Page 28 - BusinessWest August 8, 2022

Education
Grade Expectations
Michelle Schutt Takes the Helm at GCC with a Focus on
Diversity, Inclusion
MBy George O’Brien
ichelle Schutt says that, while it may seem like Greenfield, Mass. is a long way from Twin Falls, Idaho (3,160 miles, to be exact), it’s really not.
At least when it comes to the issues and challenges facing the institutions that now com-
prise the top lines on her résumé — College of South- ern Idaho (CSI), where she was vice president of Com- munity and Learner Services, and Greenfield Commu- nity College (GCC), where she started just a few weeks ago as the school’s 11th president — and their overall missions.
“If we’re going to recruit and retain students, we’ve got to take into account their entire experience because often,
it’s not the academic rigor or even the finances that keep them from succeeding; it’s the social-capital issues of how they’re maneuvering through life.”
“There are many similarities between these commu- nities,” she explained. “There’s a high number of first- generation college students, people who are hungry
for educational opportunities, definite need within the community ... they are very much alike, which lends itself to the applicability of what I’ve done in the past and what I hope to do the future. I’m a big believer that education opens doors and changes family trees, and that we can all be educated.”
Schutt comes to GCC with a résumé that includes considerable work in the broad realms of student ser- vices and diversity, equity, and inclusion, and she said this will be one of the main focal points at GCC.
“If we’re going to recruit and retain students,” she told BusinessWest, “we’ve got to take into account their entire experience because often, it’s not the academic rigor or even the finances that keep them from suc- ceeding; it’s the social-capital issues of how they’re maneuvering through life.
“COVID definitely exasperated the social needs of our students,” she went on. “But they were always there.”
Regarding diversity, she said this issue is often
28 AUGUST 8, 2022 EDUCATION BusinessWest