After three years of work and controversy, Saturday marked the official start of the Vermont State University system. Officials will be at the Statehouse in Montpelier Thursday to mark the unification of three colleges to create the new university system.
In 2020, the Vermont State Colleges faced a fiscal crisis and the then-Chancellor proposed closing three campuses.
Significant backlash to the idea, current Vermont State College Chancellor Sophie Zdatny explains, led to recommendations from a committee commissioned by the Legislature.
“The two big proposals that came out of it were bringing together three of the four institutions within our system to create one new university and then to engage in significant administrative consolidation. In exchange they also, the select committee, made proposals regarding state funding for a multiyear transformation. So as of Saturday, we’ve gone from being four institutions within the state college system to two. So the Community College of Vermont continues as is and then the other three institutions are coming together as now Vermont State University.”
The three colleges of the Vermont State University are Castleton and Northern Vermont Universities and the Vermont Technical College. Interim President Michael Smith says the transformation has been done for three reasons.
“Number one it’s good for the students, the flexibility of what we can offer as a university throughout our various campuses. Secondly, it’s good for the institution. Not competing against one another but instead working and rowing in the same direction. And it also saves us overhead money with consolidation as we move forward. But also it’s really good for the state of Vermont as well in that it better helps us coordinate the needs of the workforce out there throughout all our campuses and really produce the workforce for the state of Vermont.”
The system is paying off a $25 million structural deficit and Smith acknowledges that is a factor in the consolidation.
“The state has been very generous to Vermont State University to the tune of about $200 million since 2020 to make sure that this transformation happens in an effective way and they’ve helped us out with those deficits. We’ve been reducing it $5 million a year so far and we will continue to do it for the next four years so that we are out of this deficit situation. The combination of efficiencies that we’re going to gleam off of this transformation plus the investment that the state has made to help us I think will prove successful as we move forward.”
Smith was brought in as Interim president of the system after Parwinder Grewal resigned following a controversial proposal to revamp the library system and sports programs. Smith feels the decisions should not have been made without more input from those working in the field.
“Progressive library practices basically say you should be moving to some form of digital capabilities within your libraries and that’s what we’re moving forward in doing. The difference is that I’m not saying we’ve got to be at 100 percent digital. What the percentage is, is up to the people that work in those professions on a day-to-day basis, not me dictating it from top down. And we will get to a place where I think everybody will agree that we’ll have some form of digital access in our libraries. On the sports side I just really felt we didn’t have enough information. And plus we didn’t give our athletic directors enough time to be evaluated against specific criteria.”
Zdatny notes that the creation of the Vermont State University does not eliminate the Vermont State Colleges system.
“The system as a whole, the Vermont State College system, is still up and running. That hasn’t changed. It’s just that three of the four institutions have come together to form this new state university. So the Vermont State College system we have one board of trustees and one chancellor. We oversee the Community College of Vermont and Vermont State University.”
Zdatny and Smith will join officials including the Vermont House Speaker and Senate Pro Tem, and faculty, staff, and students on the Statehouse steps Thursday morning for the ceremony.
