Goddard College will move to online-only education for at least a year, school leaders announced in a community letter on Friday.
The change, which will affect the Plainfield school’s fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters, will result in about a dozen staff being laid off, as first reported by Seven Days.
“In recent semesters, we have observed a continual enrollment decline, particularly with students not choosing to attend residencies in person,” school leaders wrote in the community message. “Inflation and increased maintenance costs continue to make it progressively more difficult to maintain a fully operational campus for the fewer and fewer students choosing the in-person residency option.”
Declining enrollment has contributed to the gradual demise of several of Vermont’s small colleges in recent years. Another central Vermont low-residency university, Vermont College of Fine Arts, announced the end of its on-campus programs in Montpelier in 2022. Both Green Mountain College, in Poultney, and Southern Vermont College, in Bennington, shuttered in 2019.
In an interview, Dan Hocoy, Goddard’s president, said the school’s existing low-residency model coupled online education with eight-day stays in Plainfield. But recently, about 70% of students had been choosing an exclusively virtual education, he said.
“We’ve been using our resources disproportionately on the in-person experience,” Hocoy said, adding that virtual programming proves more economical for many students who have jobs and children.
Just last week, Hocoy said only about 10 students were on campus. “That’s two or three staff members per student,” he said.
Goddard is working with its staff union to “minimize impact” associated with the layoffs, according to Hocoy. Cabot Creamery, which recently has housed up to 30 workers in Goddard’s dormitories and has some operations 15 minutes away in Cabot, has offered to hire the college’s laid-off staff, he said.
Thus far, Goddard has announced its move online only through its 2025 fiscal year. Hocoy said the school might consider returning to in-person learning in some capacity, perhaps through shorter residencies or residencies at a variety of locations.
As for the future of Goddard’s 117-acre campus, Hocoy pointed to its existing uses — such as a center for integrative herbalism and a grade school — as successes to expand on. Cabot may increase its presence, according to Hocoy, by renting an additional 15 or possibly 30 beds.
“It’s a bit of an experiment,” he said, “but that’s what Goddard is known for.”
Tim Davis, a Plainfield selectboard member, suggested Goddard could explore alternate uses for its infrastructure, such as “affordable housing or shelter space for the many people who are losing hotel housing.”
“I’d love to see it be a thriving in person campus again,” he said in an email to VTDigger, “but if that is not possible I hope they decide to do something that benefits the people who need it most in our community.”
