In his five years at the helm of Rhode Island’s only community college, CCRI President Thomas D. Sepe has shaken things up, mandating skills testing for new students, revamping academics and expanding CCRI’s role in economic development. A new Division of Lifelong Learning he created to consolidate non-credit programs has led the way, reaching out to industry to provide job training, specialized courses and workplace literacy. Enrollment in its programs has grown rapidly, by 25 percent from fiscal 2003 to 2004 alone, for a total of 27,803.
Yet despite widespread support for Sepe in the community, conflicts with faculty, a series of audits and critical reports from the state Office of Higher Education, and academic and organizational failures identified in an accreditation review last year have undermined his presidency, to the point that this spring, the Board of Governors for Higher Education considered a petition to dismiss Sepe a year before his contract expires next June 30.
Next Monday, the board will vote on whether to extend Sepe’s tenure through June 2009. With that in mind, he sat down with PBN to discuss his record and why he wants three more years.
PBN: One of your priorities has been to get CCRI more involved in economic development. How are you doing that?
SEPE: We’re working on multiple levels. We’re working with high-tech companies like Raytheon, we’re working with the Southside Merchants Association and the Black Contractors’ Association in the urban community … We’re working with hospitals and the health care community with a new $1.8-million grant for improving the success of our students in nursing and allied health programs. So in almost every part of the economic fabric of our state, there’s something of ours going on.
PBN: What are you doing with Raytheon?
SEPE: It’s an interesting project. They underwrote the training of electronics assemblers. They pick up about two-thirds of the cost for an intensive 12-week program which produces about a dozen workers in each cycle. We’re in our third cycle now, and they’ve hired, I think, 11 from the first cycle, and I’m not sure how many from the second cycle. We went into the plant, did an assessment and created a curriculum, and they helped us by using some of their employees as trainers. We recruit students from the community, and we’re running the classes at the [Newport Area Career & Technical Center].
PBN: That seems like your work in Quonset – not a typical college curriculum.
SEPE: That was the real purpose for having Quonset: We needed a venue where we could put in flexible, short-term, intensive training programs for a population that was either not interested in or not going to be served well by our traditional college courses. A lot of the students we’ve trained came from the welfare program or were on unemployment. … And there are a lot of wonderful jobs out there that need to be filled and don’t require a college degree, but they do require some postsecondary training.
PBN: How much are you doing at Quonset now?
SEPE: Enrollment is growing [up 27 percent from fiscal 2004 to 2005, to a total of 2,783 students]. … It’s becoming a place for some innovative projects. We have solar energy training, the composites industry – with all the space-age materials that are being used in industry – and alternative building products. … All the training programs for those new, specialized industries are coming out of Quonset. So it started out as kind of a direct support for Electric Boat with welding, and it’s turned into a multifaceted operation.
PBN: Tell us about that new health care grant.
SEPE: We’ve been fortunate to get, two years running, money from the Legislature to expand our nursing programs by hiring more faculty, and that’s ongoing. What this grant does is provide more support for students to maximize their graduation rates.
PBN: You’ve really expanded developmental education here.
SEPE: Yes. There were significant pieces of it here, but not the connections or a universal philosophy. … We’ve gone from about a 20- to an 80- or 90-percent service level for students who needed reading [support], so that’s been a major piece. We’ve expanded the writing center, expanded the math programs, put in testing at the front end.
PBN: You have not had an easy relationship with the faculty. What’s going on?
SEPE: We have more than 300 faculty [members]. … I’ve had some difficult times with the faculty union and those who are most strongly associated with it. I think some of it is a difference of expectation and experience. The experience of the faculty union has not been one where there’s been strong academic leadership, or presidential initiative in academic areas. I have more than 30 years of working in academics, so I think I have a pretty good understanding of what colleges can and should be doing.
PBN: You’ve had a rough year – a lot of criticism, a big conflict with the faculty union – but you’re looking to get your contract renewed. What would you do with three more years?
SEPE: The college is at a tipping point. We have created a plan, and things we’re beginning to put in place. … We need to change the way we do business. We need to democratize this college. We need to create greater avenues for input and participation, so people can have their voices heard and be part of the decision-making process. We need to decentralize the college to a more campus-based model. All these things are going to take another three years to get done. I’ve been working toward that for five years; my goal is to be here to close that chapter.
