Will Wootton’s Letter to the Vermont Attorney General

March 26, 2020 T.J. DonovanAttorney GeneralState of Vermont109 State StreetMontpelier, VT 05609 Dear Sir: My name is Will Wootton, and I write to you over deep concerns I have regarding the upcoming closing of Marlboro College and the transfer to Emerson College in Boston of Marlboro’s endowed funds of some $40 million and the proceeds

Letter to the Editor

By Amy Tudor In a March 19 Berkeley Beacon article, Emerson-Marlboro merger still on track despite growing opposition, Marlboro College President Kevin Quigley made several erroneous statements.  The President was reported to say “The [I Believe in Marlboro College] group as a whole has brought several resolutions to Marlboro College’s weekly Town Meeting, which have

Lt. Governor Letter of Support

March 11, 2020 To the Marlboro Board of Trustees: In the past few years Vermont has seen the closure of four of its small, independent liberal arts colleges. These colleges represented four distinct regions of our state, hundreds of teachers and employees, a few thousand students and tens of thousands of alumni, as well as

Debunking Statements

The following paragraphs are designed to clarify some of the issues in dispute in the discussions of the college’s past, present, and future. They are offered from a point of view, but nonetheless with every effort to make them as accurate as possible. If you believe that facts in these statements are incorrect, by all

How to Downsize Marlboro College: A Retrenchment Primer

by Will Wootton I’ve been encouraged over the past few weeks to further explain what “retrenchment” means, not in higher education generally, which I tried to do, but at Marlboro specifically. I resisted because retrenchment is on the first level an exercise in financial planning. But because the original Challenge met with refusal, the institutional data were unavailable. Now, I thought I’d try to explain something of how the process works, in the form of a primer, sans financials. This is something of a challenge itself: I was introduced to the concept of retrenchment in colleges at the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents in 2006, and it took a whole day and three instructors to examine the process in relative detail.

We Believe

Hello Petitioners!  We’ve not forgotten that over 1000 of you in the extended Marlboro College community felt that a second opinion on the current proposal to merge with Emerson College was warranted.  Unfortunately, the Board of Trustees appears unmoved by our entreaties.  We have heard about the changing landscape of higher education. We are told

Selected Statistics 2002-2019

These statistics are all from the IPED Data System. The data format changed at least 5 times over the 18 years I was researching, which made collecting the numbers tricky, to say the least. The 2002 enrollment was not listed, so I estimated it as slightly lower than 2003. I have included Teach Staff in

Open letter on Marlboro College: Working for a new future

The news of a decision to close Marlboro College came suddenly and blindsided people at the college now and in the larger community of Marlboro alumni, retired faculty and staff, and supporters of this unusual institution. It is shocking to think that the hard-won endowment and assets of Marlboro will be handed over to a

Retrenchment, A Description

To: Marlboro College Alumni and FriendsFrom: Will WoottonRe: Retrenchment Colleagues:I’ve complied here a number of somewhat disparate papers, articles, and reports on the definition and practice of retrenchment in higher education, which can also be referred to as “down-sizing” or “right-sizing.” Some are reproduced in full, and others you will have to search on titles

Comments from Petitioners

The following comments were posted to support our January petition to Accept Will Wootton’s Challenge or Clearly and Publicly Reject It by Jan 15 Randy Knaggs Wilmington, VT It is a process that can benefit all regardless of which continuum you are partial to. Giving voice to a quorum of concerned and dedicated individuals benefits