Search Continues for Campus CEOs As Part of Planned Consolidation of Community Colleges

For every campus, a CEO.  For every region, a president.

Last year, the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education, which administers Connecticut’s 12 community colleges, selected and hired CEO’s for five campuses, to be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of Capital Community College (CCC), Gateway Community College (GCC), Housatonic Community College (HCC), Manchester Community College (MCC), and Middlesex Community College (MxCC).

Quickly, a search began for five additional campuses:  Asnuntuck Community College, Naugatuck Valley Community College, Norwalk Community College, Quinebaug Community College, and Tunxis Community College. According to the Board’s timeline, semi-finalists were to be identified and interviewed during February, with finalists to be identified in March and campus interviews to be held at the five campuses.  Projected start-date for the five newly minted CEOs is June 2021.

Why all the hiring?

As the Board’s website describes it, the plan is “to consolidate the 12, independently administered community colleges into a singly accredited institution by 2023. This single institution with 12 campuses geographically distributed statewide will provide credit and non-credit programs to more than 80,000 students in rural, suburban and urban communities.” 

The “bold plan to establish an academically integrated institution,” has earned the continuing enmity of most faculty members, who have steadfastly opposed the plan since it was envisioned and developed under the watchful eye of CSCU President Mark Ojakian, who retired January 1.  His interim successor, Jane McBride Gates, has kept to the plan she inherited.

The Connecticut State Colleges & Universities (CSCU), administered by the Board of Regents, has also launched a search for a successor to Ojakian.  Applications were due on February 5; the Board intends to announce its selection by the end of May.  The Board is utilizing the services of two different national search consulting firms for the Campus CEO and CSUS President searches.

In addition to the now 12 community colleges, the Board of Regents is responsible for four state universities (Central, Eastern, Southern and Western) and Charter Oak State College, the state’s distance learning institution.  Structural changes involving those institutions are not envisioned as part of the new hierarchy for community colleges.

“The new consolidated institution will be administered by a regionalized leadership team, of which the Campus CEO will be a key position,” the Board’s job description explains of the community college plan, titled “Students First.” 

The Regional Presidents, hired in April 2019, are James Lombella for the North-West Region (Asnuntuck, Naugatuck Valley, Northwestern and Tunxis), Thomas Coley for the Shoreline-West Region (Gateway, Housatonic, Norwalk) and Rob Steinmetz for the Capital-East Region (Capital, Manchester, Middlesex, Three Rivers, Quinebaug Valley). 

Their appointments, according to CSCU, “put in place a new structure that provides strategic leadership and centralized services at the system and regional level with implementation activities at the campus level. Regional presidents are charged with leading the change process with the campuses in their jurisdiction. They will help to find ways to bring the campuses together around strategic goals, identify areas in need of support, and promote accountability for engagement in the planning process and implementation of new ways of doing our work.”  The annualized salary for the Regional Presidents is $220,000. The campus CEO salaries for the positions now in the midst of being filled, are $155,250, according to CSCU. 

In the new hierarchy, the campus CEO’s take the place of campus presidents, and report to the regional presidents, who in turn report to a president of the merged statewide college.

The new consolidated institution is to be called Connecticut State Community College, if it is accredited by the New England Commission on Higher Education to begin operation as a single institution for the start of the 2023-24 academic year, as is currently envisioned by CSCU.

The Commission had in 2018 rejected the CSCU attempt to merge 12 community colleges into a single institution, sending system officials back to the drawing board, as opposition amongst faculty and students continued. A revised plan in 2019 led to a Commission call for additional revisions and follow-through on the plan. 

The Ojakian-driven plan was initially proposed in April 2017.  At that time, CSCU officials expected “to begin the new consolidated community college on July 1, 2019…with an anticipated approval from NEASC in June 2018.” They also indicated that “Once the new institution is formed, it is likely that a comprehensive self-study would be necessary within the first 2-3 years to report on progress and to ensure that standards are being met.”

Last May, the Board named David Levinson, who previously served as President of Norwalk Community College, as interim President of the yet-to-begin-operations Connecticut State Community College, effective through May 2022, at a reported annual salary of $288,354.

Ojakian noted last year that the appointment would further the goal of accreditation by showing the Commission that there is a functioning organizational system, even though the merged institution would not yet be operational prior to accreditation.