By Ashley Foy
Despite the rain in downtown New Britain last Thursday, the grand opening of Community Central, a program designed to bridge the CCSU community and the city of New Britain, had a very impressive turnout, including CCSU President Jack Miller and New Britain Mayor Timothy Stewart.
The program’s initiative is to offer a collaborative student-oriented forum that hopes to increase the mentoring and connection between college and high school students and the community in general, that will in turn help strengthen the New Britain community.
Community Central also hopes to be a way to pool ideas on business stimulus, sustainability and ways to maximize limited resources in the community, using a CCSU-owned storefront located at 117 West Main Street as an operating venue.
Eric Francis, a CCSU undergraduate student and Community Central projects manager, opened the ceremony with inspiring words on the purpose of Community Central.
“Students should take what they learn in school and apply it to the real world,” said Francis, before he explained plans for Community Central to take on full student ownership in which all projects will be created by the students.
Also speaking enthusiastically and energetically on the new program was CCSU Provost Carl Lovitt.
“Our mission statement says we here at CCSU are preparing students for their futures. That commitment has gone through qualitative change at the local level as we work with our community partners on projects,” said Lovitt. “We’re now seeing comprehensive ways to support our community and be involved. It is about community productive relationship, working together with professors and having students take on a leadership role”.
CCSU President Jack Miller genuinely thanked all of the guests for coming out to the opening of a project of high importance to everyone at CCSU and in New Britain. Miller, who looked and spoke well for having recently undergone surgery, then went into detail about the involvement of the CCSU faculty and students within the New Britain community for the past five and a half years in which he has been president of the university.
“We have been involved in trying to gain more levels of involvement in the New Britain community,” Miller said before speaking of the pressing importance of education in hard economic times.
Despite the economy taking a hit, Miller believes we should reach out more to the community and make higher education more accessible.
“This is the time we need to expand to our community. We cannot afford to pull back,” said Miller.
Mayor Stewart added some positive words of his own after Dr. Miller’s speech, focusing on the spirit of entrepreneurship Community Central is trying to build in students at New Britain High and CCSU.
Eric Francis, who began the event, also wrapped it up, saying, “We are trying to project what we do here into the classroom. We have artistic vision for this city”.
For more on Community Central, read a brief interview with Andrew Froning, a CCSU graduate student and former president of the Student Government Association at CCSU.