And Now...

It may not be apparent to all, but the College Community has grown stronger through the unfortunate struggle of the past two weeks. Leaders emerged from all quarters to assist in resolving this conflict and now we must come back together to carry on the mission of the College. We must not be mired down in frustration and looking back, but must find the path forward to help students reach their academic goals.

We must also help students, as we can, to see the events of this past two weeks more clearly. One cannot blame students for having difficulty in understanding this strike. They have grown up in a world that has taught them that workers have no rights and that Unions are inherently corrupt. They are not alone in failing to recognize the power of a union of people with a common goal to affect change. Despite the distortions they hear on Fox news, these Unions achieved significant gains only by sticking together.

Students, led sadly by our own marketing department among others, have learned to cloak every situation with corporate language. One need only look at the postings on various student message boards which refer to the College as a business and to themselves as consumers. They cannot see past the corporate model to understand that CCP is not a for-profit institution that must cut costs and turn profit to please shareholders; it is an open-admissions publicly funded college that offers high-quality low-cost education to the broad community of Philadelphia residents.

We will continue to face many challenges over the coming weeks, but we must choose to come back together as one College Community.