President Joe Hits The Hood

Southern Connecticut State University’s president popped in to the Lighthouse Road fire station the other night — to check in with his neighbors.

“I’m the only SCSU president to live in New Haven since, well, no one can remember when,” Joe Bertolino, who moved to a nearby Morris Cove home after accepting the president’s job in 2016, told the monthly gathering of the East Shore Community Management Team Tuesday night.

He said he is making a point to visit each of the city’s community management teams to promote a closer relationship between New Haven and the university. It is one of numerous city outreach efforts he has launched over the past year and a half.

“We are the public university of southern Connecticut,” Bertolino said, drawing an implicit contrast with private universities inaccessible to working people.

Bertolino emphasized the class composition of SCSU, in contrast to that of more name-brand universities.

“We’re a working-class university; 85 percent of our students work, many work two or three jobs,” Bertolino said. The university will become the first in New England, the eleventh in the country, to offer a doctorate in social work later this year, he said.

Bertolino pointed to SCSU’s education program as an example of its connection to the community. According to Bertolino, the state teacher and principal of the year last year were SCSU graduates; the teacher of the year for the whole country was also an SCSU alum.

He said SCSU will partner with Gateway and Housatonic Community College to make transferring easier and eventually set up Southern programs at those institutions, giving working students greater access to higher education.

New Haveners should help build the relationship between the school and the city by visiting the new campus, talking about Southern with friends, and partnering with university initiatives, he urged the crowd.

“Come and visit,” Bertolino said. ​“You’ll be surprised at what you find,” Bertolino said.