Neither position has been replaced at this point,” Henderson said of his former support staff. “And now I’m planning to retire. I have no idea what the college plans to do with sustaining this program or replacing my position.”
“Especially for someone like me who’s been a cheerleader for the college all the time I’ve worked here, I don’t want to stay here so long I become completely disillusioned with our mission,” he said.