Looks like Goddard College in Vermont is having some troubles. Goddard is considered pretty progressive (my parents begged me not to go there years ago) and is well respected. They've scrapped their resident undergrad program, so only students seeking graduate degrees are utilizing the campus. Goddard has offered pricey low residency distance ed. degrees for years. The program offered self directed study. Sort of a designer degree, I guess. Seems they've had some administative shake up and are now facing some financial problems. Another small college bites the dust? Hope it doesn't. Their distance ed. was one of the first programs of its kind. I'm curious if anyone one on the board ever enrolled in the Goddard distance ed. program. It's not a program that I ever considered, but I'm interested in hearing current or former students' experiences.
Curious to know your sources, although your post is not surprising and likely accurate. Goddard is a school with a fascinating and enviable heritage, but my guess is that it is in a struggle for survival ever since they lost many faculty to Vermont College down the road some years ago (perhaps 10?). Now Vermont College has been purchased by Union Institute, which enhances VC's lustre and might give it some bucks as well. One more blow against poor Goddard. The avowedly far-left-and-lesbian politics of Goddard also keep it in the margins, I should think. I had a friend who did a self-designed distance master's in music at Goddard many years back, who said he felt a certain prejudice against him as a heterosexual man, but otherwise he did not complain about the quality. Mostly they left him alone to do his work. I also knew a prof who taught there back in the 60s: he loved the place, but said it was incestuously small. It's probably smaller today. Peter
A colleague of mine said the same things about Goddard's current troubles and changes. He's a part-time faculty member for Goddard. In Bear's Guide 6, John talks about Goddard's financial difficulties. That was in 1980.
Goddard has had financial problems, almost since its founding. I graduated from Goddard in 1991, and the problems now are almost identical to the problems then. Part the school’s situation lies in the fact that it is so progressive. Whenever they attempt to gain control of the college’s finances by appointing an administration that is willing to make the hard choices to put the college on the path to fiscal solvency, the faculty revolt and demand that the college appoint another progressive minded educator to the helm, and the process begins again. End result, the financial health of the institution always takes a back seat to the ideological vision of the faculty. Just my observations. Cheers, Tony Maranto
Huh? Sounds like the rumor mill has been tap dancing in your merry heart, Peter. But I digress . . . Goddard never "lost many faculty to Vermont College." Goddard sold its nontraditional programs to Vermont College in 1981 in order to alleviate its ongoing financial struggles. The programs, and their faculties, packed up and moved down the road to Montpelier, but it was a profitable sale for Goddard, not a loss. As part of the sale, Goddard committed not to re-enter the nontraditional market for three years. Sure enough, three years later, Goddard started totally new programs similar to those they sold. Unlike the original model, which utilized a more than one resident faculty member and a field faculty advisor (a model maintained by V.C. to this day), Goddard's new programs involved only one faculty member for each student. Moreover, I would certainly disagree with the notion that the sale of Vermont College to The Union Institute "enhances VC's lustre." If anything, VC had more "lustre" (such as it were) when the college was affiliated the the far older, more prestigious, brock-and-mortar Norwich University. (Norwich was founded in 1819, VC in 1834, and Union in 1964.) Norwich and VC had a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship until Norwich decided to move VC's traditional students to its formerly all-military campus some 10 years ago. Although the civilian students had atttended class at Northfield for many years, the notion that they would actually live there, along with the cadet corps, so inflamed alumni that Norwich had to sell the already profitable VC to Union to make amends. And I hate to disappoint your buddy, but any prejudice he felt as a straight male was in his mind. Perhaps he simply felt intimidated by gay men or lesbians. But Goddard (as much as I think their new model was quite mickey mouse) has always had a diverse studen population. In fact, they have even welcomed heterosexual males. If anything, Goddard tends to be anti-conservative (more than VC ever was). Just as Bob Jones University tends to be anti-gay. So what else is new? Your friend is a whiner. "The avowedly far-left-and-lesbian politics of Goddard also keep it in the margins, I should think?" Indeed . . . Pardon moi if I feel the urge to laugh at that one. That's like talking about BJU in terms of its "avowedly far-right-and-Republican-misogynist-reactionary politics." Tony Maranto is correct: Goddard has always had financial problems. And due, in part, to the cost-intensive nature of their physical plant, they always will. But one can hardly blame it all on the poor straight guys who can't handle dykes on bikes.
If you want to attract money, something about a left wing, gay agenda doesn't do it for people with the bucks.
