“Central has engaged Miceli Productions to support the development of an internal marketing and communications campaign centered on the university’s exploration of an R2 Polytechnic designation,” according to an email sent to CCSU staff and obtained by the Courant. “The goal of this effort is to strengthen understanding of what R2 Polytechnic means and to build excitement and enthusiasm across the Central community.”
A statement from CCSU president Dr. Zulma R. Toro confirmed the news.
“Central has contracted with a Connecticut -based production company to provide digital content related to the exploration of a Research 2 Polytechnic designation. The communication and marketing firm was ultimately chosen after vetting three proposals submitted via the state RFP process,” Toro said.
CCSU announced its intentions to explore the R2 Polytechnic designation earlier this year in order to have the university “further define itself through a polytechnic model — one that brings together applied learning, research, innovation and Central’s strong liberal arts and social sciences foundation.”
According to the email sent to CCSU staff, the goal of the marketing videos is to “help people understand what applied and experiential learning actually looks like in practice” and to “correct the widespread misconception that they are synonymous with tech school or vocational training. To show, through cited examples, what learning by doing looks like — across every discipline, grounded in Central’s foundation of liberal arts and social sciences.
“We understand that you may be undecided about the proposed changes or even opposed to them for any number of reasons. That doesn’t change the value of your work, but it may change how you feel about sharing it, and we respect that. If you’re uncomfortable appearing on camera because it might be read as an endorsement, we understand completely. If you’re open to participating and want to include your honest perspective, including reservations, open questions or things you feel deserve more attention as this process moves forward, that voice is welcome too,” the email continued.
The CCSU website states that the university’s strengths are in “engineering, applied sciences, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, robotics, health sciences, education and interdisciplinary learning, combined with nationally recognized programs, applied research, and deep community engagement, create powerful pathways for student success and workforce impact. However, by “expanding hands-on learning experiences, industry collaboration, and real-world learning opportunities for every student, we can add more value to earning a Central degree.”
To achieve the Research 2 Polytechnic University Designation, CCSU would have to reach two thresholds established by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The designation also requires approval by the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, Board of Regents and the state of Connecticut.
Toro has reportedly established several task forces, including a steering committee, charged with “developing a comprehensive, evidence-based assessment of Central’s readiness to pursue this path and creating a roadmap to become a Research 2 polytechnic university.”
CCSU would be the only polytechnic university in New England if the school were to make the transition.
There has been opposition to the potential change at CCSU. Dr. Timothy Scott, of the CCSU Social Work Department and chair of the CCSU Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Generative AI , wrote an opinion piece in the Courant on March 31 citing “a number of irreconcilable concerns for community stakeholders to consider.”
Also, a petition titled “Preserve CCSU’s Future: Say “No” to the Polytechnic Proposal” has 800 signatures.
The CCSU faculty senate unanimously passed resolution on May 4 “that speaks to the deep and expanding nature of the surveillance technologies that currently exist on campus, and within the larger CSCU system.”
Among the concerns raised by the CCSU faculty senate are Microsoft enterprise systems that have mechanisms that “render employee and student activity persistently traceable, behaviorally reconstructible, and readily retrievable for administrative review.”
Dr. Amanda Fields, an associate professor of English and Writing Center director at CCSU, the exploration of a Research 2 Polytechnic designation caught many people by surprise.
“It didn’t quite make sense to a lot of us that we were suddenly on this path to a polytechnic without the faculty Senate being involved and it being discussed with other leadership on campus,” she said.
She noted also that the campus has been experiencing “managerial authority moves where we’re told that things are going to be one way without asking us how we feel about it.”
“In the past few years, AI has been imposed on our campus and many other campuses and across the country,” Fields said.
Fields said the resolution is about three things, including the need to have better shared governance within this system.
“Faculty and students need to be involved in conversing about the uses for AI and what kinds of safeguards are put into place and what some of the limits of AI are prior to the system telling us what they are. That then leads into academic freedom concerns,” Fields said. “When there is digital surveillance and the use of digital infrastructure, in our teaching, in our research spaces, and everything that we do on campus. There should be places where we can opt out of that. It doesn’t always feel like those places exist with AI.”
Fields said faculty is asking for safeguards related to those issues.
“Part of the issue too is that when we rely on AI to gather data and create probable outcomes based on that data and that can be very problematic,” Fields said, also noted that it is unclear whether faculty has safe spaces on campus that are not under surveillance.
“Our administrative structure needs to be clearer about, about what sort of data is being collected and in what capacity and in what ways we are protected or not, regarding that data,” Fields said.
The resolution mentioned above concludes that “shared governance requires meaningful participation of not only faculty but also students in determining permissible uses, safeguards, and limits of enterprise AI systems prior to final decision making and implementation.” Also that “Academic freedom concerns arise when digital infrastructure expands managerial visibility into teaching and research spaces, advising, and deliberative activity; therefore, individuals should retain the freedom to opt out of monitoring.”
And finally, that “Safeguards are necessary to create enforceable limits on evaluative use of these technologies, including conclusions drawn from predictive AI and generative AI. Specific attention should be paid to protecting union rights, academic freedom, and due process; correction of inaccurate information/hallucinations via deliberate differentiation; ongoing review of the evolving technology landscape, policy, and information gathered; and active faculty participation in digital governance decisions.”
Fields said the faculty’s concerns are legitimate and practical and that the “unanimous vote is very heartening.”
“We have a very strong faculty. We have a strong union, and I think that it matters,” Fields said. “Students are also disturbed by this. In the writing center director, and we see a lot of students whose instructors send them to see us because of an AI detector. There are policies about students using AI, but there aren’t policies about faculty using AI.”
“Some faculty are putting their students’ work into large language models to grade the work. Students are saying, ‘what am I at school for if somebody’s using artificial intelligence to offer me feedback and not even thinking about me as a person,'” she added. “It’s a huge problem and again this is about surveillance and academic freedom.”
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