Cantanzaro exit is fresh start for CSCC

Jim Catanzaro

The speculation may be whether he was pushed or made the decision himself, but Jim Catanzaro's decision to retire as president of Chattanooga State Community College will allow the school a fresh start in its effort to better educate its students.

That's not to say students weren't uppermost in the current president's mind, but his leadership decisions and actions in recent months had become a distraction to all the good going on at the school.

Catanzaro, 77, received no-confidence votes from the faculty Senate and from the full-time faculty in October and November, respectively, and was facing the results of investigations by the Tennessee Board of Regents and the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury.

Although the results of the probes have not been released publicly, a negative report only would have increased the volume of a drumbeat for the president's resignation. Whether Catanzaro got a whiff of what the probes might reveal and made the decision to retire ahead of their release is unknown.

Catanzaro's retirement is effective Dec. 31.

The matter of the longtime educator's retirement should not dim all that he did to bring Chattanooga State to prominence and provenance in his quarter century at its helm.

Catanzaro guided the school further into the technology age, opening its Health Science Center and Tennessee Technology Center and overseeing its partnerships with the Volkswagen and Wacker corporations and with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

In addition, the campus has been expanded, new buildings built and athletic facilities completed and improved.

Students who leave Chattanooga State with associate's degrees or certificates today may be able to find immediate employment with a world automaker, a nuclear power plant or on a Broadway stage. Or they might leave with the training to become an entrepreneur.

And with his interest in all aspects of the individual, Catanzaro has brought public art, world renowned speakers and a more diversified student body to the campus.

He has transformed an institution with the semi-derisive nickname of UCLA - University of Chattanooga at Lower Amnicola - into a well-rounded and well-known school.

In recent years, though, the million-miles-a-minute Catanzaro's ideas for CSCC caused many people to believe he was putting dreams ahead of reality. He has suggested dorms, a medieval chapel and even posited the idea the school might offer four-year degrees.

The beginning of the end for the man who has spent nearly four decades as a college president, though, was his hiring of a Barbados woman without a required bachelor's degree for a $90,000-a-year job as his executive assistant. After a year on the job, and with a degree conferred on her even though she was a few credits short of earning one, she was elevated to chief innovations officer with a raise of $18,000 to $108,000.

Faculty and staff members raised eyebrows, and they raised them further when Catanzaro's expenses and allowances in the school's last fiscal year were more than those of the presidents of the state's other three largest community colleges. Much of his international and domestic travel, too, included Lisa Haynes, his chief innovations officer.

Then came the thumbs-down votes from the faculty and the state probes. The CSCC president tried to ride out the storm, promising he'd try harder with the faculty on the one hand and on the other blaming disgruntled faculty members who want to "thwart the forward movement of the college," but he evidently saw shadows in his future.

It is the hope of this page that the vigorous Catanzaro will continue to be an active part of the Chattanooga community - and even the Chattanooga State community. Always forward thinking, he can bring enthusiasm, drive and active leadership to any organization to which he wants to commit.

But the end of his 25-year tenure at the community college can be the beginning of a renewal, recommittal and reenergizing for the school, building on his legacy there and moving forward.