10 Questions with HCC President Anita Gliniecki
Posted: 08/16/2009 10:53:23 PM EDT, Stamford Advocate
Updated: 08/17/2009 12:27:52 AM EDT
Born
on a farm in the tiny hamlet of Ruth on Michigan's "thumb," Housatonic
Community College President Anita Gliniecki is a relatively recent
transplant from the upper Midwest, having served as dean of nursing
at St. Clair Community College in Port Huron, Mich.
Her father was the teacher in the town's one-room schoolhouse and her mother ran the farm. Gliniecki is the youngest of four children. She started driving a tractor when she was 5 years old. The farm had dairy and beef cattle, chickens and pigs. Crops included oats, wheat, corn and sugar beets.
A sister, stricken with polio, died at 13.
One of the more memorable events of her childhood was a high school science fair project that compared the frequency of blood types with the various ethnic groups of rural Michigan ---- German, Polish, Swedish and others. The experiment won her a trip to the International Science Fair in San Francisco.
Gliniecki holds a bachelor's degree in nursing from Wayne State University in Detroit and a master's degree in nursing from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She was also an adjunct lecturer at that school, as well as an assistant professor and faculty chairwoman at Northern Michigan University.
She joined HCC as the dean of academic services in 2003, and was named president on Feb. 6, 2007, succeeding Janis M. Hadley, who retired.
Gliniecki recently talked about her life, the Bridgeport-based community college and how the economic downturn has changed the HCC student profile.
Q: We've heard that, because of the economy, many people are returning
to college to learn new skills. Have you seen any changes in the student
population here at HCC?
A: "We'll know for sure the impact once
we start the fall semester. But we already know that is that, when
I look at the schedule, the 100- and 200-level courses are filling
up. That means that our students are staying with us, they're continuing
at this college, and that we're getting more students who are college-ready.
But, unfortunately, we're still getting students who are not college
ready, where we have to do the preparatory work with them to get them
ready for college ready courses."
Q: How about the numbers? Up?
Down?
A: "Our enrollment, on a day-to-day basis, is running almost 30
percent ahead of where we were last year. Now, I expect that to slow
down as we get to the start of classes, but I still anticipate a significant
enrollment increase this fall. Last year, when we opened up Beacon
Hall, which doubled the size of this campus, the enrollment went up
16 percent."
Q: What's your enrollment capacity here? Are you close
to reaching that level?
A: "When we added Beacon Hall, our official capacity was 6,500
students. Last spring, which was our largest enrollment ever, we had
5,100. But remember, when the college moved from the old location on
Barnum Avenue to downtown, the college doubled its size in four years,
thanks to the greater space, the better facilities and the equipment."
Q:
What about the state budget cuts ordered by Governor Rell? Did a lot
of your staff and faculty take the early-retirement package that the
state offered?
A: "Unfortunately, yes, a lot of people left. We had 21 people
take advantage of the retirement-incentive program. Of that number,
13 were faculty. That's 16 percent of our previous staffing number.
And we still don't have a state budget. We're still waiting on Hartford.
And we're planning for the worst-case scenario, which right now is
still the governor's budget. We'll be starting this fall very short
on faculty and other staff positions."
Q: That aside, what classes
are more popular now than, say, a year or two ago?
A: "I don't think we've had a shift away from courses, but rather
an expansion of some areas. Right now, our business programs are huge
for us. We started an entrepreneurial program which seems to be attracting
people who were in the workforce, and had always thought that they
wanted to start their own businesses. Most people who start up a business
without that knowledge fail. How do you manage people? How do you manage
budgets? Where do you go for income streams? That really dictates how
successful a business will be. We also had increases in science, which
puts people in health careers. Human services is another very big area."
Q:
You mentioned that some students who come here aren't college ready.
What sort of preparatory work is available for these individuals?
A: "We require every new student to take a nationally normed test
called Accuplacer. Then, based upon that, we can tell if you are college-ready
in reading, writing and math, or do you need developmental courses.
We have developmental courses in reading, writing and math. We're typical
of a lot of community colleges in the country in that so many students
are coming in who are particularly weak in math. So, we work with our
high schools here to get those skills."
Q: What level math are
we talking about here? Algebra? Advanced algebra? Trig? Calculus? Geometry?
A: "Intermediate algebra and pre-calculus. A lot of students come
to us having trouble with basic arithmetic. And so we fill in the gaps.
We're one of 15 colleges selected in the nation for the Achieving the
Dream initiative to get students faster and further through these developmental
courses. Anything with a course number below 100 is a developmental
class. Eighty percent of the incoming students need at least one developmental
class. That's higher than the national average, which is 60 percent."
Q:
But college success is more than just mastering basic skills, right?
A: "Right. A lot of it is time management. How to read a textbook.
How to read a syllabus. How to write a paper. We're focused on our
students and their many different styles of learning. We're concerned
about making students successful. But there still are gaps between
what the student needs to know to be college ready and what many of
the high schools are able to offer. That's why we work with the high
schools on that."
Q: One comment I hear when I go up to City Hall
is that the students here don't intermingle much with the city. They
drive here, go to class, get back in their cars and go home. Can the
school do more to get them to engage in what downtown has to offer?
A: "This is a concern, but our students, many of them don't have
a lot of expendable income. We have one of the highest percentages
of students receiving aid for tuition in the nation. So these are students
who are struggling to pay for their tuition and books, even though
our tuition is very reasonable. Most of them are self-supporting, and
have to support a family, too."
Q: On a related note ---- and I'm
sure you've heard this ---- Mayor Bill Finch would like to use a chunk
of your parking garage for an apartment building project at 333 State
St. What's your take on that?
A: "I have to be sure that as the college grows that we'll have
parking spaces for our students. We're a land-locked institution. We
can't increase our footprint. This is not the time for me to give away
spaces that our future students will be needing."
--- JOHN BURGESON
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