By Mike Zitz / Germanna Community College
Retiring Germanna Community College President David Anthony Sam challenged political leaders to give community colleges the support they need during Friday night’s GCC spring commencement address.
“The view that ‘I’ve got mine and too bad about you’ is short-term thinking and destructive to our sense of belonging to a larger community,” Sam told a standing room only crowd of 3,000 shoehorned into UMW’s Anderson Center. “We should invest in those things that have clear return on that investment.”
Six hundred students received over 1,000 degrees and certificates Friday night.
Sam said affordable community colleges, with their real-world, no-nonsense, anything-but-ivory-tower focus on the needs of local job seekers and businesses, are more important than ever –and more underfunded than ever. During his 10 years at Germanna, he’s seen one state budget cut after another.
“Community colleges are an investment that is crucial to America’s future at a time we are at a crossroads as a nation,” Sam said.
“When the costs of higher education are high and too many students leave with high loan debt, community colleges like Germanna are even more vital to our region, our Commonwealth and our nation,” he said.
“When so many jobs go unfilled, jobs that require skills and certifications less than a bachelor’s degree but that pay well, cutting community college budgets does long term harm to individuals, to business, to communities.”
He said government skimping on community colleges and the job training they provide is penny wise and pound foolish.
Sam will step down at the end of June and be succeeded by Janet Gullickson, GCC’s first female president. She is leaving a job as president of Spokane (Wash.) Community College.
He said that the more education people have, the less likely they are to be ill, commit crimes or be on welfare.
“So when we want to cut health care costs, crime rates and welfare payments, we should invest in education.”
He said the view that “I’ve got mine and too bad about you” is short-term thinking and destructive to our sense of belonging to a larger community. We should invest in those things that have clear return on that investment, he added.
“Community colleges are an investment that is crucial to America’s future at a time we are at a crossroads as a nation,” Sam said.
He said he had a good life and a chance to make a difference because of his parents’ sacrifices, but that four-year college costs have spiraled out of control. He said sufficiently funded community colleges can be the anecdote to out of control higher education costs.
“My parents could scrimp and save enough to pay for my entire tuition for college and for that of my sisters” Sam said. “I don’t think they could have afforded to do so today.”
If they had not been able to afford college, Germanna would have been deprived of the leader who’s expanded the colleges offerings and locations.
“Education has made a huge difference for me,” he said. “Germanna has made a huge difference in the lives of these students and ultimately for our community.”
