A Lack of Dialogue

BY ALEX CHOQUEMAMANI tRANSLAtED BY ALLISON StICKLEY

At the beginning of January, the administration at Kirkwood Community College announced they would move the Iowa City campus to Coralville. They also announced the sale of the entire Iowa City campus for $7.5 million.

The reactions on the part of the students, professors and alums have not been at all positive.

alum currently studying a graduate degree in England tweeted: “I feel horrified knowing there won’t be a library in the Coralville building. When I was a Kirkwood student, I found textbooks that I couldn’t buy in the library.”

The layoffs of professors and workers also have to be included. For example, a mathematics professor with more than 20 years of service, the cafeteria manager, who has worked there for 15 years and library personnel were laid off.

The swiftness with which the so-called move is being carried out has not given space for questions directed to the administration about why they have made this drastic decision. There has also not been an open discussion among those impacted (students, professors, workers, neighbors) and the Kirkwood Community College administration. The news simply arrived in Iowa City from Cedar Rapids as a hierarchical order meant to be obeyed.

This lack of dialogue projects an image that everyone was in agreement with the decision, which was far from reality because the Iowa City Kirkwood of today is an environment of confusion and frustration.

According to Lori Sundberg, a top administrator at the community college, there are two

Closing or moving a community college is an easy decision. The difficult part is to find other, more creative solutions that respond to the following question: How can the problems of low enrollment and financing be resolved without sacrificing the educational, social and cultural role that Kirkwood filled in Iowa City (the fifth largest city in Iowa, with a population of more than 80,000) and the surrounding area (West Liberty, Lone Tree, Columbus Junction)? Said another way, how can a community college— tasked with facilitating educational services and strengthening our democracy, cultural diversity and sense of community—be maintained and bettered instead of sold to the private sector, where the main objective is profit?

What happened with Kirkwood Iowa City (not to mention Iowa Wesleyan University in Mt. Pleasant) demonstrates that education is not considered a priority by the governor and other public authorities in Iowa. This attitude is worrisome because the neglect of public educational institutions is also the neglect of the public citizenry, public debate, inclusion of others and public scrutiny. In other words, it puts democracy at risk.

Alex Choquemamani is a Peruvian writer who currently works at Kirkwood Community College. The opinions expressed in this essay are his alone and do not reflect those of his employer.