[C]alling themselves “radical optimists,” a group of Green Mountain College alumni, parents and students say they want to save the school from closing in the spring.
SaveGMC.org, which launched this weekend, reports that it has already received more than 100 pledges worth a little over $25,000.
Kheya Ganguly, a Wallingford resident and parent of two GMC grads, said the group has been at work basically since the administration made its announcement two weeks ago. Its leaders include local graduates who have stayed in the area, parents of current students, and alums who have left Vermont but believe the school’s unique environmental focus is worth saving.
Ganguly, who has worked in higher education and nonprofits for over two decades, said the group is also concerned about the wider impact the Poultney school’s closure would have on the region.
“We feel that GMC, Poultney, and the Rutland community, they all form a single entity that are synergistically linked. And when one falls, it greatly impacts the other,” she said.
The group says it wants to establish a new board of trustees and transition the school to new leadership. It wants to raise $600,000 as soon as possible and $5 million by May. For now, Save GMC is only accepting pledges, not monetary donations, as volunteers file the necessary paperwork to incorporate as a nonprofit in Vermont.
Ganguly said Save GMC is in part inspired by the story of Sweet Briar College in Virginia, a rural women’s school which was brought back from the brink of closure by alumnae. Much like at GMC, leadership at Sweet Briar in 2015 announced the school would close at the end of the year because of financial difficulties linked to steadily declining enrollments.
Alums rallied, raised $28.5 million in under four months, installed new leadership, and nearly four years later, the school remains open. Ganguly said the group reached out to Sweet Briar for advice and is in active communication with its officials.
