of December
3, 1997, from our accreditation organization. During this Board's focus on
fiscal and administrative issues, I call our attention to this letter regarding
criteria by which Goddard will be reviewed for re-accreditation next year and
in the following two years. This letter sets forth what Goddard has to do to
sustain its accreditation status. The finance and administration issues we are
considering at this meeting are those which are identified as critical to our
being re-accredited. Our accreditation began in the 1950's following the Ford
Foundation grant directed by former Board member Art Chickering (now at Vermont
College). Accreditation is necessary for students to be eligible to receive
federal financial aid. Almost all of our students receive such aid. Without
accreditation, Goddard would lose its tuition revenue base and enrollment.
Therefore, I urge you to examine with me the NEASC criteria for re-accreditation
as a lens through which to understand Goddard's success as an educational
institution and my analysis of our opportunities and mandates during this
meeting and the following meeting in June. The summary indicators may be
read as a snapshot of where we stand and our plans to meet goals and objectives
that NEASC delineates. Future reports will continue to focus systematically
on how Goddard is now positioned and is preparing itself for our next
accreditation stages.
-page 3-
WHERE WE STAND:
A FOCUSED LOOK AT MANDATES AND OBJECTIVES
Goddard is a tuition-driven college which until recently has not considered in
a Board supported, systematic and strategic way how to build external giving
into its revenue base. While organizations routinely factor endowment interest
(and sometimes endowment funds), annual giving, major gifts, and grants into
the operating budget, Goddard has tried to sustain itself as an educational
enterprise solely on tuition. For reasons I will discuss, being wholly tuition
based is problematic for any college, even one with thousands of students. But
there is a critical mass that is necessary to support fundamental activities,
and our enrollment is too small for long-term viability and growth. That is
why you will see our areas of vulnerability referred to by NEASC to include
the state of our physical plant, the lack of filled positions for staff,
academic quality and growth, and the lost opportunities for recruitment and
development. Because it sold a large part of its physical plant in 1980,
Goddard's capacity for residential students is limited to present dorm capacity
of less than 200. Low residential programs are similarly restricted in size
due to the capacity of the Greatwood Campus and the current way both low
residency and campus-based programs are operated. In addition, Goddard
terminated other programs not campus-based. Therefore, in the present model,
we see that revenue, dependent on fixed enrollment numbers, cannot be
significantly increased.
This means that long-term planning and investments in the physical plant for
new building and renovation, as well as maintenance, faculty development,
equipment for arts and technology, and academic programs must be continuously
postponed or neglected. Staff structures, publications, publicity, and other
aspects of creating growth and renewal are not done or minimal. The ability of
the college to imaginatively lead higher education innovation through bold,
creative, relevant programs is kept hostage to the vagaries of a few students'
comings and goings, a situation where the decision of less than a dozen students
can cast the college in short-term turmoil and blunt its capacity for long-range
planning and investment. Retention becomes a critical issue, but it is determined
by college academic rigor and quality, physical plant, and learning opportunities.
Resources and retention are interdependent goals; one cannot be achieved without
the other.
Until Goddard resolves the residential basis for its program delivery, its
ability to grow and thrive is constricted by this fixed revenue base.
Even the stability of this base is threatened if Goddard does not do what it
must to recruit and retain enough students who can succeed in Goddard programs
to pay costs for its essential infrastructure. Presently, Goddard's costs to
provide a continuously relevant education with nationally prominent programs
and curriculum require investment beyond tuition. To repeat, these costs are
for facilities and maintenance, faculty development (and curricular growth),
renovation and new building, technological infrastructure and equipment, and
an administrative infrastructure that supports program integrity and quality.
Even at maximum capacity the tuition from present programs cannot support
basic functions, and several programs run well below capacity. For both
residential and low residency programs, Goddard's ability to attract and
retain students is hurt by the condition of the dorms;
-page 4-
its promise as a national and international conference site is postponed until
there is an appropriate living environment; its ability to provide students
local, national, and international experience in service leaning and studies
is hampered. Our ability to attract external gifts through alumni, foundations,
corporations, state and federal grants, and so on, is dependent upon staff
and budgets for development. Similarly, our ability to recruit students is a
function of our marketing (and public relations and publications) budget and
staff support. Our ability to get grants is hurt by the inability to make
significant matches and fund time for project development. Our ability to
attract notice and interest is dependent upon publicity and publications.
Faculty's ability to develop curriculum and pedagogy responsive to a changing
world is limited by time and resources for studies and experience beyond the
college. To summarize, investments in these areas cannot be sustained by
the present enrollments and corresponding tuition.
If Goddard moves to incorporating a "third way" (that is, from the campus
residential program and the present low residency model) as proposed at
Goddard's annual Fall Board retreat by Robert Mattuck, and becomes less
site-dependent, with strategic alliances and a different delivery structure
of offering programs, the first problem of small enrollment can be resolved
expanding our educational sites and methods and delivery for learning will
enable Goddard's enrollment to grow and its tuition revenue to increase.
Goddard was the national pioneer in this concept, with its development in
1963 of the Adult Degree Program, expanding access to education in a way
that began to take education out of place-bound time-bound structures, and
opened the world to the concept of distance education. This concept
coincided with Goddard's approach to learning which enables students to
"learn anywhere, anytime" in a lifelong way. Goddard also experimented
with different approaches to diverse educational sites and environments,
in programs that expanded access to programs and increased enrollment and
tuition revenues. At this meeting you will hear proposals for adopting two
pilot programs that model how we can extend opportunities for Goddard
students and for other students in Goddard programs. You will hear a
supporting vision of how to move Goddard forward and increase our long-term
viability from our new marketing and enrollment vice president, Peter Casey,
and in June we will continue to discuss this with members of our academic
leadership. The necessity to undertake new efforts to liberate Goddard from
its residential limitations will be discussed, and this analysis will set
the stage for a plan to process other proposals for strategic alliances
which move Goddard in this direction (ideas I outlined in the last June meeting).
Even if Goddard increases enrollment expansion through new structures for
learning, so that we raise more tuition revenues, that still will not
answer how to meet the needs for retention-increasing long-term strategic
investments for Goddard's physical, operational, and academic sustenance
and renewal, which must proceed on a different basis than a term-by-term,
program-by program basis. Goddard must build its capacity to increase the
non tuition revenue to a more significant percentage of our budget (now
less than 5%).
The decision by this Board of Trustees to help Goddard with a comprehensive
development plan is critical in getting Goddard to the point where the quality
of academic programs and physical plant combine to boost revenues from tuition.
In other words, I see
-page 5-
the development initiative by the Board as the means by which in the
long-term we will be able to raise tuition revenues, the fiscal stability
of retention, and flexibility to increase our institutional capacity. The
Case Statement and use of Case Statement for Support by Mason Blachard,
will generate knowledge about the college in terms of this need for the
physical plant and curriculum and program development. Its use by the
Board, Mason and the college will inspire renewed connections with
Goddard. The Endowed Student Loan Fund, which you will hear about both
from Fran Malgeri and Joyce Engelken, will both bring in students and
replace financial aid monies in the operating budget. We will receive
transformational major gifts which will inspire giving on a level that
Goddard has never seen before in its sixty-year history-a level of support
Goddard richly deserves. Just as its education transforms lives, gifts to
the college will catalyze the college's ability to realize its mission.
Similarly, the decision by this Board of Trustees to help Goddard by
promoting policies and leadership for a more strategic capacity to function
administratively in academic and operational areas, is the enzyme that will
energize the college in its goals.
In this context of Board leadership and support, you will hear from me
during this meeting and in the coming months the need for a "mission-critical,
outcomes based" budget which supports immediate and long-term strategies
to boost enrollment and development. These strategies will entail greater
investments in marketing and enrollment and development offices, but also
in physical plant, technology, and an administrative staff infrastructure
that includes such functions as public relations, publications, grants,
and curriculum and program development.
In the Board Book and at the meeting, you will see data about our enrollment
and retention, organized by the present programs we offer in residential and
low residency formats, with budgetary impact. This data marks a new stage in
Goddard's ability and commitment to analyze and make policy decisions based
on data, and data that is accurate and relevant, comparative and longitudinal.
Using this data, I will be speaking to you about where I see our vulnerabilities
in the short and long term, for budget and market relevance, as well as mission
and academic quality issues, and where I see our possibilities of expansion.
This discussion prepares the ground for a strategic plan, one that is designed
to express the Goddard mission and ensure its continued relevance, through
program review and development in terms of mission objectives. The other
criteria are revenue-based (for short-term and long-term viability), and
include market relevance and responsiveness to changing social realities
with needs Goddard strives to prepare students to meet in a changing world.
Board leadership in terms of policies and processes can support Goddard's
development of programs based on these criteria. In this context, the Academic
Affairs Committee has developed criteria for and is considering through the
lens of these criteria two proposals that move forward Goddard's re-emerging
national role and the restoration of opportunities for students that once were
standard and beloved features of a Goddard education.
-page 6-
Therefore, it will be my administration's push for the next months to bring
back to you a budget which will position us to increase both admissions and
retention, and to strengthen development. For example, we will structure into
the budget positions that include public relations, publications, marketing,
grants, and institutional research as well as administrative academic oversight
and coordination functions. We will ensure the technological capacity to more
efficiently track recruitment/admissions and alumni. We will conduct an audit
of our capacity to document our work, and structure in support in terms of
both staff and systems.
Increasing the number of people in development and the budget in marketing
and enrollment will provide a more stable base for our revenues. Increasing
the staff support for new program development and delivery will provide a
more stable base for quality and growth.
Thus we have two major objectives: we must diversify our revenue stream to
build towards a significant percentage of our budget from non-tuition revenue,
and we must create policies and programs that enable us to transcend the
limitations of residential programs confined to maximum 200 people at any
one time.
1
We will be conducting reviews of program viability, understanding that even
with enrollments at 50-75 students, numbers which currently minimally support
our operations, those numbers do not enable us to improve the quality of the
learning experience or environment, or physical plant. We must capitalize
our resources, and the next budgetary item you will hear from me concerns
the necessary investments in our physical plant. Once we have conference
facilities, for example, we can begin to provide programs which rise
revenue and increase our visibility and leadership role. Such facilities
can increase our flexibility to develop "the third way"-type programs.
We can see from the data presented in this book that Goddard has begun a new
commitment to fund raising. The college administration is making strategic
staffng of that office a priority in the budget. It is clear that front-end
investment and continued support for stewardship is required both for staff
and systems (including technology), and the college at present has limited
capacity to build the Development Office in spite of this administration's
total commitment to do so. Thus the support from the Board, both to help
fund raise and to strengthen our institutional capacity is critical. We can
point with
-page 7-
pride to the unprecedented achievements of this Board so far, and to the Office
of Development's success. In my oral report, I will reinforce this effort by
presenting data which shows the interrelationship of the following:
- Continuity of leadership (Board/President)
- Development Achievement
Staffed Functions in Development
Budget for Development
- Quality and number of academic programs, including grant-supported ones
Staffed Functions in Academics
Budget for Faculty and Curriculum Development
- Enrollment and Retention
Staffed Functions in Admissions
Budget for Admissions and Marketing
- Overall Budget
ADMINISTRATIVE APPROACH
Staff Infrastructure
This Board Report reflects the progress of the college in identifying and
developing a senior administrative star The reports on marketing and
enrollment management, development, and finance, as well as academics,
have been prepared by people I have recruited since this Fall to become
part of an emerging, evolving, and enterprising team joining me and Mr.
Gribbin in senior administration. I am proud of the effort that they have
made, reflecting their abilities to coordinate and develop great staff
support from admissions, business office, recordstregistrar, and development,
to produce the data and document our progress. In providing you this
information, I have stretched the capacity of Goddard College both in
terms of our current systems for assessment, institutional research, and
documentation. As you see from our summary indicators, I have initiated
an audit of our capacity to improve our ability to document our progress,
and have developed with this team a set of strategic indicators from each
area to be reported regularly and analyzed for policy and other strategic
response. I welcome your feedback and suggestions for what kinds of
information you need in your assessment of Goddard's progress to a more
professional an. ordered administration, and what lands of formats for
this information are most helpful to you.
At the meeting in my oral report I will also be updating you on our
progress in filling staff positions, both those currently budgeted for
and those we need to structure into our budget priorities. I look forward
to having you meet and hear from our "fiscal and administration"
administrators who have stepped in to help Goddard move forward: Peter
Casey, Fran Malgeri, Joyce Engelken, and Mason Blachard. You will also
be seeing Helene Mandell who has served both as my assistant and our Clerk
of the Board, and in academic administration during this period without
a provost. I will update you on the progress of our academic administration
plan Our ability to identify functions and to
-page 8-
staff them is a primary indicator of our progress for achieving each of
our fiscal and mission goals.
Accreditation Lens for Building Infrastructure for Support and Stability
In your Board Book is a letter from our accreditation
association, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc.,
Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Dated 3 December 1997, it
states the areas of concern and importance to the Commission. I have highlighted
the relevant issues and provide information about our current plans or progress
in preparing to meet these expectations.
- From the NEASC letter, ". . . the College give emphasis to achieving
enrollment and financial stability with special focus on the relationship
among financial aid, enrollment and net tuition revenues. . . "
Our budget and administration plan calls for stability and growth in finance,
a review of our investment policies and practices, and new program growth
based on market research and other data affecting policies leading to higher
enrollment and retention. Peter Casey has taken the charge to study and
coordinate financial aid and enrollment policies in close collaboration
with Joyce Engelken and admissions and financial aid staff. Joyce Engelken
will address the need for review of our investment policies. Peter Casey and
Joyce Engelken will update you on the structure and staffing of our finance
and marketing and enrollment management offices.
- From the NEASC letter, " . . . improvement in fundraising . . . "
The budget we will be preparing focuses on the functional and structural
needs of the development office. The work of the Development Committee of
this Board to take a proactive and inspiring leadership role in catalyzing
college fundraising is the first of its kind in Goddard's history. At this
meeting we will reaffirm the college's commitment to putting our resources
as well as my time into our fundraising efforts. The charts which our
development office has prepared under the coordination of Fran Malgeri
and Lora McGrath will show you a picture of Goddard poised to prepare a
major fundraising initiative, which according to Mason Blachard's analysis,
can position us for a capital campaign within 3-5 years. My goal as
president is to oversee the development of our endowment from a level
of $350,000 to $10-20 million.
- From the NEASC letter, ". . . undertaking academic program planning
and program assessment", "more cost-effective and productive uses of
faculty time" and ". . . a new strategic planning process arising from
a more focused vision of the future. . . "
The necessity for program assessment and review of academic policies will
be discussed for its budgetary base at this meeting. At the June meeting
you will receive our progress in implementing program review.
-page 9-
You will also receive preparatory to the meeting my concept paper I have
been sharing with various constituent groups called "Developing A Strategic
Plan for Mission Integrity and Renewal: Criteria for Program Review and
Growth". I am sharing this you for the June meeting which focuses on academic
and student affairs, and in the meantime, I will continue conversation with
the community and the Academic Affairs Committee about the need for and
foundation for a strategic plan. It is my goal that the Board work with
the College to develop a comprehensive strategic plan which integrates both
academic planning and growth, with resource development and fiscal responsibility.
- From the NEASC letter, "... a more stable and elective governance system..."
Our Board has a task force on governance and by-laws that has been working
to review policies and our present system in the context of the governance
document of 1993. The governance document was set forth as a system to be
reviewed for its efficacy in five years (1998). The necessity to review
the governance document is also mandated by the new legal environment of
working with two faculty union bargaining units. I have also reviewed from
the point of view of the president and senior staff a study of the present
governance system for how it enables the college to be viable operationally
and to move forward our mission. I found that from this point of view as well
we need to make a "more stable and effective governance system".
- From the NEASC letter, ". . . Under the leadership of a new president,
the College will seek increased development funding for long-range
capital needs; . . . improving campus facilities. . . "
We have a plan which NEASC reviewed in 1997; we are documenting progress on
this plan in this report. We also have identified needs for technology and
renovation and other facilities which were not part of that plan developed
in the interim between presidencies in 1996-1997. I will structure updated
needs into the budget but as I have discussed above, we do not have the
revenue base from tuition to do all the work that is needed. The necessity
for increased fundraising and enrollment is underscored by the need for
significant progress on deferred maintenance and renovation (also necessary
for retention and revenue-positive programs). As you will notice, our
consultant in major gifts, Mason Blachard, has dedicated a major portion
of his statement on the case for support to upgrading our campus facilities.
You will hear from him Peter Casey, and me how we conceive a facilities and
physical plant renovation impacting marketing, admissions, and retention,
and development, as well as structural efficiency on the campus. Also, the
feedback from our students from the campus program to every low residency
program strongly affirms the urgent need for facilities upgrade. And finally,
the need to increase our residency capacity in number as well as quality of
accommodations is essential for a financially stable operating base.
Therefore, Goddard is clearly committed to facilities upgrade and our
budget and fundraising priorities will reflect this focus.
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1. It was Tim Pitkin's vision to create these small clusters of
what today might be termed learning communities which preserve intimacy
and learning relationships and yet are supported by a larger infrastructure
and access to diverse educational environments, which offset the insularity
of small group learning (building on the Claremont Colleges model, for
example). His plan was to expand the number of these in our abundant
acreage. Northwood Campus was the first, and the area north and west of
the library was to be another; although today it is located marginally
to the main campus, the Pratt Learning Center was designed to be at the
hub literally connecting these community spokes. The idea of making a
series of diverse small learning clusters was adopted by the University
of California's Santa Cruz campus, where dorms were built organized around
themes like environment or social inquiry, for living, learning, and
working, including faculty; and recently Middlebury College announced
a new plan of experiments in cluster learning, whereby students remain
together (with faculty integral to the dorm living) for four years---a
project designed to increase retention and quality of learning. Thus
there are models for how to sustain small-group learning and living
within a larger supportive context, aril. many of the new honors
colleges at large universities attempt the same thing, using Goddard's
programs as their basis.
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