The faculty union representing hundreds of professors at Eastern Connecticut State University voted Wednesday afternoon to give plans for their school’s future a failing grade.

“The one thing everyone in the room agreed on is we do not like this plan,” Luis Cordón, the president of the union, said during an interview after the meeting.

The faculty union at Western Connecticut State University is schedule to meet tomorrow to discus their concerns with “Transform CSCU 2020,” the system president’s plans for the four regional state universes and 12 community colleges.

Concerns among faculty about the plans have been rising in recent weeks, and many feel they were left out of the creation of the 35 “Roadmaps” that lay out specifics of the plan.

Several faculty have said in interviews that they are concerned with President Gregory W. Gray’s plans to increase reliance on online courses and the central office’s takeover from local campuses of responsibility for things like course registration. (Read about those concerns here.)

Cordón said those at the ECSU meeting discussed whether the union should pass a resolution stating it had lost confidence in Gray.

“There was not a vote of no confidence taken, though there were voices in the room strongly stating the need for one,” he said.

Instead, the professors decided to “proceed with organizing and exploring such a vote.” No timeline was set for reaching a decision.

Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

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