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The reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated," quipped Mark Schulman as he discussed the future of Goddard College in Plainfield. Schulman, president since January, has taken over the helm of a college whose fortunes have dipped to the point where some believe the school actually closed its doors.
In June 2002, the school closed its undergraduate residency program leaving 120 students and over a dozen faculty adrift.
The closure of the program was especially hard on the faculty, which had negotiated a union contract under the Vermont National Education Association banner.
"The resident program was seen as inefficient, and the board and administration was hostile to the faculty, who had a contentious relationship for the previous 10 years," said Dan Chodorkoff, He lost his job after teaching 29 years and was a senior faculty member.
"We had one vision of the college we felt was true to the college's mission, the board had a different vision and wanted the college to go in a different direction," he said of the program's demise.
"The undergraduate program had become a financial weakness and that was the basis of the board's decision to close it," countered Schulman who left the presidency of Antioch University in Southern California to take over the helm of this ailing school.
Chodorkoff laid much of the blame for the closing of the undergraduate on campus program squarely at the feet of former Goddard...