Rush to Judgment Caution is called for on Shelby State-State Tech merger. by JOHN FRIEDLANDER helby County could be the loser in a proposal to merge Shelby State Community College and State Technical Institute at Memphis. An ad hoc committee representing the Tennessee Board of Regents and the board’s chancellor, Charles Smith, swept into town on February 9th and offered a polished PowerPoint presentation claiming that the county’s two two-year colleges must either merge or fail. The committee would repeat the presentation for the Chamber of Commerce, for the editorial board of the city’s morning daily, and for virtually mute audiences at the two colleges. Bills have already been introduced in the Tennessee Senate and House to abolish Shelby State and State Tech and to form a new college called “Southwest Tennessee Community College.” The Commercial Appeal has endorsed the consolidation, worrying only that the change isn’t happening fast enough. But the TBR’s proposal and presentation ignore some serious problems, and the manner in which the proposal has been devised and presented should set off alarms. The TBR’s case emphasized that enrollment at the two colleges has been declining over the past five years and that the lack of a better-educated work force is slowing economic development in our region. These concerns must be addressed. But the TBR’s presentation offered only generalizations about the causes of enrollment decline, and no evidence that a merger of the two colleges would suddenly attract substantial new groups of students. The ad hoc committee generating this proposal neither visited the two colleges nor explored problems and solutions in meetings with faculty and administrators. Such meetings had been promised, but they never occurred, and the proposal was developed without input from the colleges themselves. The committee simply announced its conclusions to the colleges on February 9th. No advance description of the proposal was provided, and neither questions nor statements from the audiences were allowed. Two weeks later, representatives from the two colleges were allowed to make brief presentations before the committee (about five minutes each for five representatives from each college). But the committee arrived late for the presentations and left without responding to any questions or concerns. Bills to merge the two colleges had already been introduced in the state Senate and House the day before. How could Shelby County lose from this hurried consolidation? Resources at both colleges are already stretched thin. State Tech actually turns students away from classes in its computer technologies, because the state provides insufficient funds to hire new faculty in this competitive field or to build and maintain additional computer labs. Shelby State faces similar pressures trying to maintain its costly allied health programs. The TBR proposal may divert funds from needed programs. The proposal to consolidate the colleges calls for the building of a third campus (perhaps in Fayette County), the leasing of a new location in downtown Memphis to house the new administration, and the extension of all programs to all campuses. Unless reliable funding for such plans can be assured, programs are more likely to be diluted than improved, and the proposal neither analyzes costs nor identifies secure funding. Many other concerns — such as the impact on accreditation, the complexity of redesigning curricula, the potential loss of programs — have also gone unaddressed. Shelby County needs a better-educated work force, and an eventual consolidation of Shelby State and State Tech deserves study as one part of a possible solution. But the TBR’s cosmetic study offers no serious analysis of local problems, no evidence that consolidation will improve enrollment, no analysis of costs or consequences, and no clear source of funding. We should expect more evidence before we buy this package. It feels like we’re being bamboozled. (John Friedlander is an associate professor of English at State Technical Institute at Memphis.)