Even as it fights for its survival, Northern Vermont University could soon find itself looking for a new leader.
In an email sent to the college community, NVU President Elaine Collins announced late Monday afternoon she had been named a finalist for a post in Lansing, Michigan. Collins is one of four remaining candidates vying to be the next president of Lansing Community College. Trustees there are expected to make their decision by June 30.
Collins said she was approached about applying for the post in late February, according to her email, before the pandemic shuttered college campuses across the state and triggered a devastating cash crunch in the state college system.
In the intervening two months, VSCS Chancellor Jeb Spaulding put forward a deeply controversial plan to close NVU, along with Vermont Technical College’s Randolph campus, in order to put the system back on track financially. Amid widespread public backlash, Spaulding withdrew the proposal and on Tuesday announced he would be stepping down.
But NVU is not out of the woods. Top lawmakers have said that while they’ll look for stop-gap funding to keep the system afloat for the time being, they expect some sort of overhaul to take place.
Collins acknowledged the school’s precarious position in her message on Monday, and pledged to remain an advocate for the college.
“As I announce that I am a finalist for this new position, our landscape is entirely different. I am starkly aware of this,” Collins wrote in her email. “Please know that I am still fighting as hard as I can for NVU.”
Collins came to the Vermont State Colleges in 2015 when she was hired as the president of Johnson State College, and she oversaw the unification of Johnson and Lyndon State College into the rebranded NVU.
She came to Vermont from Michigan, where she was dean and chief operating officer of the College of Education at Grand Valley State University in Allendale.
Dan Daley, a mathematics professor at NVU-Lyndon and the Lyndon faculty assembly chair, said that while the timing was admittedly difficult, the faculty members he had heard from so far understood that Collins had applied before the crisis, and were respectful of her choice.
“From the outside, the optics are not good. And I know she’s aware of that. But again, this happened long before any of this happened. So I think we’re very supportive of whatever decision that she makes,” he said.
Julie Theoret, a mathematics professor at NVU-Johnson, echoed Daley and said that the “the timing is tough.”
“I also firmly believe that until she leaves – if she leaves – she’s going to be fighting with all her might to keep NVU and the VSC strong,” she added.
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