🔒5 to Watch 2022: Newly-named CSCU President Cheng looks to bolster state college enrollment, morale

At the helm as president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system for just six months, veteran educator Terrence Cheng is looking to boost enrollment, increase morale, oversee a controversial community college consolidation plan and promote new training-based programs with Google and Amazon.

The 49-year-old Cheng, formerly the director of the University of Connecticut’s Stamford campus, said the partnerships with Google and Amazon are not only unique — in the case of Google a first in the country — but reflect a strategy shift for the university system.

Through both tech giants, the CSCU system will now offer certificate-based programs that will teach students IT and cloud-based computing skills, which are in high demand both in Connecticut and across the country.

Students who participate and finish the programs will get certification, but not college credit. The move is in line with other efforts in higher education to offer career-focused training that doesn’t require a more timely and costly four- or even two-year degree.

“You can call it a pivot. It’s adding even more value to what we already offer,” said Cheng, who noted that the Google Career Certificates program will be offered to the more than 66,000 students in the CSCU system who attend the state’s 12 community colleges, four regional universities and online Charter Oak State College.

Cheng said that while the Google and Amazon curriculums are different they “are similar in terms of our approach and what we are offering. These are industry-recognized certifications and these certificates create value in terms of what you can offer as an employee and to various employers.”

‘Times are changing’

Maintaining student enrollment numbers will be a key focus and challenge for Cheng.

Many higher-ed institutions over the last decade-plus have seen a drop in enrollment and the same holds true for CSCU, which has a $1.3 billion budget.

From the fall of 2008 to the fall of 2021, CSCU enrollment declined across the board: down 27.4% (to 37,116 students) at community colleges; down 23.2% (to 27,564 students) at state universities; and down 18.6% (to 1,618 students) at Charter Oak.

Why the drop off?

Cheng, a downtown Hartford resident, said there are many factors at play. Chief among them: More available jobs for those who forego higher education.

“We hit our [enrollment] peak in 2010 and there are a lot of reasons why systems like ours and institutions of public higher education are facing enrollment pressures,” he said. “Times are changing and people are changing and their options are different, especially these days when you look at how employers are so hungry for employees. A lot of folks who might traditionally come to CSCU are finding gainful employment and that takes them out of the higher education market.”

Cheng — who has a five-year contract — said CSCU’s next strategic planning process is scheduled to start in early 2023 and objectives will include stabilizing enrollment.

A key way to do that is to increase student retention, he said.

“Far too many of our students begin, but do not complete or transfer,” he said. “A variety of factors go into this, but substantial investments in retention efforts …. will help more students succeed and complete their degrees.”

Cheng pointed to the importance of the system’s Guided Pathways program, which aims to provide students with more structured academic plans and additional support, including advisors.

Cheng said CSCU is also working to improve intra-system transfer opportunities, making it easier for community college students to transfer seamlessly to state universities.

Morale boost

Another issue that has been controversial among some faculty is the move to consolidate CSCU’s community colleges.

“The merger is moving forward,” Cheng said. “We will be submitting our substantive change application to our accrediting body in January. We hope to have our approval in hand by March or April 2022. Right now, we are working on the details in terms of work charts, structure, budgeting and governance processes. It’s a big endeavor taking 12 campuses and turning them into one institution, which would be the fifth largest community college in the country once we open our doors.”

Cheng said a key component of the merger will be curriculum alignment across campuses. Currently, he said, there are differences in core curricula in similar programs on different campuses.

“As a single institution, program curricula must be aligned,” he said. “This will give students much greater flexibility to begin any program on any campus without having to worry about bureaucratic roadblocks preventing them from taking classes on other campuses.”

With recent contract negotiations often contentious, Cheng said the CSCU system could use a morale booster.

“Morale is an issue,” he said. “Contract negotiations have left some folks feeling pretty raw. You start negotiations at polarized ends sometimes and, I think, we end up seeing some of these proposals and it’s hard not to take it personally. There is a lot of choppy water that we need to bridge. We need to continue to say over and over and over again that we value our faculty, our staff and our administrators.”

Cheng said he believes meeting one-on-one with as many individuals who are part of the contract process is one way to bring people together.

Cheng, who is the first in his family to go to college in the United States, was born in Taiwan in 1972 and moved the following year to the U.S.

He received a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Miami in 1997 and has held academic, administrative leadership and faculty positions at Brooklyn College and Lehman College, both in New York City.

He is also the author of two novels, as well as numerous published short stories and essays.