Call for accounting of Legislature’s $200 million investment
by Mary L. Collins
Since the Spring 2020 announcement of the imminent closure of three of our five state colleges by then Chancellor Jeb Spaulding, Vermont’s state colleges have endured tumultuous program changes and closures, numerous layoffs and firings of faculty and staff, the expansion of high paid administrative positions at the Chancellor’s office, and the resignation of two Chancellors, two interim presidents, and the selling of assets including land and two FCC licenses.
In that time, the Vermont legislature voted to increase funding for the VSCS by over $200 million dollars yet there has been no public accounting of how that investment has been spent. Program changes and eliminations continue. Layoffs continue and lack of accountability continues to reflect a system and leadership in disarray.
This has damaged student life, the livelihoods of dedicated employees, the greater community’s connection to the colleges, and has placed the colleges in greater jeopardy.
Concerned Alumni Faculty Staff & Students of the VSCS” Or, “CAFSS-VSCS” gathered numerous times to address the failure of the Board of Trustees asking that they manage the state college system with full transparency, and inclusion of constituent voices. There has been no public voice in the “transformation” plan provided. Trustee meetings have been held in executive session. Consultants hired to aid in the transformation predominantly reside out of state with little real connection to Vermont, its students, families, or communities. The VSC Board of Trustees and its administration has failed to create a clear plan of how it will recruit new students, retain students who are currently enrolled, and who have been told their degree programs would be sustained while, at the same time, the administration has accepted the resignations of faculty critical to sustaining many of these programs.
“Vermont State University does not belong to a board or a chancellor, a president or a campus. It belongs to Vermont. – it belongs to everyone who aspires to become. It belongs to everyone who imagines, discovers, and is curious about themselves and about the world. It serves no one in particular and everyone all at once. It is the best of us and we have a charge and an obligation to work in transparency, offer access and support, and to put our students first for the benefit of all Vermonters.” – Cathy Collins Printon, Johnson State College. Class of 1985
For these and other reasons, we have reached out to the Vermont legislature to ask it address the failure of the Board of Trustees to operate with transparency, fiscal responsibility, or to manage these important and necessary educational and community assets for the benefit of Vermont. Details can be found in the attached letter.
We are asking for a full investigation of the management of the colleges, reform of its leadership and authority, and support of Senator Brian Collamore’s Bill: Bill dr req 24-0248 – draft 3.1 which reflects many of the points we have raised in our letter.
We will join the Vermont State Colleges Faculty Federation at the Vermont State House, Thursday, January 4th, at 11:00am for their press conference and Lobby day. We invite you to join us there. Alternatively, you may contact us here.
From Concerned Alumni Faculty Staff & Students of the VSCS (CAFSS-VSCS).
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Categories: Education
Close them all. They are not offering anything useful to the current and future generations of Vermonters.
In order to survive, the Vermont State College system desperately needed to consolidate and regroup. This author is simply relying on a past that no longer exists.
You hit it right on the nose! They want change, just not change that affects them. I was an administrator at VTC for years and it was apparent 25 years ago that there was a big problem starting with basic demographics. There is no source of increasing enrollment since there are fewer college aged students in VT and the Northeast and that trend will continue with increased competition among all colleges for a smaller pool of students. Either Johnson or Lyndon should have been closed years ago. Add to that the terrible state of K-12 and there you have it. Except for a few programs, the VSC has pretty much become an open enrollment institution with low admissions standards and tons of money spent on remediation.
Spot on Mike
The only way to break the chain of mediocrity and grooming is to break the back of the AOE/teacher’s union and allow for school choice.
Why is it as greater numbers elect to send their kids to non-government schools or take a look at home schooling, bureaucrats increase property taxes at astonishing rates to educate fewer kids?
Retirees shouldn’t have to pay these this incompetences any more than the genxers. When we see college aged youth supporting Hamas in the streets, well, lets just assume they were not history majors.
Good work Mary.
I know that there is a group of people including some law makers working on these issues. I was contacted, I made some calls.
Personally, abolition the Vermont State College system, it’s mismanaged and corrupt.
I would argue that this current high-archey ought to be dismantled, and each institution should be able to stand on their own for survival. Let Castleton be Castleton, the same for Lyndon and VTC. Bring back Castleton State College or Castleton University, They had it going strong.
That said, where is Castleton’s $7/8 Million Endowment Fund. Did the Chancellor’s Office steal that too. Or State government for other spending. There are many, many questions. Everything must be on the table, every question. Another issue here, State (government gets involved, things go bad, expenses increase and it gets more expensive for every day people. We need change!
We need some TRANSPARENCY to this matter, now!
a major mistake is to have a university as an major economic model in your town///its a question of value added products
Perhaps the Truth is the higher education money tree is no longer bearing fruit? It is a system based on credit (student debt, interest, and returns on trusts, endowments and pension funds.) In October, over 9 million student loan payments were missed (first payments due after the plandemic repayment pause.) I wonder how many were missed in November and December? The howling over student debt forgiveness is not for the student, it is to scrape the books of bankrupt institutions. The student debt is money all ready received and spent by the colleges/universities. Misappropriated funds? Losses not accounted for or hidden with interest rates and inflation? Borrowed too much against assets and real estate to plug gaping holes? The economic implosion is taking them down and rightly so. It is nothing more than a ponzi scheme inside of another giant ponzi scheme. Fraud has a limited shelf life. The Federal Reserve monopoly money is worthless and the debt contracts are still due. The brick wall is here.