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Educating ‘Whole Persons’
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Business New Haven
5/4/1999
By: Marci Alborghetti
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Colleges and universities begin to acknowledge that students must one day actually earn a living
Ivory towers just don't cut it anymore - at least when it comes to graduating students who are ready to compete in an increasingly complex job market.
Gone are the days when a pure liberal-arts education without a clear application to the “real” world was touted as a thing of value in and of itself, and vocational/technical/community colleges were looked upon as mere way stations for lesser students.
Today, liberal arts universities and colleges are re-examining their curricula - if not their philosophies of education - in light of the growing pragmatic emphasis on the day after graduation, while technical and community colleges are congratulating themselves on the strong relationships they've developed with business and industry.
Bruce Leslie, chancellor of Connecticut's community and technical colleges, believes in the integrity of a liberal arts degree, provided it includes the elements necessary to produce “whole persons.” Leslie advocates for making liberal arts relevant to the 21st century, and he perceives the state's community/technical system as a vehicle for achieving that goal.
“We are a comprehensive community-college system, and that means we provide more than what a traditional liberal-arts education offers,” he says. “As we approach the 21st century, we need people who can deal with technology, make social/contextual decisions and work within an increasingly culturally diverse society and workplace. Too often, liberal arts education leaves out some of the elements needed to produce these people.”
Leslie contends that the community college system's role in the economic development of the state keeps it relevant. Observing that “There are only so many anthropology and history majors that the world can absorb,” he says his system focuses on: 1) helping people get jobs, 2) helping them keep jobs, 3) providing students with the kind of background in math, science, and technology that liberal arts institutions may not emphasize, and 4) offering businesses short-term, specific training - or technology transfer - that enables them to keep their workforces updated and their technology current.
“It's vital for us to help attract and retain business in the state, and to do that, we must stay in very close touch with business to understand and meet their needs,” Leslie says. “These must be key objectives for post-secondary institutions today.”
So could it be that Yale, that inviolable ivory tower, might actually be regretting, albeit secretly, the opportunity it passed up in 1920 when New Haven business magnates wanted to establish a post-secondary education institution with a focus on graduating (oh, the shame of it) prospective employees?
The very notion elicits a discreet chuckle from University of New Haven President Lawrence J. DeNardis, whose institution was founded on Yale's deliberate shortsightedness.
“You're talking to the president of the university founded by the business community,” declares DeNardis. “When the business leaders of that time wanted to start an institution of higher education for their employees and the returning World War I vets so they could work during the day and go to school at night, both Yale and the New Haven Teaching Institute said no.
“It was the New Haven YMCA that helped form the New Haven YMCA Junior College which later became the University of New Haven, and we've stayed close to business ever since,” says DeNardis. “We believe strongly in liberal arts, but we approach it from a career-oriented position. Our programs reflect that.”
DeNardis says that many of UNH's academic programs have been created and accredited with the collaboration of the business community because business leaders perceived a need unmet in traditional liberal arts institutions. For example, UNH established a degree in occupational safety and health in the 1970s even though, as DeNardis recalls, “Some educators criticized it as a fad degree. Well, now we have a successful masters in the area, and our people are getting jobs.”
Presumably graduates of Wesleyan University in Middletown, are also getting jobs, but Wesleyan President Douglas Bennett has a slightly different take on how a post-secondary institution should respond to the world of business and technology.
Bennett perceives technology as a tool with which to build a better university. “Technology and computerization make it easier for us to be a top-notch college; they benefit us in processing what a liberal-arts education needs to be in the next century,” he explains. “Access to technology helps us advise our students better and to learn and teach in a better campus environment.
“Although we have a good computer science program, we do not try to respond to the technical requirements of Connecticut businesses; we try to respond to the leadership requirements of Connecticut businesses,” says Bennett. “We do not offer a business degree, because we believe that we should prepare people within the liberal education context.”
Bennett subscribes to the tradition that a solid liberal arts education will prepare the graduate for, well, just about anything, but particularly for the world of business. In fact, he believes that the social institutions like family and religious communities that prepared students for life - not to mention work - in the past are no longer as strong as they once were.
Consequently, Bennett says, a liberal-arts education should also seek to provide that kind of less tangible guidance. Clearly, his philosophy is working since Wesleyan graduates, as he pointed out, “are feeding a national market” though a strong placement program characterized by solid bonds with the business community.
Anthony J. Cernera, president of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, joins Bennett in advocating vigorously for what is considered a traditional liberal-arts education.
Says Cernera, whose institution does offer an MBA: “I think in many ways, the best preparation for traditional college students to thrive and compete in the workplace is to give them the ability to become perpetual learners. Clearly, this argues for a traditional liberal arts education.
“This means we need to prepare people - not for a specific career - but to think critically, analyze carefully and present articulately,” Cernera says. “With these skills, they are prepared for a career or, if we listen to the future forecasters, to change careers as often as four or five times. Business wants problem-solvers, people who are intellectually engaged and engaging. That's what a good liberal-arts education does.”
Bill Cibes, chancellor of the Connecticut State University system, articulates a philosophy that combines the best of both worlds, echoing Leslie in suggesting that a sort of applied liberal arts is the ticket.
“It is explicitly our mission to produce students who have the competencies necessary to succeed in businesses and non-profit organizations,” says Cibes. “Our students must meet the standards employers set. Now, we do believe those standards demand students who are literate, numerate, critical thinkers, team-players and problem-solvers - all the components of a liberal-arts education.”
Cibes says that this comprehensive concept is embraced in the system's new mission statement and in the gradual revamping of curriculum based on “what we're hearing from both business and education leaders.”
As institutions of higher education work ever more closely with industry on community and educational ventures, the line between the two worlds becomes more blurred. And previous impediments to more lasting connections evaporate.
Leslie, who sits on the policy committee of the American Society for Training & Development, identifies creating clear lines of communication with business as one of the greatest challenges facing community system educators today. “We are coming closer to speaking the same language, and that is vital as our connection grows stronger,” he says.
Cibes is even more blunt. “We see education today as demand-driven, and we are working with business leaders to determine exactly what they need. After all, ultimately, these folks are our customers.”
In the last analysis, education leaders like Wesleyan's Bennett welcome the focus on education even if it challenges traditional liberal-arts credo.
He avers: “Connecticut's whole future depends on educational institutions. We need to enter an era of knowledge, and institutions that prepare people for that are vital. Previously, we've seen sporadic, though welcome, attempts to support education from the primary grades up. Now, Connecticut needs a commitment to this in an ongoing manner.”
But have Connecticut institutions of higher learning become nothing more than “employee” factories, spewing graduates off an educational assembly line for the sole purpose of satisfying the appetite of the gaping industry monster?
Hardly. However, the students of today want to be the employees of tomorrow, and they know they'll get more bang for their (considerable) buck if they choose an institution that prepares them to be scholar - and worker.
The Business of Business Schooling
Vocational trainers fortify niches
to weather resurgent economy
How does one characterize the business of preparing people for, well, business? Some would contend that this is the final task of all education, but business schools take it as their particular charge. Indeed, the major difference between business/vocational/technical schools and traditional academic institutions is that the former prepare students not only for business, but often for quite specific careers.
And, for the most part, in Connecticut, the business of business schooling is doing quite well, thank you. From the vocational-technical schools that educate high school and adult students for fields like automotive, carpentry, electrical, heat, ventilation & air conditioning (HVAC) and culinary arts; to the business schools that focus on preparing adults for a variety of identified careers like real-estate sales, travel, medical, computer, word processing and general office, enrollment is strong.
So is competition. Business school administrators report an interesting and somewhat surprising trend in noting that the economic recovery in Connecticut is not necessarily a boon to them. “I wouldn't say we're suffering from the strong economy,” says Carol Paradise, director of the Sawyer School in Hamden. “But, generally speaking, a good economy with a shrinking labor market means that people don't necessarily need training to get a job.
“However, that's often merely a perception, and individuals seeking anything better than an entry-level position know that they will indeed need the kind of training we provide,” Paradise adds. “We focus on business, medical, travel and office training, and those are careers that require preparation to start anywhere besides entry level.”
Peter Leone is even more blunt in characterizing the embarrassment of riches inherent in the state's strong job market. “We're almost doing too well,” says Leone, president of the Connecticut School of Electronics. “Connecticut's job market is better now than it has been in 24 years, and our graduates these days have more than one job offer waiting for them.
“The problem for some of the smaller business schools is that when the job market is too good, fewer people need training,” Leone explains. “Or, you have more people only willing to go to school at night because they work during the day, and only if they want to change careers.”
Well-established schools like Leone's Connecticut School of Electronics are better able to flourish under these conditions because they have more resources and can react more flexibly to economic vicissitudes. It also helps that Leone's institution focuses on careers that are much in demand - no matter how good the job market.
With his school traditionally concentrating on electronics, computer repairs, industrial automotive, A/V and LAN, Leone has made several additional changes to respond to the positive market, including an affiliation with the Porter & Chester Institute, another strong business school presence in Connecticut. He's also moved the main school to Branford, allowing more room for expansion.
“The move to Branford allows us to expand to include the Porter & Chester offerings so we now have a gamut of careers that are very much in demand,” explains Leone. “In addition to the electronic skills we've always offered, we've now added administrative assistant, medical assistant, HVAC, CAD, and we've now become an authorized Auto Desk Training Center. We're seeing a tremendous need in these areas; I wish we had more graduates to fill the positions we hear about.”
Indeed, as Leone points out, the type of career it trains students for can make a difference in how the economy affects the educational institution. For example, the New Haven Real Estate School has the largest enrollment in the state and it's still climbing. Administrator Ted Mansfield II says that the boom economy has been nothing but positive for his institution.
“Things are going very well for us because we offer only real estate courses, and as we see the market picking up, more and more people want to get into this industry,” says Mansfield. Real estate, he explains, is often an area people turn to after becoming disillusioned with their first career.
“I think the strong economy can be good for business schools throughout the state, but for schools like ours, it's particularly positive,” says Mansfield. “Plus, you get a certain type of person who's interested in real estate: They have to be fairly risk-oriented, and they have to be willing to put some time and effort into the career. It tends to be a more attractive career for people who want to make their own hours or change careers.”
Another important factor in the success of a business school is marketing. With a growing number of institutions in Connecticut where enrollment ranges from just a handful of students up to over 1,000 at Mansfield's Real Estate School, the competition for students can be fierce, particularly as more schools concentrate on the hot careers.
Louise Porto, administrator at the Academy of Learning in Waterbury, combines a modern and good old-fashioned approach when it comes to marketing the academy.
“Like any good business, you must market your services through advertising, but we believe that word of mouth - gratified customers - is the best marketing,” says Porto, whose institution focuses on computer, administrative assistant and executive assistant training with an emphasis on the medical and service fields.
The Sawyer School's Paradise agrees that satisfied students and businesses are a strong advantage when marketing the school. Nevertheless, she adds, “Marketing through the media is still important to us, especially because we are relatively new to Connecticut. We have a strong focus on television ads - they comprise 90 percent of our media placement.”
Perhaps one of the most vital aspects of building a successful business education program is building a successful network with businesses. “Our success hinges on our relationship with Connecticut business and industry,” explains Cecil Robinson, director of Eli Whitney Regional Vocational Technical School in Hamden, Connecticut's largest voc-tech school with both high school and adult students.
“Our currency and credibility to our students is how we prepare them for careers in industry,” he adds. “And in order to know how best to do that, we must know the needs and demands of Connecticut industry.”
Robinson is seconded by Porto who adds a geographical dimension to the “know industry's needs” equation.
“We are very aware that we operate in Waterbury, a city that has lost much of its manufacturing,” says Porto. “Many people in this region need to be re-trained for different careers. We cater to former manufacturing employees who may want to enter computer or office careers.”
Porto adds: “The academy gets a lot of interest from adults looking to change fields or to parlay their current expertise into something a little different - for example, a certified nurse's assistant who might want to get into medical office administration and needs the office and computer skills.”
Paradise summarizes the philosophy of all the school administrators when it comes to the need for a good relationship with business.
“Building a strong relationship with the businesses in your career areas is essential for at least two reasons: Our placement staff can better place our graduates if there is a solid, communicative relationship; and we can collaborate with the businesses in creating externships, internships and similar forms of on-the-job training,” she says.
Paradise characterizes this manner of cooperation as win-win for everyone: the school, the students and the future employers.
Private Eyes
The woes - real and perceived - of public schools continue to fuel private and parochial school growth
With disgraceful reminders of the state's public educational inequities such as Sheff v. O'Neill, the current lawsuit by a number of Connecticut towns and cities against the state and the Hartford schools' struggle to attain and maintain mere accreditation, it's easy to see why parochial and private schools in the state are having a field day.
Literally. Indeed, many of them can afford to offer many more extracurricular activities than their public counterparts, not to mention off-campus educational and cultural opportunities.
“Although I believe that the public system has some excellent students, private schools like ours can offer some clear advantages,” says James R. Maggart, headmaster of Hamden Hall Country Day School and president of the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools (CAIS).
“We have smaller classes, more private attention to each student and better opportunities for kids to participate in extracurricular activities simply because the pool of students is smaller,” Maggart adds.
For example, Maggart explains: “Hamden Hall has 13 or 14 students in a class, and our teachers have four classes per day plus one extracurricular activity. So an English teacher here may have 50 students a day as opposed to an English teacher in the public system with about 120 kids. Altogether, we have about 240 students in our ninth to 12th grades and this compares with public systems in the city of about 2,000.”
To Maggart, “This makes a huge difference in what one teacher can do, and it makes a huge difference in how comprehensively a student can participate in academics and extracurricular activities.”
Maggart points out that Connecticut's economic recovery has more to do with the current strength of private schools than any other single factor. CAIS Executive Director Peter Tacy concurs. “The good economy is vital to parents sending their children to private schools,” he says. “We have no research that indicates that the fear of the public system is beneficial to private schools.”
“In fact, for every Connecticut parent who despairs of the public system and sends his or her children to a private school, there's probably a parent not locating or relocating to Connecticut for that same reason,” Tacy explains. “Naturally, this hurts us because people who may have sent their children to private schools simply don't come here - we get about six percent of the children in the state. We need Connecticut to be a destination state, so we all have a stake in a good public education system.”
Tacy also notes that cities - where the state of public education is most often deplored - are not losing students to private schools. Most urban parents simply can't afford it, and he says that New Haven is the only Connecticut city with a strong private-school presence simply because “It's a university town. Many of the private and parochial schools around New Haven - Hopkins, Notre Dame, St. Thomas's Day School and Sacred Heart - have a deeply rooted tradition and long history.”
Long histories, deeply rooted traditions, smaller classes, better discipline and general prestige are just a few of the reasons that parochial and private schools are attracting growing legions of pupils. Or, to be precise, a growing number of parents who are willing and able to foot the bill.
One father, a successful business owner in Hartford who makes his family's home in neighboring Bloomfield, explains why he's willing, indeed, determined to pay thousands a year to send his nearly teenage daughter to the Watkinson School, a private school adjacent to the University of Hartford in Bloomfield.
“I don't like what's happening in the public systems in Greater Hartford,” he says bluntly. “They don't provide the environment that I want her in, and she's less likely to speak up for herself in that sort of atmosphere. I want her to have guidance and discipline.”
He might have taken the words right out of Richard J. Burke's mouth. A consultant with nationally renowned Catholic School Management Inc., headquartered in Madison, Burke believes there are three reasons behind the growth in Catholic schools.
Noting that the expansion is taking place both in existing Catholic schools and through the opening - or re-opening - of former Catholic schools, Burke says, “From 1984 to 1996 155 new Catholic schools opened across the country, and this trend is reflected in Connecticut.
“The reasons for this positive environment,” explains Burke, “are parents experiencing: 1) a resurgence in interest in incorporating religious values into the education experience; 2) the desire for structure, safety and discipline; 3) a perception that Catholic schools offer better academic quality. These are the reasons you see schools re-opening like Saint John's (elem.) school in Old Saybrook.”
Tacy agrees, particularly when it comes to Saint John's, a Catholic elementary school that closed its doors more than a quarter century ago to the horror of many parents who could think of nothing worse than the two years their children would have to spend at Old Saybrook Junior High School before they could be shipped off to Mercy and Xavier High Schools.
Three years ago, Saint John's reopened and has been growing apace as parents from all over the shoreline send their children to the old-new Catholic school. Says Tacy: “Saybrook [Saint John's] is part of a national trend. One of the strongest attractions of the parochial system is as an early education alternative. Additionally, Catholic schools are increasingly perceived as academically strong.
“The National Catholic Education Association has research that demonstrates that, previously, when parents wanted academic excellence, they sought private - but not necessarily Catholic - schools,” Tacy says. “Now, with the sag in interest in a parochial education that occurred after Vatican II turning around, Catholic schools are being chosen for their academics as well as for religion, safety and discipline.”
Sister Claudia Calzetta, who graduated from, taught at, and is now principal of Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, certainly agrees about the benefits of a Catholic School education. She adds that Sacred Heart graduates, at least, are taught a strong sense of community as part of the high school's ethical code.
“We graduate young ladies who go out and do wonderful things in the greater New Haven community,” Calzetta says. “That is an important part of what we do here: We prepare young ladies for the next century with a value-centered education that gives them a strong sense of moral standing and commitment.” Calzetta notes that alumna often send their own daughters to Sacred Heart.
Is this growing, and perhaps somewhat escapist or even elitist, trend toward parochial and private schools truly a fair reflection on the state of Connecticut public education? Probably not in the main, but, the more accurate question according to many public school educators is whether the seeming exodus is fair to the public system.
One New Haven suburban public school elementary teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, deplored a situation that drained his best and brightest students from his classroom and then assailed him for not turning out brilliant learners.
Frustration deepening his tone, he declared: “We lose the best students to the Catholic schools. Of course they have good discipline - they get the kids who don't need it. Plus, we see situations where parents will send their academically oriented children to parochial schools, but send us the kid who has a learning disability because the state will pay thousands over the years to educate that child, while the Catholic system doesn't even have to take him.”
Maggart, who is sympathetic to the problems faced by public educators (his wife teaches in the New Haven public system) affirms the educator's remark. “One of the advantages we have as private schools is that we can be very selective about the students we decide to serve. We can focus on that population, where the public system cannot,” he says. “There are some great students in public systems and some great teachers. But many of them are simply overwhelmed.”
It's easy to dismiss the state of public education in Connecticut as a confusing mess; and it's no accident that the tantalizing image of public magnet schools so often bandied about as a solution bears a suspicious resemblance to existing private and parochial institutions. However, the question may not be whether public magnet schools are a Mecca, but whether anyone will even bother with the public system if all the students who are able to leave, do.
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