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The Reign of Cheryl Hyman Extended One More Year


Photo of CCC Chancellor Cheryl Hyman and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emaneul.

Source: governing.com

Cheryl Hyman, the Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), was expected to step down at the end of June due to her contract expiring. However, Hyman has since released a press statement on the CCC website stating that she will remain as chair for one more year:

"During discussions with the Board regarding my re-appointment for a new three-year term as Chancellor, I expressed a desire to them that I wanted to commit to a term not to exceed one more year, and I am grateful that they have agreed to this arrangement. I will be giving City Colleges this additional time to allow the Board to conduct a national search for my replacement. We will continue to push hard during this year - there is no resting while I am on the watch - as we have goals to achieve. I will treasure the seven years I have worked with each member of this talented and committed City Colleges team to improve the institution that gave me my start in life and to better the lives of our students."

Hyman is a graduate of Olive-Harvey College, one of the seven City Colleges of Chicago. After graduating from CCC, she received a Bachelor’s Degree from Illinois Institute of Technology and then earned a degree in Computer Science and Master of Arts Degree in Community Development from North Park University. Afterwards, Hyman then received an Executive Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Hyman was hired by Chicago’s previous mayor, Richard M. Daley, with no previous working experience in higher education. She has sat on Rahm Emanuel’s Cabinet since 2010, where she has been responsible for over 100,000 students’ success rates, managing budgets of $700 million and up, and over 5,500 employees. Hyman stated that her number one priority is student success with ideas to “build CCC as a world-class institution that prepares students to complete and win the jobs of today and tomorrow”.

A screenshot from Cheryl Hyman’s profile on the CCC.edu. The list includes Hyman’s most recent accomplishments. Photo source: http://www.ccc.edu/menu/Pages/Chancellor.aspx

According to the CCC website, Reinvention has “One purpose, Four Goals” which have remained the same since the program was launched in 2010. The programs focuses are to create an academic path throughout the CCC institutions and the CCC faculty will help students with guidance to complete their programs on time, in an effort to save time and money.

A flow chart depicting Reinventions goals and visions. Photo source: http://www.ccc.edu/menu/Pages/Reinvention.aspx

A screenshot of the four core goals of CCC’s Reinvention program. Photo source: http://www.ccc.edu/menu/Pages/Reinvention.aspx

More information about Reinvention can be found here and here.

Also attached is the 5-Year Plan of Reinvention and the Score Cards from 2015, 2014, and 2013.

Earlier this year in a February board meeting, CCC faculty members delivered a vote of no confidence in the Chancellor. The decision behind their vote of no confidence stemmed from the drastic changes that Hyman instituted to the seven city colleges such as ending registration one-week prior the first day of class, tuition hikes for part time students, lack of communication from Hyman’s office, and the “reinvention” of the community college’s network as a whole.

It has also been reported that some faculty members felt that the board was instituting changes without presenting them prior and had no regard for the CCC community’s concerns about such changes. According to the Chicago Tribune, the council conducted a survey for full-time CCC employees and found that 72.4 percent of the 471 respondents were unhappy with how Cheryl Hyman was running the City Colleges of Chicago and its programs.

In an Inside Higher Ed interview of Tony Johnston, the President of the Cook County College Teachers Union, Johnston commented, “We’re disappointed the board didn’t consider the vote of no confidence more seriously than they did…There’s always been a certain amount of suspicion since the beginning of her administration about a lack of shared dialogue and governance… She has a very private-sector, corporate mentality when it comes to public education. Obviously you need good administrators, but you need administrators who know what it’s like in the classrooms in colleges, and we do not have that in the administration at City Colleges."

Hyman stated that raising the tuition and launching the three tier “flat-rate fee” was created to lessen the burden on the full time students by making it less costly to enroll in three or more courses per semester. She also stated that the tuition increase is one of the many parts of the “reinvention” plan to increase the number of students who graduate and then transfer to a different university to obtain a higher degree. It has been reported that some faculty members argue that Hyman’s reinvention plan ultimately makes the part-time students suffer, thus hindering their education and their goals, which contradicts the idea of reinvention.

Another issue that was reported was towards the end of 2015, Hyman who receives a salary of $25,6250.00 per year, received a one-time $35,000 salary bonus by the City Colleges of Chicago Board of Trustees. This was done without hosting a public discussion or an evaluation on the grounds for a salary bonus. Hyman’s press office said she had received this bonus for “meritorious performance”. The City Colleges of Chicago Employee Salary Compensation Report is public knowledge and is found here.

In the same year, during a Fall 2015 State of the College at Wilbur Wright, President Potash spoke about a hiring freeze due to the lack of funds. The full presentation has been linked here. However, there was new administration that was hired at Wilbur Wright College in the beginning of 2016.

To better understand why people are outraged about the tuition increase, it must be better understood that the in-district tuition was originally eighty-nine dollars per credit hour and it is now $599 for one course, $1,069 for five to eleven credit hours, and $1,753 for twelve credit hours and up. The three-tier flat-rate tuition was implemented Summer 2015 and these numbers do not include the increase in the out-of-district, international, and the nursing program tuition increases.

Screenshots of the new flat rate tuition.

Photo source: http://www.ccc.edu/colleges/wright/departments/Pages/Tuition-and-Fees.aspx

Before Hyman came in office as Chancellor, the graduation rate was 7% and is now 17% but there have speculations as to why the rate increased drastically. There has been reported concerns to multiple media publications that some union, faculty, and staff members have about raising the tuition and how causes students that are unable to attend full time, to not enroll in school at all, due to their inability to afford or justify spending the ridiculous amount of money for the part time tuition. This lack of student enrollment then ultimately skews the numbers of students. This raises the question: With less students to work with, does it raise graduation rates and make the numbers read in a more positive increasing manner?

In the Fall 2015 State of the College, one 1600 union member raised the point of City Colleges rewarding Associates of General Study (AGS) degrees to students by using the reverse transfer method. This is when students who previously went to CCC and transferred instead of graduating from CCC, receive AGS degrees from City Colleges of Chicago.

On the CCC.edu website, the reverse transfer method was defined as, “Reverse Transfer of Credit (RTC) provides the opportunity for students who took classes at City Colleges of Chicago but transferred to another college or university before completing their degree at CCC, to transfer back the earned credits they have received at another institution. Reverse Transfer of Credit is not for students who are currently enrolled at City Colleges of Chicago.”

According to the minutes from the May 21st, 2014 CCC Board of Trustee’s report, Vernese Edghill-Walden, the previous CCC Board of Trustee’s Provost, had commented that 500 degrees were issued from this method in 2013 alone.

The CCC Board of Trustee’s May 21st, 2014 Report states, “Provost Edghill-Walden also shared remarks regarding retroactive degrees and the reverse transfer programs. These programs allow students who have transferred to 4-year institutions to retroactively receive an associate’s degree while completing their bachelor’s degree. Trustee Wolff asked if retroactive degrees and reverse transfer is done nationally. Provost Edghill-Walden stated that this process is not common and that CCC has taken the lead. Trustee Wolff also inquired about the number of degrees awarded. Provost Edghill-Walden stated that 500 degrees have been awarded.”

The numbers from 2014, 2015, and 2016 could not be found. However, all CCC Board of Trustee Reports are on the CCC website for public knowledge.

In 2013, a huge controversy presented itself in where CCC adopted the posthumous degree program, where dead students were awarded degrees and certificates as long as they completed three-fourths of what degree or certificate they were eligible for. Section 5.08 in the CCC Student Policy Manual states:

“In the case of a student’s death from any cause, the student’s academic record will be reviewed. Students who have been approved to graduate will be awarded the certificate or Associate’s Degree for which the student is eligible. Deceased students who have completed a minimum of 45 graduation hours toward any Associate’s Degree or have completed a minimum of 75% of a certificate program at the time of the student’s death are also eligible for a posthumous degree or certificate award after verification of the requisite number of graduation hours or percentage of program completion. This policy may be administered retroactively and applies also to students who have died prior to the effective date of this policy.”

However, at the end of 2015, Hyman had “set the record straight” in regards to the posthumous degrees and the retroactive degrees by releasing a press statement on the CCC website stating:

“A reporter wrote that City Colleges had combed its records for dead students who could be awarded degrees to boost numbers. That is offensive and untrue. Over the last five years, City Colleges of Chicago has awarded 18,823 degrees, and only three of these were posthumous degrees. These posthumous degrees were awarded on an exceptional basis at the request of recently deceased students' families and fellow members of the City Colleges community. The three degrees did not count toward our graduation rate. This is a controversy fabricated for the sake of sensationalism, and is unsympathetic to the plight of the families and everyone involved with these tragedies. Second, the reporter was critical of the practice of awarding retroactive degrees to students who leave without receiving a degree they have earned, and of the reverse transfer process under which a student who leaves a few credits shy of a degree is awarded, with his or her consent, a degree using credits from the four-year institution they are attending. Both practices are not only common sense because they bring true economic value to our students, but they place City Colleges squarely within the emerging national best practices on student completion.”

Steven R. Strahler, a freelance reporter for Crain’s Chicago Business wrote an article on the posthumous degrees can be found here and a follow up one here. There also was an editorial posted to The Sun Times, a feature on the Chicago Daily Observer, and mentioned in an article in The Chicago Reporter.

In the meantime, Rahm Emanuel and the City Colleges Board of Trustees will be on a “national” search for a new Chancellor during the remaining year of Hyman’s stay in office. The CCC faculty and staff members are demanding to have a say in who the next Chancellor will be. Cheryl Hyman and Rahm Emanuel were both contacted for an interview or a comment on the matter, but neither replied. There is no further information at this time.


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