The R.I. Board of Governors for Higher Education has chosen Ray Di Pasquale, a veteran college administrator with nearly 33 years’ experience in Massachusetts and New York, to serve as interim president of the Community College of Rhode Island, starting Jan. 15.
The move came just four days after Thomas D. Sepe, CCRI’s president for the last five and a half years, said he’d step down Dec. 31 instead of seeking a three-year contract extension.
The Most Undervalued Asset in Business: The Right Connection
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Private Office Advisor Engel & Volkers Oceanside www.DiSpiritoteam.com…
Learn More
Both Sepe and the board characterized the resignation as voluntary, but it came after a tumultuous year during which the CCRI faculty twice voted “no confidence” in Sepe and once asked the board to fire him a year before his contract expired.
Sepe had also faced strong criticism from the board and Higher Education Commissioner Jack R. Warner for the college’s low graduation rate, overloaded faculty schedules, and other problems identified in audits and during an accreditation visit last year.
Still, students, alumni and business and community leaders had rallied around Sepe. Now, “I think we’re all surprised,” said Keith W. Stokes, executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, and a CCRI trustee. “We’re shocked. We’re frustrated.”
“For whatever reason, people are failing to see the big picture here,” Stokes added. “I do understand that leadership means change, and change is sometimes resisted,” but Sepe has been “a tremendous asset.” With his departure, “we’re going to lose a very important piece in promoting higher education and quality work-force training in this state.”
But in an interview, Sepe said he’d done “a lot of soul-searching” and decided the best way to save his agenda – and the people who’d stood up for it – was to step down.
“So much of what we’ve achieved has really been the work of many people at the college who shared the vision and took a risk to embrace change,” Sepe said. They all have major plans for the next three years, he added, and to succeed, they need “internal support and external support.” Even “in the best of times,” it would have been tough, but because of his recent troubles, he feared the resources wouldn’t be there, and his backers would be “at jeopardy.”
Warner and the board of governors keep stressing that they don’t want the changes to stop, but rather to accelerate. Warner said Di Pasquale, who was given a one-year contract, with the option to apply for a long-term assignment, has been charged with four main tasks:
*To reverse a slight decline in enrollment (this fall’s full-time-equivalent total was 118 lower than a year ago) and improve student retention and academic success.
n To establish “good working relations” with the faculty and staff, “healing some of the divisions” to “get everybody pulling in the same direction.”
*To continue Sepe’s outreach and collaborations with the business community, including CCRI’s work at Quonset Point.
*To reach out to the community and improve minority students’ success rates.
Di Pasquale, who spent 25 years of his career in Massachusetts community colleges, including 20 at Springfield Technical Community College, is not an academic and has no doctorate, but is a veteran in community outreach, admissions and student affairs.
Since 1998, he has been vice president for enrollment management and student affairs at the State University of New York College at Brockport. He didn’t quit to take the CCRI job, but rather has taken a leave for the spring semester, Warner said.
A fact sheet issued by Warner’s office says Di Pasquale “has the right combination of results-oriented achievements and human relations skills” to lead CCRI. It also quotes the SUNY Brockport president, John Halstead, saying he is “respected universally” and is “highly knowledgeable, caring and absolutely passionate about public higher education, particularly the role of community colleges and their access mission.”
Di Pasquale will begin meeting with CCRI staff and local leaders this week, Warner said.
Arthur Sampson, president of Newport Hospital, which has provided space for CCRI and was actively involved in the development of the new Newport campus, said he was “very disappointed” by Sepe’s departure, because “I really think he had laid a good foundation of some needed change, and it just needed some more time to take root.”
But asked what happens now, Sampson replied: “Well, I don’t know. I think we pick up the pieces and we see who comes in. … The community college is too important for all of us, so we need to pick up and go forward.”
Christopher “Kip” Bergstrom, executive director of the R.I. Economic Policy Council and another Sepe supporter, said the faculty union was wrong in accusing him of pushing for change too fast – in fact, he needed to push “a lot harder, a lot faster.”
CCRI’s graduation rate and its performance with minority students are “terrible,” Bergstrom said, and Sepe was moving in the right direction to change that.
“We absolutely have to change it; [CCRI] has to be the linchpin of upward mobility, and right now it’s one of the worst-performing community colleges in the country,” he said. It’s “really encouraging” that Di Pasquale spent so much of his career at Springfield Tech, he added, because it’s widely viewed as “probably the best” community college in the region. But it’s tough for “any one person” to change a college, and CCRI will need “tons of support.”
It’s an “all hands on deck kind of effort,” Bergstrom said. “You can’t bring in a college president and leave him hanging, or else they’re going to fail too.”
With some who’d worked closely with Sepe, Di Pasquale may have to build trust all over again. José Brito, president and founder of the Greater Providence Merchants Association, said Sepe was a true friend of South Side businesses and residents, not only committed to helping them through CCRI programs, but personally involved in the community.
With Sepe gone, the association expects to lose its ties with CCRI, Brito said, because the South Side relationship may not have broader institutional support. “It’s already lost,” he said. “It’s indisputable. We’re going to have to find another option.”
As for Sepe himself, he said he’s realized “there are lots of options and lots of opportunities out there,” and he’s taking his time to choose. He has a tenured faculty appointment at CCRI, where he’s already been teaching for two years. He may teach at the Providence campus and work with the South Side community. He speaks enthusiastically.
“I’m taking time to reconsider what do I want, as opposed to what’s available,” he said.
“This is the first chance I might have to be more independent in my thinking and my actions, because I don’t have a designated role and title.”
