Earlier today, the Mott Community College Board of Trustees voted to hire an interim president to replace Beverly Walker-Griffea. The Board interviewed four candidates. Three have extensive experience in higher education. One of those three is Jason Wilson, Mott’s Vice President of Student Academic Success and was the acting interim president. The Board voted 5-2 to hire the one candidate who has never worked in higher education.
(What could possibly go wrong?)
Mott’s new interim President is Shauna Richardson-Snell, who has a deep background in corporate finance and in her words – fundraising. According to Trustee Jeffrey Swanson, he voted to offer the position to Richardson-Snell because he liked her business background and thought the college should be run more like a business.
Except that public community colleges (and other public higher education institutions) aren’t businesses. They don’t look or act like businesses, and when well-meaning but sorely misguided people attempt to run them like businesses, bad things happen.
Ask anyone from Eastern Gateway Community College what happens when a publicly funded community college tries to act like a business. EGCC will host its last graduation on August 10, and will close its doors for good on October 31, having surrendered its accreditation. Its assets are frozen. Its previous administrators are under indictment, and the local county government is bracing itself for the very real likelihood that its residents will be forced to pay off the school’s substantial debts.
Heck, you don’t even have to go that far. If you could get an honest answer out of the WCC administration, you would find that its foray into the wonderful world of the fitness business is silently costing the Washtenaw County taxpayers millions of dollars that they authorized for the operation of the
C-O-L-L-E-G-E.
Higher education institutions aren’t businesses
Education is a public service. It’s a public good; it is not subject to the laws of commerce. Turning a profit – which is the gold standard of a business – is not the objective of education. Ask ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, Northwestern College, or Trump University – all of whom failed miserably at all aspects of education-as-a-business.
Mott Community College will not be improved by running it more like a business. That’s like putting a saddle on a zebra in the hope of making it more like a horse. Mott Community College has the second-lowest graduation rate of any community college in Michigan. Fewer than one in five students actually completes a degree program. It offers the fourth most-expensive two-year education in Michigan and delivers the second-lowest earning potential among Michigan community college graduates.
With all due respect, Mott doesn’t need a business jockey or a fundraiser. It needs authentic academic leadership. Fortunately, Richardson-Snell is a rental. One would hope that the Mott Community College Board of Trustees would have enough sense to hire a permanent president with the right kind of experience to thoughtfully address the school’s obvious academic needs.
Photo Credit: mimaba, via Flickr
