Chattanooga State's Catanzaro: Some call him visionary, others say it's time for him to go

Dr. Jim Catanzaro talks about his goals and successes as professor and president of Chattanooga State in this file photo from January.

Photo of Lisa Haynes, chief innovation officer at Chattanooga State Community College

Jim Catanzaro seems to have nine lives.

He has survived controversy after controversy. There were gaffes like last year's killing of campus geese. There were ideas laughed off as crazy schemes. There were bouts with faculty, lawsuits, and the perennial unearthing of an ancient criminal charge.

The most recent strife centers around a young woman from Barbados who now holds one of the college's top positions. She was hired without having completed her college degree, yet Catanzaro called her a genius, one of his best hires. The college has spent thousands on their travels together.

Many faculty members, who have coped with rising workloads and saw their summer pay cut this year, are outraged. The faculty senate approved a vote of no confidence in Catanzaro on Oct. 23. And all full-time faculty will vote in a referendum this week on the issue. Many say the selection of Lisa Haynes was indicative of a larger pattern of abusive hiring practices. And in some ways it's proving to be a referendum on Catanzaro's larger vision for Chattanooga State, which tests the very nature of community colleges.

Still, his accomplishments have no doubt insulated him against criticism. During a quarter-century at the helm, he has built up this small community college into an institution of national, perhaps international, relevance - a place where one can learn to weld or learn to launch a new business worthy of Chattanooga's start-up scene.

He has tested the bounds of community colleges and pushed higher education as a whole to transform to be more responsive to the needs of a new economy.

And his 25-year tenure is a feat in itself, given that the average college presidency lasts seven years.

"Presidents that are that long-serving leave a large mark on their institutions and often it's a positive one," said Matt Hartley, chairman of the higher education division at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, "since it is difficult for a president to survive if either faculty or the board become unhappy with the performance."

On the whole, Catanzaro's tenure begs the question: Is he a brilliant visionary or a reckless dreamer?

Either way, he now faces one of his toughest tests yet.

State officials are looking into his hiring practices. But their inquiry goes deeper. They're examining the college's morale and culture. They're asking about Catanzaro's ethics, asking if the administration has ever forced employees to act inappropriately.

"I just think when you reach a point of so much controversy as a leader, something needs to change," said state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, who sits on the Senate Education Committee.

"He obviously has an innovative mind and has great vision. But it doesn't appear that he has a lot of reality associated with the vision."

It's remarkable that after so many roller coaster-worthy ups and downs, this one hire could be Catanzaro's undoing. That as he celebrates 25 years at the helm this week, this one decision could cause him to lose his empire. That in his 37th year as a college president, all of his accomplishments could possibly be undone by this.

"I think a lot of people are looking at this as though Dr. Catanzaro may have used up the last of his nine lives," said local talk radio host Jeff Styles. "This one looks like it's done some damage."

•••

Catanzaro came to Chattanooga State in 1990, beating out nearly 60 applicants for the job. He was doing postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at the time, after leaving the Chicago-area Triton Community College.

A Tennessee Board of Regents official said the consensus was that he was "the right person at the right time for Chattanooga State."

But it took only days for questions to swirl about Catanzaro, who had left Triton under a legal settlement stemming from a longstanding dispute between him and the board of trustees.

The Triton board had stripped Catanzaro of his position the previous spring, saying he had misrepresented college finances, evaded bid and purchasing laws and racked up excessive personal expenses. Catanzaro sued the board, which under the settlement paid him $230,000 for personal damages. A pair of auditors cleared Catanzaro and he received formal support from Triton's faculty.

Members of Chattanooga State's search committee said they were aware of the kerfuffle in Illinois and a TBR official called it "a joke."

Shortly after his hiring, in 1991, Catanzaro weathered headlines over his messy divorce from his first wife.

Then in 1992, he pleaded guilty to a theft charge in Ohio, where he had served as president of Lakeland Community College from 1981 to 1987. State officials had accused him and other presidents of funneling money to key members of the legislature through an illegal political action committee.

Catanzaro pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor through an Alford plea, meaning he agreed to plead guilty out of convenience but did not admit wrongdoing.

The news didn't faze him or his supporters.

From the outset at Chatt State, Catanzaro's leadership was ambitious. He wanted the college to be to Chattanooga what Georgia Tech was to Atlanta - a magnet for new businesses. He envisioned it as the Ivy League of community colleges. He balanced that zeal with a commitment to knowing both the community and his students. He even agreed to remain a teacher.

And he has never had a problem coming up with ideas.

In the 1990s, there was the Weekend College, a satellite campus at the Harriet Tubman public housing site, and the addition of an environmental science program. The college started offering degrees in tourism and travel, hospitality management and insurance.

"I've been here 20 years, and this school is at a place it's never been - with more academic freedom, new programs and encouragement to be exemplary in the things we provide," the faculty senate chairwoman said in 1994.

But even then, Catanzaro's style drew criticism.

Some said his greatest qualities - his abundant confidence and ambition - could also manifest as arrogance and abrasiveness. He would try to get his way at any cost. One unnamed civic leader was quoted in The Chattanooga Times saying Catanzaro was always a frontman.

"Always moving around, like a boxer," he said. "And he will, by God, get the job done."

There was talk that Catanzaro would leave for some big political gig. But he never did.

Meanwhile, the college thrived. Enrollment continued to grow. New satellite locations opened.

Life was busy for the college and for its president.

At the end of each day, his secretary would hand over a white index card filled with the next day's commitments.

In his personal time, he played in a night-owl softball league.

He devoured the magazines in the college library.

His current wife, Rhonda, a teachers union official, shared his competitive nature, his drive. And his speed. They raced around town, sitting on boards and attending community events, trying to keep breakfast and weekends for each other and family.

They hosted dinner parties. He did the cooking. She cleaned up the mess.

A bout of Bell's palsy served as a wake-up call, but didn't slow him down.

He took a stab hosting a local TV show.

As a 1995 Chattanooga Free Press headline put it: "No 'Cant' In Catanzaro."

That year, the college announced the addition of a religion institute. It would become one of many pet projects for the president, something that could help make Chattanooga State the envy of even four-year universities.

Over and over, his innovations were recognized and rewarded.

Both Volkswagen and Wacker partnered with the college for workforce training.

Under the state's new funding formula that awards dollars based on outcomes, Chatt State fared well.

And this spring, Cleveland State and Chattanooga State were given Bellwether Awards from the Community College Futures Assembly for their remedial math programs.

"I don't think you can discount his leadership," said Alan Cates, current president of the Chattanooga State Foundation. "I think there's been a considerable amount of leadership on his part to make this college what it is today."

But sometimes he aimed too high.

Over the summer, he lamented the lack of entrepreneurial spirit in higher education, going so far as to call out his employer, the Tennessee Board of Regents.

"The people who run these organizations are often people who are themselves not entrepreneurs ... they're the opposite," Catanzaro said in June. "We need folks who are good bureaucrats, but we don't need them running institutions."

He pushed for the addition of four-year degrees. He wanted dormitories on the Amnicola Highway campus. And this year he dreamed up a new multimillion-dollar chapel for the woodlands just beyond his office.

So far, those ideas haven't materialized. TBR shot down the dorm idea, and the governor spiked the four-year degrees.

•••

Catanzaro met Lisa Haynes while on vacation in Barbados, one of his favorite surfing spots. He said his wife had met Haynes through the U.S. ambassador.

Haynes worked three overlapping jobs in Barbados after attending college at Duquesne University in Philadelphia. Two positions were sales-centered, another was managing a micro credit fund. After meeting the Catanzaros she applied to be the college's chief fundraiser, but didn't make the cut. Then in August of 2013, Catanzaro hired her as senior executive assistant to the president at a salary of $90,000 a year.

From the beginning of her time at Chatt State he bragged about her abilities. But he said he was most impressed with her on a trip to Boston in April of this year, where they were to meet with an online education company.

During a meeting with academics, they got into a discussion about the creation of college curriculum. Most in the group were talking about how those decisions were for academics to make.

Haynes interrupted them. She said no, business and industry should drive curriculum. Catanzaro recounted the story in August as he introduced her for a speech to the Barbados Manufacturers Association.

Photo of Lisa Haynes, chief innovation officer at Chattanooga State Community College

"I think you can see we got even more than we bargained for when we brought Ms. Haynes up to Chattanooga," he said. "She is an entrepreneurial genius."

This summer she was promoted to chief innovations officer and given an $18,000 raise.

Meanwhile, faculty questioned why she was at the college and what she was doing to earn $108,000 a year. There were whispers that their relationship was more than professional - rumors they both denied. When she took her shoes off during a meeting with administrators, people were aghast.

When news of her degree mix-up with Duquesne hit, the irony of a top college official lacking a degree wasn't lost on Chatt State faculty.

While she had attended college and walked in graduation ceremonies, she was a few credits short of a communications degree she thought she had earned.

She offered her resignation on Sept. 19, the same day that Duquesne informed state investigators of her unfinished degree. A few days later the university said it would issue her a different marketing degree this December. Then they said it would be effective Sept. 22.

After Catanzaro called the university, officials agreed to retroactively issue the original degree.

Despite faculty concerns, Catanzaro said Haynes has accomplished a great deal. He pointed to the college's five-year agreement signed with the University of the West Indies in Barbados. That agreement, signed in July 2013 before Haynes was hired, calls for student and professor exchanges, joint conferences and research and other institutional exchanges. The college says none of those efforts have materialized yet.

He also points to a future partnership teaching remedial-type classes to students at Yeshiva University, a Jewish university in New York City. Students would live in the dorms in New York and pay Yeshiva tuition of nearly $40,000 annually, with Chattanooga State professors teaching online courses. A Yeshiva spokesman said no agreement has been reached.

Catanzaro also says Haynes has secured a national deal with Gallup Inc. that will allow Chatt State to make money off of Gallup's Entrepreneurial Strength Finder, a $12 online test that helps identify whether people have entrepreneurial skills.

He anticipates that the Gallup and Yeshiva initiatives will generate much-needed profit.

"We need alternative sources of funding," he told faculty. "If we put those two together, that's a couple million dollars that we're going to need to drive this academic enterprise."

He told manufacturers in Barbados that Haynes had singlehandedly convinced Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger to give $10 million to the college to create a business incubator on campus, though county officials said no commitment was ever made.

Haynes declined to comment for this story. But in a recent meeting with college staff, she positioned herself as a key college ambassador.

"When I am out there representing the school, I get absolute full acceptance," she said, according to an audio recording. "People don't want to have a meeting unless I am present because they feel like I act so much as the voice of Chattanooga State."

Many faculty members remain unconvinced.

"We're judged on outcomes," said one instructor at a recent faculty senate meeting. "We've been hearing lots of description, lots of talk. But where's the proof of actually anything having been completed?"

Only adding to the dismay is the money being spent.

Catanzaro earns about $190,000 annually. He also receives a college car, a housing allowance and a cellphone allowance - as do other community college presidents in Tennessee. And he travels frequently at taxpayer expense (see sidebar story).

Collectively, Catanzaro's office racked up about $73,093 in expenses and allowances between July 1, 2013, and June 30 of this year, TBR records show. That's more than president's offices at Southwest Tennessee Community College, Pellissippi State Community College and Nashville State Community College, which along with Chatt State make up Tennessee's four largest community colleges by enrollment.

Catanzaro spent $10,170 on business meals in the 2013-14 fiscal year, far surpassing spending by the presidents of the other large community colleges. Those meals often included Haynes.

A Times Free Press analysis of expense reports and travel receipts also shows that the president and Haynes were frequent travel partners. From the 2013-14 budget to 2014-15, the president's office travel budget more than doubled, from about $16,000 to more than $37,000, according to Chattanooga State records. And most of Catanzaro's recent international and domestic travel has included Haynes.

TBR is looking into the travel records. Catanzaro says routine audits of his spending have come back clean. And he expects the same to be true this time.

He wouldn't agree to be interviewed in person or answer questions about Haynes' hiring, but said in an emailed statement last week that he expects to weather this storm.

"Every time we have made changes, the changes that have shaped our college as a leader, I have encountered strong resistance, usually from certain faculty who rebel and use all their resources, including the press, to thwart the forward movement of the college," he wrote. "It is the same old story."

Contact staff writer Kevin Hardy at khardy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.

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