Community college faculty call merger a ‘unique mess’

A plan to merge 12 community colleges in the state remains a unique mess that beyond not working puts the state’s existing two-year colleges at risk.

So says a strongly-worded communication to the New England Commission on Higher Education from the Faculty Advisory Committee to the Board of Regents of the Connecticut State College and University system.

The 94-page document — a 10-page letter and tons of backup attachments — calls the state’s plan beyond salvaging. It invites NECHE, the accrediting body that will review the proposal, to reach the same conclusion when it hears a status update from the state later this month.

“Students First” — the name of the plan — “represents a threat to the existence of our colleges without providing a viable institution to take their place,” faculty said.

In a written statement, System President Mark Ojakian said his office is busy preparing the progress report and transition plan for NECHE and looks forward to its continued guidance as the consolidation moves forward.

“Without significant changes, access to our colleges will be put at risk and success rates will remain low and flat,” Ojakian said. “The status quo is unacceptable. By all measures, student success rates are too low. Students of color succeed at lower rates than their white peers. And the community colleges are in an unstable financial condition.”

Ojakian said after three years, Students First remains the only viable plan to address those issues.

The merger plan has been in the works since 2017. The idea is to save the state money at the same time it keeps all 12 community colleges while improving student outcomes since transfers between the campuses would become seamless.

In April 2018, the accrediting body called the state’s initial merger plan unrealistic and rushed. The state has been working to address NECHE concerns ever since.

Last month, it named the prospective institution the Connecticut State Community College and hired administrators to lead it even though its projected opening date is not until fall 2023.

Also recently, a majority of faculty who had been working on the plan quit or were withdrawn from groups working on the plan. Nine colleges — among them Gateway, Housatonic, Naugatuck and Middlesex — declined to vote on the proposal. Norwalk Community College rejected it.

Several of the faculty resolutions included no-confidence votes in the Students First proposal, Ojakian and/or the Board of Regents.

Colena Sesanker, an assistant professor at Gateway Community College in New Haven and vice chair of the Faulty Advisory Committee to the BOR, said the committee has a member from all 17 institutions in the system — which in addition to the community colleges includes four regional universities and Charter Oak, the state’s online college. Of those, there are 10 voting members and the decision to send the letter was 5-0 with five abstentions.

The abstentions, Sesanker said, had mainly to do with concerns some faculty had in calling into question the accreditation of existing colleges coupled with the sheer size of the report coming at the end of a very busy semester.

Sesanker said initial participation in the system work groups was with the hope they could make the plan something in which they could believe. Instead, they call the consolidation plan deeply flawed.

They said the plan will replace curriculum, governance, culture and programs with something they do not endorse. The only thing remaining of the 12 colleges will be their street addresses.

“The upshot of all this is simply that the illusion that the volume of work necessary to build the curriculum for this college is well underway,” the faculty letter said. “Very little is happening.”

Ojakian said faculty and staff are helping to redesign the system structure to ensure that all students can attain their personal and educational goals.

At its meeting in May, the Board of Regents approved a General Education Core for what will be the new college.

The faculty group called the core an empty shell, with no learning outcomes, or particular courses. They also questioned the view that the plan will ultimately save the state money and instead say they worry that resources will be hoarded at the system office while campus budgets are reduced.

Several college functions and positions have been shifted from the colleges to the system office.

Separately, Lois Aime, a Norwalk Community College professor and Stephen Adair, a Central Connecticut State University professor, sent a letter to NECHE suggesting accreditation of the existing 12 colleges has already been jeopardized because they have been stripped of independence. The letter, co-signed by about 90 others, calls the scope of the change being considered “stunning.”

“More than 700 programs still need to be consolidated . ... Nearly every procedure will need to be redesigned; dozens of rules, bylaws and procedures will need to be written. The day-to-day routines for all employees in finance, admissions, the registrars, financial aid, institutional research, and academic affairs will change,” states Aime’s letter.

What’s more, the letter said, everyone on the local level will report to a different boss, who in most cases, will be located at the system office.

“We are concerned that the change being undertaken will be disruptive, expensive, and result in an ineffective structure,” she said.

Aime and Adair have asked that a small group be allowed to address the commission.

State Sen. Will Haskell, D-Wilton, cochair of the legislature’s Higher Education Committee, said while he is grateful for faculty input, he had no comment on their letter at the moment.

“I look forward to NECHE’s thorough review of the consolidation plan,” Haskell said.

Three other lawmakers who sit on the Higher Ed Committee, including state Sen. Mae Flexer and state Reps. Gregg Haddad and Gary Turco wrote a separate letter to NECHE, expressing concerns about the issues faculty raised.

“We would like to make certain that the system office does not act in a manner that could put individual college accreditation at risk or limit the individual colleges capacity to meet standards should the single community college plan be rejected by NECHE,” their letter said.