Hartford Business Journal

48 Hartford Business Journal • December 22, 2014 www.HartfordBusiness.com Industry Focus E c o n o m i c F o r E c a s t YEar in rEviEW June 3 UConn trustees approve $115M Hartford campus move UConn's board of trustees in June approved the move of the university's West Hartford campus to downtown Hartford, which will be housed at the former Hartford Times building. Construction of the $115 million building will start in 2015 and could be ready for classes as early as fall 2017, Uconn said. It would be able to accommodate ap- proximately 2,300 students and 250 faculty members. UConn will redevelop the Times property into a 140,000-square-foot campus, as well as 20,000-square-feet of retail space. There will be an exterior courtyard open to the public, and retail stores on three sides of the building, UConn said. UConn officials say they are also in talks with the Hartford Public Library, Wad- sworth Atheneum, Connecticut Science Center and Connecticut Convention Center to hold some classes and share other facilities at those nearby venues. UConn's nearby Graduate Business Learning Center will also be consolidated with the other programs at the new campus, including the Department of Public Policy and School of Social Work. UConn will also add a master's degree program in engineering, along with expanded public policy, urban studies, and education programs, the school said. october 6 USJ President Trotman reid to retire After seven years as president of West Hartford's St. Jo- seph University, Pamela Trotman Reid will retire at the end of the 2014-2015 academic year, the school announced. Hired in early 2008, Trotman Reid oversaw the former St. Joseph College's upgrade to university accreditation and the expansion of its offerings, including a doctoral phar- macy program in downtown Hartford. The pharmacy school graduated its first class of 57 students earlier in 2014. She has also sought to increase the school's global pres- ence by forging ties with colleges in Israel and Japan and recruiting students from West Africa and the Middle East. June 9 Stemming the CT college enrollment decline Connecticut state college and university officials say a $125.5 million investment by the state should be enough money to stem a four-year enrollment slide, but it will require a new approach to higher education that focuses more on online education and catering to non-traditional students. After reaching an all-time peak in 2010, enrollment at Connecticut's 17 com- munity colleges, state universities and the online-only Charter Oak State College dropped to 92,989 this academic year, down 4.3 percent from its peak and its low- est level since 2008. The situation is particularly troublesome at Central, Southern, Eastern, and West- ern Connecticut State Universities where combined enrollment reached its lowest level in 14 years. The problem the Connecticut State College & University System (CSUS) faces is fewer high school seniors graduating in Connecticut and that number keeps declin- ing at 1.8 percent annually, said Gregory Gray, president of the Board of Regents for Higher Education, who is spearheading efforts to get more students at Connecticut state colleges. At the same time, a new study by Niche.com found that more than half of Connecticut's high school graduates leave the state to attend college. That makes Connecticut the third largest exporter of college students in the country. Because state schools are losing that traditional student market, they must work harder to attract more of those pupils while finding new pools of students to enroll, take classes, and pay tuition, Gray said. noVeMber 13 average CT student debt exceeds $30K Connecticut college students who graduated in 2013 have the sixth-highest debt in the country, according to a report from The Project on Student Debt. Connecticut's average debt per student of $30,191 is behind only Minnesota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Hampshire, which has the highest average of $32,795. Of the total number of Connecticut students graduating last year, 55 percent had some level of debt. That was the 16th highest in the country. The report used data from 16 nonprofit and public colleges in the state. october 27 Hartford superintendent: Businesses need to teach schools Hartford Public Schools needs to change to a customer- oriented mindset — where students and families are the prior- ity — and the district needs the regional business community to help show the way, says the city's new superintendent. Beth Schiavino- Narvaez, who took over as head of the Capital City's educa- tion system in July, is launching an aggressive plan to shore up Hartford's achieve- ment gap to ensure all the district's schools provide equitable education and op- portunities for students. As part of the initiative, Schiavino-Narvaez is asking the business community to help educate the educators on how to concentrate more on the student experience and outcomes. "That is a unique kind of ask to the business community, but we are looking for a new way of thinking," Schiavino-Narvaez said. "Starting with our customers — our families and our students — is the sort of thinking I hope our business community can help us realize." Education rendering of UConn's proposed downtown Hartford campus at what is now the Hartford Times Building. P H O T O | C O n T r i b u T e d P H O T O | H b J F i l e Pamela Trotman reid Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Beth Schiavino-Narvaez took over in July.

• Cover