Updated at 2:00 p.m.
Vermont State University president Parwinder Grewal has resigned after less than a year in the position and less than three months before the university is set to officially launch.
Controversial changes to libraries and sports programs will also be paused at the direction of the Vermont State Colleges board of trustees, officials said in a press release Friday.
The trustees revealed the remarkable news of Grewal’s departure at a Friday morning meeting, the second special meeting this week. There, trustees spent roughly an hour in executive session before approving a public resolution accepting Grewal’s resignation, effective immediately.
“As the chair of this Board of Trustees, I would like to thank Dr. Grewal for all his hard work in support of the colleges, the system, its faculty, students, its staff and its communities, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” chair Eileen Dickinson said Friday morning. “We appreciate you spending the time with us and working so hard.”
Mike Smith, a former secretary of the state Agency of Human Services, is taking Grewal’s place as interim president, starting next week.
Grewal cited personal reasons for his departure, according to Katherine Levasseur, a spokesperson for the Vermont State Colleges.
“That’s all the information that I have,” Levasseur said in a brief interview Friday morning.
In Friday’s press release, Vermont State Colleges chancellor Sophie Zdatny thanked the outgoing president.
“We are grateful to Dr. Parwinder Grewal for stepping into the role of President and bringing his skills and expertise from a similar higher education unification at this important time, and we appreciate his service,” Zdatny said.
Three member institutions of the Vermont State Colleges — Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College — are currently consolidating into the multi-campus Vermont State University, or VTSU.
Amid years of underfunding, dropping enrollment and structural deficits, the transformation is intended to put the system on a path to financial stability.
Grewal, then an administrator at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley — which was created out of its own merger — was tapped last spring to oversee the consolidation. He stepped into the position in July 2022, one year before VTSU’s scheduled launch date.
Since February, however, Grewal’s tenure has been largely defined by controversial changes to campus libraries and athletics.
In February, VTSU announced plans to transition to “all-digital” libraries, which would involve repurposing library spaces and giving away most of the physical books.
The university also planned to downgrade sports programs. The Johnson campus, currently part of Northern Vermont University, would leave the National Collegiate Athletic Association and join the smaller United States Collegiate Athletic Association.
Meanwhile, the Randolph campus (currently part of Vermont Technical College) would leave the USCAA and offer only club sports.
Those changes sparked months of protest by faculty, staff and students, who decried the decisions as poorly thought-out and said they would make the school less attractive to prospective students.
The issue has also drawn the attention of lawmakers and state officials. Legislators have introduced a flurry of bills — which have moved little — intended to put a hold on the changes.
Smith, who will take over next week as interim president, has been nicknamed the “interim fixer-in-chief” for his work steering beleaguered institutions: Vermont’s Enhanced 9-1-1 Board, Burlington College, Fairpoint Communications.
Leading VTSU is an “incredible opportunity,” he said in an interview.
Smith said that he did not know about the circumstances surrounding Grewal’s departure. His own appointment came together swiftly, “within the week,” he said.
Asked about the pausing of the athletics and library changes, he expressed concern that the decisions were drawing attention away from the upcoming launch of VTSU.
“I think there has been some distraction based on these two issues,” he said. “And we’ve got to figure out how to stay focused, keep our eye on the transformation and the implementation of the transformation. Because the date’s coming up fairly rapidly here.”
For all the gratitude expressed by university officials towards Grewal Friday, the press release appeared to hint at policy differences between the president and the board.
That release — which included no quotes from the outgoing president — said that his resignation “comes after much consideration about how best to lead the upcoming launch of Vermont State University.”
And the trustees also backtracked on the decision to downsize the libraries and athletics.
“The Board of Trustees and Chancellor Zdatny have asked Interim President Smith to pause implementation of the proposed initiatives around athletics and the libraries, pending development of a comprehensive set of recommendations for continued transformation work in the coming weeks,” the press release said. “More information will be shared when that work is complete.”
Linda Olson, a professor at Castleton University who represents faculty for the American Federation of Teachers, said union members were pleased at the pause to the library and athletics changes.
“But it’s just a pause,” Olson said. “So there’s still work to do. And we don’t think that President Parwinder was the only person who was responsible for these disastrous mistakes.”
Even so, that pause represents an abrupt about-face for the system’s leaders, who had stood by those changes just weeks ago. In an April 2 op-ed for VTDigger, the board of trustees’ executive committee, which includes chair Dickinson, defended the “good people working tirelessly” in the service of VTSU.
The executive committee, members wrote, were confident “in the faculty, staff and leaders who are working tirelessly to launch this new university on July 1.”
