Remarks to the Board of Higher Education
C. J. O’Donnell – Chapter President, MMA/MSCA
June 15, 2004

Good Morning. Chairman Tocco, members of the Board, and Chancellor Gill, my name is C. J. O’Donnell, and I am a mathematics professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. I also serve as the president of the MMA chapter of the Massachusetts State College Association, the union that represents the state college faculty and librarians.

I would like to thank Chancellor Gill for granting me permission to address you today regarding the Academy’s submission of a proposal to be designated a “special mission college” that you have before you today.

This proposal was presented me on the morning of 2 June 2004 by Admiral Bresnahan, the President of MMA. The proposal is dated May 2004. During our meeting on 2 June the President indicated that he would be presenting this proposal to Chancellor Gill later that afternoon. This proposal is very different from the original “special mission college” draft that was released on 31 October 2003, or the last revision that we received on 29 March 2004. To the best of my knowledge, this final version was never seen by any member of the faculty, staff or student body prior to 2 June 2004.

On 8 June 2004, the last day of classes, the faculty met to discuss the proposal. The faculty voted unanimously to reject the proposal, as it done on 5 November 2003 with the original draft. However, unlike the fall of 2003, there was no time to prepare a comprehensive, detailed response eliciting our concerns and objections. In fact, anyone with higher education experience can attest to the fact that the waning hours of an academic year is the most hectic of all periods.

It is the faculty’s belief that the release of the final proposal was timed in order to limit the ability of the faculty, staff, and student body to either comment on or raise objections to it.

This meeting is clearly not the appropriate forum for the faculty to raise its objections to the proposal; however, we have been left with no other choice. Discussions should have taken place – on campus – long before this proposal reached you. Unfortunately, no such opportunity was afforded and today, I alone, am the sole voice from the more than 1000 faculty, staff, and students with a chance to express even a single word of dissent.

Among our concerns are collective bargaining rights, affordability, access, and accountability.

Last year, Governor Romney proposed a massive higher education reorganization plan that would have spun-off Mass Art and Mass Maritime, removing both from the state college system and removing faculty, staff, and professional administrators from their respective collective bargaining units. We all were pleased to see those efforts fail. However, these questions have persisted here at the Board. Both President Sloan and President Bresnahan have been asked why the local Boards of Trustees were not to be named as the employers of record in their respective submissions. Such a proposal would, in effect, remove employees from their units. As long as such questions persist, collective bargaining will remain a paramount concern.

Although the proposal notes that student costs “will increase slightly over the five years,” we do not consider the proposed 20% increase as “slight,” particularly when so many of our students already work part-time or semi-full-time in order to pay for their education. We do not believe that the proposed increase in financial aid will be able to offset the higher tuition, fees, and room charges, thereby making MMA less affordable.

No comparisons of the tuition, fees, or room and board charges at the Academy’s peer institutions is provided to indicate if the Academy would remain competitive with its peers for students outside of New England.

Access to the institution is likely to be limited as the college increases admission standards to those currently in place at UMass. We have many success stories from students who struggled either in high school, or their first year or two of college. It would be unfortunate to have to turn away such students in the future.

Accountability will be greatly reduced with the removal of BHE oversight. The administration has moved employees to acting positions, and then the Trustees have made those appointments permanent without advertising the vacancies. The Trustees frequently delegate their authority to the President.

On 29 March 2004 a revised proposal was distributed. That revision was substantively the same as the original proposal. This proposal, dated May 2004, is substantially different than what was circulated in March, after the most recent meeting of the Trustees. When did the Trustees approve this proposal? Was this proposal approved by the Trustees? Or did the Trustees pass the proposal unseen and allow the administration to fill in the details at a latter date? We believe that the Trustees are in fact less likely to hold the administration accountable than the BHE.

Proposing “the Mass Art model” just for the sake of proposing any model is ill-advised. Mass Maritime, other than being a Massachusetts state college with a distinct mission, is nothing like Mass Art. The composition and backgrounds of the student bodies are different. The training and expertise of the faculty are different. The classroom atmospheres are different. The cultures at the campuses are different. Neither resembles the other. Mass Art’s peer institutions are private institutions with large endowments, whereas Mass Maritime’s peer institutions are state or federally funded institutions.

The processes at the two campuses were quite different as well. At Mass Art, President Sloan held several large meetings with the faculty and modified the proposal to meet their concerns. She welcomed the input of MSCA President Pat Markunas as well as that of MTA officials. The faculty met with Mass Art upper-level administration and financial documents were provided without hesitation. Finally, the Mass Art proposal was put through the college’s governance system and approved. This was not the case at Mass Maritime.

The BHE should not approve this proposal that was hastily prepared without any input from the faculty, staff, or students. A good model for Mass Art could be detrimental for Mass Maritime.