An experimental college in Vermont is among the many small colleges fighting for survival.
Last summer we interviewed the new president of Goddard College, Bernard Bull, about his plans to turn it around. Things weren’t pretty. The college, which has fewer than 500 students, most of whom participate in its signature “limited-residency program” where they do most of their studying away from the campus, was facing a budget deficit and had just been put on probation by its accreditor.
Today, Bull says there’s sunlight peeking through the institution’s cloudy outlook, and that he feels confident that accreditation will be won back. And he says he has a plan for creating a stable process to avoid falling into a similar crisis just a few years from now, after the latest fundraising efforts wrap up.
We caught up with Bull to hear the latest—in something like a diary of the college’s struggle to get back on its feet.