Q&A: MCC President Gena Glickman

The following are excerpts from a Jan. 24 interview with Manchester Community College President Gena Glickman:  

Manchester Patch: Gena, you’ve been president of – and the first woman to hold the position in the college’s almost 50-year history –since June  2008, so what brought you to MCC from your previous position as Vice President for Teaching, Learning and Student Development at Elgin Community College outside of Chicago?

Gena Glickman: I started looking for presidencies, and I wanted to be back on the East Coast, and as close to New York as possible. My dad lives in Boston, and I wanted to be back in the Northeast. I wasn’t really a Mid-western girl.

Manchester Patch: And how have your first 2 1/2 years as president been?

Gena Glickman: Well, I walked in in the middle of a budget crisis, when it really first started, but I have to say that even with all of the trauma that that brings to a campus this is an incredibly high performing place and people just keep moving forward.

We focus so much on the budget, and that is huge, because we’re managing a small city here, and we’ve got maintenance, and all those things beside the educational programs, but the fact is what happens in the classroom always happens in the classroom.

Our education is excellent. We have incredible faculty. They’re incredibly dedicated. Our student support staff is here all hours. They’re always looking at new programs. The concern for the student is always first. When we make a decision, the question I always ask is “how does this impact the students?” That’s how we know whether it’s a good or bad decision.

Manchester Patch: Would you say the college is still in the middle of that budget crisis?

Gena Glickman: For us, certainly, because it is such an economically difficult time for the state of Connecticut, and we are a state agency, part of the state government, so yes there is always a fear. Last year we lost $1.6 million [in state funding] and we had to eliminate 16 positions, and we are pretty thin as it is, so that was really difficult.

Manchester Patch: State funding makes up about 36 percent of the college’s $52.6 million budget. That's been going down in recent years, as you mentioned, and you won’t know the state’s contribution this year until Gov. Dannel P. Malloy submits his budget in mid-February, correct?

Gena Glickman: That’s correct. If the governor goes with [former Gov. M. Jodi] Rell’s transition budget, that’s a 4.4 percent cut. I don’t know if that’s where he’ll start. I’ve heard him speak about higher education as infrastructure, I’ve also heard him speak about shared sacrifice, so I am concerned because those positions that we cut from the general fund – we eliminated 16 positions last year, but we cut an additional 11 out of the general fund and we moved them to our operating fund, which comes from tuition and fee revenue. We’re pretty well maxed-out. We don’t have a large reserve fund at the college. We’ve grown about 25 percent in enrollment since 2005 with no additional staffing. We couldn’t afford to add any more sections in the fall. This spring was the same thing. We’re pretty much even where we were a year ago in enrollment. We just can’t move that number any more and still maintain our missions.

Manchester Patch: With , many of those same community colleges are facing their tightest budgets ever. How can MCC continue to provide a high level of education to students under these conditions?

Gena Glickman: What’s hard is that you try to reallocate funds to those functional areas that give students opportunities for jobs and also for transfer, because that’s a huge part of our mission. And you look for efficiencies where you can, so we’ve looked at energy, we’ve looked at class size, we’ve been asking faculty to take on more. We’ve also looked at those things that keep students in school, retention services and student support, because you can’t offer instruction without having the mechanisms that keep students moving forward.

This is a very student-centered campus, and the idea that we can’t serve certain groups of students, or more students, or we have more students who are part-time because they can’t get a full-time schedule, all of that is heartbreaking.

Manchester Patch: Have there been certain classes or programs that the college would have liked to have started in the past several years but have been unable to because of budgetary constraints?

Gena Glickman: We have a whole list, especially in allied health. They are expensive programs, but they are the ones where the job market is still pretty strong.

I’ve got a whole list of allied health programs that we would like to have moving forward, but it comes down to budget and space right now. We are about 30,000-square feet shy of where we need to be with current services, so we’re already behind, and we need another 100,000-square feet to do those things that we’re going to need to do in the future.

Manchester Patch: Do you think the definition of the “typical” community college student has changed over the past decade or so? Is there such a thing as a “typical” community college student any longer?

Gena Glickman: Yes and no. MCC has the youngest student population of all the community colleges in Connecticut. It cycles. When I started in community colleges 30 years ago the average age was 28 or 29 years old. The community colleges were for vets returning from service. It was a completely different population. There was a much older adult population of people that weren’t going to four-year schools that didn’t have an educational opportunity near their homes. School was at night. And as the colleges grew, the population started shifting. So you started to get younger students who needed to work, who couldn’t live away from home for whatever reason.

Manchester Patch: And can you talk a little about the transferring aspect of MCC for people that aren’t too familiar with how that works?

Gena Glickman: There’s a statewide articulation agreement with the Connecticut State University System, but we also have individual transfer agreements with the University of Hartford, UConn and other colleges. Our students have gone to senior institutions all over the place. You could go to Yale and transfer credits. It really depends on your program and it depends on how well you did on what transfers.

Manchester Patch: What would you say is the most exciting thing currently going on at MCC?

Gena Glickman: We have a new educational and facilities master plan, and I think that’s going to guide the mission and really help us set priorities.

It will guide our strategic planning process, which we implemented a few years ago. As we look at what’s in that plan, we’re also going to be looking at what we can do in philanthropy to see where the support has grown for the college. We will also have an expansion of opportunities working with the downtown.

You may have heard and probably know that NewAlliance and First Niagara are , and right now they are looking at eliminating about 100 jobs in the downtown. That has a direct impact on the community, and if we can work with the town to have more students downtown on a regular basis, than maybe we can help fill in some of those gaps. 

Manchester Patch: Manchester Community College is the largest community college in Connecticut, drawing students from a wide region, but the college is based in Manchester. How would you characterize MCC’s relationship with the greater Manchester community?

Gena Glickman: I think we have a great relationship. Our largest districts are Manchester, East Hartford, South Windsor, Glastonbury, and then maybe a little bit less than half of our students come from outside that district.

I know over the last two and a half years it’s really been part of my mission to try to understand what the community needs. One of the things that came out of that is do people know who we are? Because you can go anywhere in our district and say “Manchester Community College.” And people will say, “Oh, great, my daughter went to school there! My nephew is taking classes. I took classes; I’m a graduate” So I think we’ve been integrated very well into the community.

But there is still a perception of community colleges as not having the rigor of a four-year school, and I would challenge anyone to look at our curriculum and our faculty and say that indeed our first two years have the same rigor. Nationally, half of all undergraduates are in community colleges right now.

Manchester Patch: Why would a community college be appealing to an 18-year old high school graduate as opposed to a four-year college? As you are seeing this younger group of students enroll, what is bringing them to MCC?

Gena Glickman: For our students, there are a huge number of reasons. A lot of it is proximity. Some of it is - I’m not ready to leave home, or I can’t afford to leave home. I want to be able to work and I don’t want to give up my job. And frankly they come on campus and they find a campus environment that has student clubs, and athletics and all of the things you find at a four-year school. Our mission is a teaching mission, and it’s very accessible. The class size is smaller. There is more intimacy; people feel a part of things. So they get a four-year college experience without dorm life. And it’s much less expensive, so if you’re paying for it yourself, or you’re on a Pell Grant, or whatever it is, it’s more cost effective for you to do it. But I think it goes beyond cost-effectiveness. I think there’s a sense of community here that is hard to duplicate.

Manchester Patch: With more and more people enrolling in, and relying on, community colleges than ever before, can they or are they – and more specifically MCC – going to be able to keep pace with the demand?

Gena Glickman: I think we are one of the most agile of all institutions. We have the facility to work with our community to figure out where we’re going and the types of programs and services we need. My biggest concern is the ability to have open access, and to continue to be a place where students can come, whether they are ready for college work or or not, and have a place to start and to realize the dream of higher education.

Manchester Patch: The Board of Trustees voted a 2.5 percent tuition increase into affect for the fall 2011 semester, raising the full-time cost at MCC from $1,703 per semester to $1,745. When you see a tuition increase like that, what’s going on?

Gena Glickman: We are offsetting costs, because our current services budget is increasing. You can have just so many efficiencies, but as your costs go up, tuition is going to go up. But the board is so conscientious about keeping things affordable.

And we’re always moving forward. We’re always looking for ways to let people know who we are and what we offer. You always have to look forward. These economic ups and downs are exactly that – ups and downs. You can’t stop to say “well, I’m gong to just decimate this portion of who we are.” And I certainly hope that we don’t have those kinds of decisions to make, because it takes so long to come back from them.