[O]fficials at Southern Vermont College won’t be trying to get the school’s accreditation back after all.
In a statement released late Tuesday morning, SVC President David Evans said he was “sincerely sorry” the possibility of an appeal had “raised hopes that have not been met.” He said that a potential partner SVC had been in talks with had been unable to raise the necessary funds to pay for an appeal with the school’s accreditors and to keep the school going into the future.
“We have therefore decided to withdraw the appeal, conserve our limited financial resources, and focus our dedicated faculty and staff on our top priority: educating our students and completing their academic year,” Evans said.
The New England Commission of Higher Education, the regional accreditor for the six-state region, in early March voted to withdraw SVC’s accreditation effective this summer over concerns about the school’s financial viability. At the same time, the school’s board of trustees decided there was no way forward for SVC and voted to close the school at the conclusion of the academic year.
But an outside campaign, led by the school’s former president, Karen Gross, led SVC officials to tell NECHE late last week they might be filing an appeal. They did so, Evans said, in order to give themselves an extra window of time within which to talk to potential partners and see if they could raise the necessary investment funds.
But even as SVC asked NECHE for the added time, school officials telegraphed they were not optimistic this last-ditch effort would actually bear fruit. In an email over the weekend to the entire school community, Evans urged students not to halt their transfer plans because of the possibility of an appeal.
On Tuesday, Gross said in a phone interview she was disappointed in SVC’s decision not file an appeal with the school’s accreditors. But she also vowed to fight on.
“For me, all is not lost until the last nail is in the coffin,” she said.
Gross acknowledged she did not have any concrete plans about how SVC could find its way back, and said she did not have access to the school’s financials. (Publicly, SVC officials have said the school is still about $6 million in debt and revenues have declined due to dwindling enrollment.) Gross said she would spend the next week strategizing.
“I am not creating false hope. I don’t care that some people think this is a quixotic venture. Any strategy is a long shot at this point. Because it’s late in the game, sadly,” she said.
