Published on 5/23/2001

To the Editor of The Day:
The tone of recent editorial comments in the Norwich Bulletin regarding Three Rivers Community College and the downtown Norwich proposal is unfortunate and misdirected.

To the Bulletin editors, the developers and the city leaders, this issue seems to be just about another state construction project meant to assemble some buildings to house some bureaucracy (probably staffed with overpaid, ungrateful, indifferent and surly state workers). Just buildings; pilings, steel, bricks, wood, concrete, metals, plastics, macadam, insulation, wires, glass, nuts, bolts. Just buildings.

Three Rivers Community College is not just a collection of buildings; no college can be identified so narrowly. A college is a rich learning environment that creates a community where identities are discovered, goals and ambitions defined, and future plans developed.

Three Rivers is a place where people from throughout southeastern Connecticut come to learn, prepare, retrain; it is a vigorous and lively base where we reflect and grow and discover and share the wealth that learning affords.

We are females, males, old, young, career-driven entrepreneurs, serious scholars, uncertain teen-agers, single mothers, engineers; we are black, native American, west African, Dominican, Russian; we are administrators, maintainers, counselors, librarians.

Three Rivers Community College is a place of spirit and heart, of sharing and support where citizens from all walks of life have come for more than a generation to contribute to and benefit from the college's special generosity and richness of experience.

To infer that the members of this singular enterprise are not qualified to participate in the discussion of Three Rivers' future is patently absurd, selfish, and certainly patronizing. The relocation of Three Rivers College is not just about where to raise some state buildings, but how to continue to best preserve and accommodate the college's unique spirit.

The endeavors of higher education are profoundly specialized and dynamic; input from the community, the students, the teaching faculty, and the administration are certainly necessary to help insure that whatever structures may rise will recognize the special spirit of Three Rivers, the diverse needs of our students, and remain a college that is affordable and accessible to all of southeastern Connecticut.  

John S. Whitman
Norwich

The writer is coordinator of college tutoring and learning assistance at Three Rivers Community College.