A committee tasked with figuring out how Northern Vermont University can survive plans to recommend potentially cutting some sports, shrinking the state college system’s chancellor’s office, adopting a year-round school year and more.
Those ideas come from the NVU Strong Advisory Committee’s June 4 meeting, the last before it was set to announce its complete list of suggestions to the public Thursday morning.
The 17-person group came together in May after weeks of turmoil over a proposal to close the college’s campuses in Johnson and Lyndon and consolidate others within the Vermont State Colleges system.
That proposal — made as a way to stem the financial impact of Covid-19 on an already-flailing college system — spurred statewide backlash and precipitated the resignation of then-system chancellor Jeb Spaulding.
NVU President Elaine Collins plans to take the committee’s report to the statewide board of trustees. The minutes said the recommendations discussed at the June 4 meeting would remain essentially the same in its final presentation.
One of the most concrete recommendations from the committee centers on athletics. It suggests that college officials should identify at least four sports programs across the two campuses for “potential closure,” according to the June 4 meeting minutes.
The process would involve “methodology and metrics” from the college’s athletic department. Part of the plan also includes moving one coach to a full-time position to see if that results in increased athletic recruitment.
Officials and the campus community have largely focused on how to attract more students to NVU as a way to reverse financial course — the latest recommendations include measures to make student life more appealing to potential and current enrollees.
Despite past efforts, the Lyndon campus experienced a more than 27% decline in enrollment from 2012 to 2018, according to fall headcount data, going from 1,508 students to 1,092. At the same time, scholarship expenses rose.
Professor Dan Daley, chair of the NVU-Lyndon faculty assembly, said Wednesday that he and other faculty didn’t yet know the full details of the recommendations. But he said faculty members trusted the committee.
“I think we’re aware that we are not going to look the same in another year,” he said. “I think everybody is willing to do what will work. But there’s obviously some fear out there.”
Sylvia Plumb, a spokesperson for NVU, said the college’s executive team is grateful for the committee’s work and that they would consider the recommendations while balancing the 2022 budget. Members of the advisory committee presenting the recommendations were not available to comment Wednesday.
The proposal to decentralize and decrease the size of the system chancellor’s office is one of several recommendations the NVU committee wants to pass as part of larger restructuring of the Vermont State Colleges System. It’s a move Spaulding had considered as part of his restructuring plan.
“We’re seriously considering whether the chancellor’s office as a leadership role, as opposed to a shared service center, providing services that are requested by the colleges, will still be needed,” he said in April.
At a Lyndon campus forum last fall, several community speakers also advocated to get rid of the chancellor’s office.
“This institution is being driven into financial peril because we are forced to take $1.7 million out of our budget to prop up the chancellor’s office every year,” criminal justice professor Brandon Stroup said at the September meeting.
Another of the systemwide recommendations is to move to a year-round academic calendar. The suggestion was submitted by many community members, according to the committee’s minutes.
The minutes note some uncertainty from committee members over how a new academic calendar might be rolled out. The year could be broken into three 15-week terms, the minutes say, or into four blocks covering the entire year.
“It needs to tie into the needs of the partners,” the minutes note. “This will allow students flexibility as to when they take classes.”
Some discussion, according to the minutes, also centered on whether NVU should offer more “telepresence” classes to high school students. Another point suggests creating a student help desk.
