A who’s who of Connecticut’s governmental and education leaders gathered recently at Manchester Community College for a “Regional Economic and Community College Summit.”
For most of the morning, speakers worked common themes: Connecticut’s economy is in trouble; the workforce is aging; the skilled workers aren’t there to replace them; companies are increasingly turning to global solutions; if we don’t figure out a solution, the sky will fall.
And there were a few rays of hope to suggest community colleges could be a factor in a grand solution. The manufacturing program at Asnuntuck drew appropriate praise and Craig Stevenson, an economic development specialist and member of the South Windsor Economic Development Commission, was on stage as a tangible example of the success possible when a community college education leads to higher education.
But when all was said and done, the problem was clear; the solution was not.
The simple reality is the state’s community colleges just aren’t up to doing much of the heavy lifting that’s going to be necessary. The impediments are just too numerous; the successes are just too isolated.
Peter Gioia, well-known economist at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, pointed out that the Asnuntuck manufacturing program could be expanded “20-fold” and there would still be plenty of jobs for its graduates. So why isn’t it bigger?
For the same reason efforts to train production workers for the fledgling film industry collapsed. And the same reason the flow of graduates to four-year schools is a trickle rather than a torrent.
Community colleges have all the agility of a Charter Oak and little of the charm.
The missions are a jumble. Are they a pathway to higher education for the underfunded, the place-bound and the late bloomers? Or are they trade schools offering a diverse menu of career-focused options? Or are they simply an extension of high school, offering remedial courses to four out of five of its students because they didn’t get it the first time?
Complicating the matter is a web of fiefdoms in Connecticut’s well-established pattern of fragmentation. Administrators are entrenched; faculty is entrenched; local politicians want more pork for the local campus rather than an effective solution.
There’s no doubt community colleges could and should have a significant role to play in training the workers Connecticut needs for the 21st-century economy. But to get that done, a lot of sacred cows have to die.
One is tenure for community college faculty. In an economy going through a series of cataclysmic upheavals, the curricula must be able to turn on a dime. A college can’t wait for a French teacher to retire before it can hire a teacher for a laser technician class.
Spare us the lecture on academic freedom. Tenure is as much a fossil as the defined-benefit plan and the gold watch. Universities long ago increased their reliance on adjunct faculty; much of the private sector uses contract workers. So should community colleges.
Instead of spending more money on bricks-and-mortar campuses, community colleges need to do even more with virtual classrooms. Many subjects can be taught effectively online and should be. The money saved can buy up-to-date gear for labs that train student for what awaits them in the real world.
Community colleges must face the competition from private, for-profit schools that are stealing students by offering a faster path to careers in allied health fields and the service sector. Their classes always have seats and meet at times that are convenient to those with jobs. The teachers make up in real world skills what they may lack in academic credentials.
The message seems clear: Get agile and get real or somebody will come along and suggest the ultimate solution to training the next generation of workers lies in privatizing community colleges.
