Ronald Chesbrough says educational-municipal cooperation a ‘high priority’ for his administration

BY Jason Emerson

Editor

For the past 15 years, relationships between Cazenovia College and the village, town and school district of Cazenovia have been worse than non-existent – they have been chafed and uncooperative. The college’s new president Ronald Chesbrough, who began leading the institution on July 1, said one of his main priorities during his tenure will be to repair and rebuild those relationships so the college can once again be seen as a community partner.

“It’s a very high priority for me,” Chesbrough said. “People have been very grateful, already, to hear this.”

Chesbrough was named the 29th president of Cazenovia College in January 2016 after a seven-month nationwide search. He has more than 25 years of experience in college leadership and administration. At the time of his hiring to Cazenovia, he was president of St. Charles Community College in Cottleville, Mo. Prior to that, he served as vice president for student affairs at Hastings College in Hastings, Neb. and as dean of students at Johnson State College in Vermont, among other positions.

Chesbrough, 59, is also a native of Northern New York and received his bachelor’s degree in psychology and economics from the State University of New York at Potsdam.

“At this point in my career I wasn’t job hunting … but I really wanted to get back east and be close to family,” he said of his decision in 2015 to apply for the president’s position at Cazenovia College. “I also enjoy the residential, four-year [academic] environment … I saw this opportunity and here I am. As a small-town guy myself, this is just like coming home.”

Chesbrough said one of his first tasks at Cazenovia is to build a strategic plan for the institution. The college is at the end of its previous three-year plan, and “any institution of any type needs to have a plan for its future.”

He has been holding what he calls “20/20 meetings” — 20 meetings in 20 days — as a way to set a “blueprint” for the future, to generate ideas from the entire college community on what the college should and should not do as it moves forward. He has met with staff, faculty and administration in informal and comfortable settings as a way to cultivate ideas and “foster a culture of open communication” on campus, he said.

Part of the dialogue has been on how the college can maintain healthy enrollment levels and compete in a geographical area that is one of the most populated areas of higher education institutions in the country, he said.

“It’s competitive, and we have to tell people who we are and what makes us special,” Chesbrough said.

For him, one of the main things that makes an institution “shine” is the people both at the college and in the community in which it resides — and the relationship between the two.

“Any time new leadership comes in, it’s an opportunity to build, maintain, rebuild or grow relations,” he said. “We need to make sure we are known and that we recognize our responsibilities as leaders of the community.”

Under the college’s previous administration – President Mark Tierno, who became president in 2000 — the college-community relationship was strained, to say the least. Previous cooperative agreements, events and relationships between the college and the village and town of Cazenovia were expunged; the relationship between the college administration and the village police concerning on-campus crimes were antagonistic; in 2013 the college sued the village in state supreme court over its desire to expand the size of its outdoor athletic field; and Tierno himself rarely participated in any community organizations or showed up at any community events.

Chesbrough said he has heard quite a lot about the previously strained relationship between the college and the community since January, and fixing that — which he said Interim President Margery Pinet did a “great job” starting – is “critical.”

After he was officially hired, some of the first people Chesbrough met and talked with in Cazenovia were the mayor and deputy mayor and the chief of the village police. He said he is already a regular at the Cazenovia Farmers Market, two of his children will attend Cazenovia public schools, his family will attend St. James church, and he is a longtime believer in participating in local civic organizations.

“It’s an ethos with me to be involved in that way,” he said.

Chesbrough said the upcoming academic year at Cazenovia College will “an exciting year” for a college that has “got a lot of new energy.” The newly renovated Jephson Campus on Albany Street will be ready for use by students, there have been new administrators hired to the college and the administration will be actively reaching out to meet and work with local community leaders — especially business leaders, with whom Chesbrough said he would like to see the college become more relevant, especially through internships.

Overall, Chesbrough said he has been “welcomed tremendously” by everyone he has met both at the college and community levels.

Chesbrough and his family will be living in the village, he said. He and his wife, Annie, have three adult daughters and two daughters at home. His two youngest daughters will be attending eighth and 10th grades this coming academic year at Cazenovia High School.

When his wife first visited Cazenovia from their home in Missouri (from where she is a native), she said she “loved everything about it,” Chesbrough said.

“It’s just been a spectacular welcome from everybody,” he said.

Chesbrough will be installed as the 29th president of Cazenovia College in an official ceremony on Aug. 19, the first day of college classes.