If only the Grinch who absconded with Christmas would have visited Connecticut and stolen the current CT State Community College — leaving our dozen former independent community colleges behind. (Oh, we can only dream!)
The newborn infant “CT State Community College” is six months old, badly tended, and sporting an overstuffed diaper. There are many potential and appropriate nicknames for this evolving travesty: FUBAR CC, SNAFU CC, or, given its current infancy, Poopy Diaper Baby Community College.
CT State Community College sprang from 12 separate and independent colleges which many would agree functioned far, far better than the current squalling mess. It’s similar to the nightmare that we face when our reliable independent service station/auto mechanic tells us they’re selling out to a big conglomerate. We’re happy for the mechanic for a moment because of the cash windfall they’ll enjoy, but then our hearts plummet as we realize that another reliable local shop has been eaten up by a stone-cold and reliably sub-standard franchise.
We no longer have a trustworthy local place; we’re stuck with corporate creepiness squeezing pennies out of the horrendous franchises. That’s what CT State CC is: a network of lousy franchise locations which took the place of far more reliable and well-functioning independents.
The problems are legion: shockingly primitive and barely usable new system websites (see myctstate.edu), far too many atrocious new software apps (ask faculty, staff, and students about CT State’s rendition of “CPOS”), new layers of costly supervisors and managers with poorly defined and competing responsibilities, far too many inexperienced new managers, abysmal communication at and between all levels, no viable shared governance, reduced food for purchase by students on almost every campus, reduced class time offerings statewide, reduced access to in-demand courses for many students because of new distance problems, “corporate think” drowning out higher ed practice and tradition at every turn (college presidents are now “CEO’S”), 11 years of a Board of Regents which rubber stamps everything top managers want, a mountain of public relations poppy-cock everywhere you look (“Centers of Excellence” as the corporate-speak for what used to be called departments or offices), etc., etc.
I wrote about all of this over a year ago. Not much has changed. Morale among faculty, staff, and many students remains shockingly low and is trending lower.
Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in his celebrated 2005 book On Bullshit describes the problem of our society’s general acceptance of incompetence and hypocrisy while trumpeting success and virtue. CT State CC is a shining example of this Potemkin Village state of affairs where public relations masking reality is the highest god.
Let’s address the morale problem, and money. Some think injecting more money into the system is crucial while others fear that the executives in the central office in New Britain will just continue spending it like drunken sailors.
Injecting more money is advocated by state unions, and State Sen. Martin Looney agrees in a recent CT Mirror Viewpoints piece: “In the upcoming 2024 legislative session, Connecticut must match our stated support for the CSCUs with the sustained financial support that these institutions actually need in order to continue doing the crucial work of transforming individual students’ lives and advancing Connecticut’s economic prosperity and livability.”
But many faculty and staff across the system fear that extra money will only (again) be wasted by the chancellor, presidents, and vice presidents (who within the past year were asking for $4 million to spend on consultants). There is no oversight mechanism except the Board of Regents, and the majority of faculty and staff trust that body as far as they can throw them. We’ve watched the Regents quickly and blithely rubber-stamp 99% of system office requests.
And of course the internet and new software as the supposed solutions to everything are huge drivers of most of these problems. (Covid pushing tons of courses permanently online in community colleges didn’t help.)
Over the course of the dozen years-long consolidation hellscape, the worship of throwing everything online went unabated as system executives paid huge sums to Boston Consulting Group and other corporate consultants who basically advised tossing everything and its brother online, and reducing employment of any actual warm humans with a pulse. The corporate world’s advice to public higher ed is not much different from its advice to any widget factory anywhere.
There’s not much faith in execs/suits working at the top of the now completed consolidation project, initiated by former Gov. Dannel Malloy, now chancellor of the University of Maine system and recipient of a string of no-confidence votes by faculty/staff up there in “down East.”
And so we’re all consolidated now; CT State CC stands in the ashes of the 12 former independent community colleges. One of my colleagues told me that my squalling baby metaphor was wrong because it implies that there will be growth and development.n Well, not necessarily. Not in every case. This badly tended baby may remain infantile for a good four years, and then it could turn into an unruly 4-year-old, an out-of-control pre-teen, an 18-year-old crazed driver 20 miles over the limit weaving in and out of traffic.
But metaphors aside, it seems we are seeing the slow and sad demise of the community college era. It was supposed to be educationally uplifting to some of society’s least privileged members. But as usual, they are again being cheated; “racialized austerity” is again ensuring that far too many students of color will remain spinning their wheels in the Nutmeg State. It’s an embarrassment to everyone in rich Connecticut, and it makes two of our governors (Dannel Malloy and Ned Lamont) look callous, short-sighted, and hypocritical.
Oh, if only the Grinch would have stolen CT State CC and Santa would have returned our 12 independent colleges! But we can’t turn back the clock. It’s clearly impossible to stop the corporatization of higher education intent on turning our community colleges into cheap, weak franchises. Things will only get incrementally worse, just as they have been for the past 12 years.
In a few years there will probably be AI robots (in sexy humanoid form) teaching classes as a “traditional classroom” option. Most faculty and staff are very well used to this downward incline and have basically given up hope. It’s a paycheck (for some). It’s an embarrassment (for most).
Connecticut’s public higher ed community college system is mostly broken, and it’s shameful.
Christine Japely is an English professor at CT State Community College (Norwalk) and also Chapter Chair for 4C’s SEIU faculty at Norwalk.