Residents, college build a healthy community

By Debbie Irmen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, February 7, 2008

A lot has been said about the state of our community, its leaders and the residents who live here.

It is easy to criticize from the comfort of our homes. Just as people like to second-guess sports coaches from their armchairs, so we like to spew our “wisdom.”

Problem with that is, we really don’t have all the information to make the decisions that will affect so many people, primarily because we remain rooted in our armchairs, rather than be involved.

Rarely are decisions affecting so many easy to make.

Case in point is the recent decision by the college to cut a couple of nursing-related programs.

It’s considerably easier to say what should have been done, or how an incident should have been handled, after fate, destiny or whatever you choose to call it, has played out. It’s called hindsight and sure makes the course of action clear.

A recent presentation by the new college provost, though, told how agonizing such a decision was, and how all involved in the process wished for different outcome.

One way college officials could have handled what turned out to be an incredibly hot issue, was to dig in their feet, get overly defensive and fight community concern.

One way concerned residents could have reacted was to criticize the college as a big bad institition that cares little about the community and remained critical from their armchairs.

Neither reaction, however would have been good for the college, its students or the community.

Searching for a win-win, the college and concerned community residents listened to each other, debated the issue, the problems and its potential solutions, and found a compromise: Short-term funding to allow college leaders to determine a long-term way to sustain the program.

That is problem-solving at its best.

But it required people to sit at the table, discuss the problem, seek a win-win solution and for people to step up to help.

This is how a healthy community responds to a crisis. It’s always easy to assign blame, but the challenge is to rise above the problem and find a sound solution.

That is not to say finding the root cause of a problem should be overlooked. It is necessary to ascertain the initial kink in the chain to make the appropriate adjustments and prevent future trouble.

But such examination should not last any longer than necessary and should not turn into a blast-fest.

While a student in leadership course a few years ago, we discussed the components of a healthy community.

There are about eight elements that, if all are thriving, combine to make a healthy community, defined on www.mrsc.org, as one which allows its residents to maintain a high quality of life and productivity.

Among those elements is access to quality health care, education, cultural activities, fiscally sound local and county government, and opportunities for lifelong learning.

Our college, which is appreciated by its residents as the recent reaction proved, is one opportunity for continued learning; and college officials and city residents worked together in positive way to solve a crisis.

Debbie Irmen’s column runs on Thursdays.