Anson C. Smith, Public Relations Coordinator
Housatonic Community College
900 Lafayette Blvd.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
Tel: 203-332-5229, Fax: 203-332-5247
E-mail: asmith@hcc.commnet.edu
HCC trustees move quickly, tap acting president
LINDA CONNER LAMBECK lclambeck@ctpost.com
Connecticut Post, May 17, 2006
BRIDGEPORT — Anita T. Gliniecki, academic dean at Housatonic Community College for the past three years, will become acting president when Janis Hadley retires Sept. 1.
"This role cannot be one of caretaker. We have to keep moving forward," Gliniecki, 55, said Tuesday.
Gliniecki, of Monroe, was offered the job Monday night after a meeting of the board of trustees for the state's community college system. She accepted.
She said she has not determined whether or not she will seek the job permanently.
With so many positive initiatives under way at the college, Gliniecki said her primary job this fall will be to make sure the focus remains on student access and success.
Chancellor Marc S. Herzog, in a memo to Housatonic staff Tuesday, said he was confident Gliniecki will have the support of the college's leadership team, faculty and staff in continuing the work Hadley began.
Herzog said Hadley's decision to retire brought him a sense of loss.
"Her ability to foster support and build recognition on the regional, statewide and national levels for the college and the students it serves has been truly inspiring," he said.
Hadley, 56, surprised staff and students last week by announcing her early retirement plans. Hadley recently had cancer. She said she was ready to try something new and "re-engineer" herself.
She had been HCC president for a decade, taking the job a semester before the college moved to its current downtown location.
During her tenure, Housatonic's enrollment increased 65 percent. The college also saw a 50-percent increase in program offerings. She leaves as the school prepares for a $45 million expansion that will double its size.
Within the next month, Herzog expects the trustees to authorize a national search for Housatonic's next president.
Assisting in that process will be an advisory committee made up Housatonic faculty, administrators, students and foundation members. That committee will be assembled in the fall.
Herzog plans to visit the campus May 30 to begin discussions on the leadership characteristics the Housatonic community would like to see in its new president.
Hadley will leave a job that paid $161,348 annually.
It's not clear how much Gliniecki will make in her temporary capacity in the role. She has spent 31 years in academia, the last two decades in administration, though she has never been a college president.
Since 2003, she has served as academic dean at Housatonic, responsible for all college-credit instruction, library services and academic advising.
She helped implement the Middle College Pilot Program, which gives Bassick and Harding high school seniors college-level courses in math and English. She headed the planning of the college's involvement in the national Achieving the Dream program that is working to improve student outcomes.
Gliniecki also is credited with helping to create the college's new Associate Degree Program in Industrial Technology, heading the development of a weekend college program and directing the creation of a new satellite campus in Ansonia.
Gliniecki lives in Monroe with her husband and two daughters. She
came to Housatonic from St. Clair County Community College in Port
Huron, Mich., where she served as vice president for academic services.
Gliniecki said it is unclear who will take over her job while she is
acting president. The role of academic dean was vacant before she had
it.