Community Technical Colleges to Uncouple

The Board of Trustees of the NH Community Technical Colleges today voted to uncouple campuses that had been administratively merged a decade ago, including NHCTC's Laconia and Berlin joint operations. The move will result in each college within the Community Technical College System being led by its own president, rather than sharing a president between multiple campuses as they currently do.

Katharine Eneguess, who has been serving as the head of both the Berlin and Laconia campuses will remain president of NHCTC Berlin, while Don Morrissey, currently vice president of student and corporate affairs

in Laconia, has been named interim president at NHCTC-Laconia.

“What was done a decade ago to save money has probably cost money in the long run,“ said Board Chair Paul Holloway of the 1995 merging of campuses. “The Community Technical Colleges have changed dramatically over the last decade. It has become impracticable to expect focused management and an appropriate level of community involvement from a president who travels between campuses 100 miles apart."

Holloway explained that the expectation is that the uncoupling will result in better management; constructive partnerships with local industries, employers and high schools; greater ability to bring in private sector resources; and greater attention to the needs within each region of the state.

“We see this as an extremely positive step and an exciting development for the System,” Holloway said.

NHCTCS Commissioner Bill Simonton said the change follows legislation passed this session giving the NHCTCS Trustees the authority to determine the organizational structure of the College System. “The legislature and the governor were very supportive of this change,” said Simonton.

“Our colleges have experienced fifty-five per cent enrollment growth in the last six years," he continued. "We have more students who intend to start college with us and then transfer to a four-year school, more career-changers who need to train for a new field, more businesses sending employees to our colleges to update their skills, more place-bound individuals who need to access college locally."

Simonton added that it is clear to anyone familiar with the system that as these colleges continue to grow as they have been doing, the change is needed to help fulfill the colleges' mission more efficiently and effectively.”

The uncoupling process will begin with the assignment of current college presidents to one campus and the appointment of interim presidents to the other while a search is conducted to replace the interim leaders. Currently, the merged campuses are Berlin and Laconia; Nashua and Claremont; and Manchester and Stratham/Pease. NHTI in Concord was never merged and will remain with its current President.

The Board plans a series of meetings with regional media to talk about local impact of the change and outline steps for the uncoupling process.

Eneguess was named interim president of NHCTC-Laconia in September 2003, replacing Dr. Karen Grosz, who had been fired by the Board of Trustees in late June. Eneguess applied for the job on a permanent basis and she received that appointment in June 2004.