In 1938, Goddard College was deliberately established as a model in educational democracy. Its stated mission is "to advance the theory and practice of learning by undertaking new experiments based upon the ideals of democracy, and the principles of progressive education first asserted by John Dewey" (Mission Statement). The spirit of Goddard inspires many to actualize the dream of having the freedom to develop as a person, a risk taker who "learns how to learn" within a participatory democracy and a collaborative environment. In this way Goddard is quite unique among colleges and universities in the United States, and accordingly should be treated as a national treasure. I cannot conceal the fact that I deeply value the aspirations and dreams of Goddard as an educational community. Goddard has the potential for being a beacon of hope in a time in which both the autonomy of the individual and the vitality of community have been seriously eroded. However, in order to realize this goal the Goddard community must face, in a deliberate and determined way, the perennial issue of how to actualize participatory democracy. William Kilpatrick, a member of the Goddard community in its formative years, spoke eloquently on this topic. In 1933 he said:

One further failing which we shall hope our more social education will help to remedy is the all too common tendency among administrators to disparage democracy. Success in managing easily selects those who like to control and may strengthen the tendency. The current business model is of course anti-democratic. ...In fact, the whole of our management tradition, including (in spite of lip-service) our political democracy, has never yet given serious trial to the principle of sharing decisions.

Not much has changed in the last 60 years.

Recently Jane Sanders has presented herself as a candidate for the position of Goddard College president. This concerns me greatly, in so far as Jane's track record at Goddard proves her to be the type of administrator that Kilpatrick warned against. In this document I want to present evidence of this. Individuals who are in a position of power must be held accountable for their past actions, and Jane is no exception. The Goddard community must, for the sake of the future of the institution, examine what happened under Jane Sanders' watch as Board President. During the three year period (1994-96) that she held that post the Goddard community experienced, under Richard Greene's tenure as college president, a fiasco the likes of which the community has never seen before.

I was on the Board of Trustees as the off-campus student representative (1995-96) during these tumultuous years. As a result I was in a position to witness the behavior of Jane Sanders and the rest of the board in dealing with the difficult issues of the time: Richard

Greene's tenure, massive faculty and staff resignations, faculty vote of no-confidence in the college president, layoffs, community wide protests, and the like. Jane holds a great deal of responsibility for the events that took place during this time, for the autocratic regime that was in place, and for the extreme disruption that it caused in the lives of individual community members. She is, I would submit, the last person Goddard needs as its next president.

The tenor of those times contrasts greatly with the present relatively quiet climate and some might believe that Goddard's past troubles are over. But it is my belief that Jane, as the consummate politician that she is, recognizes that in her interim position as provost it would not be prudent to offend people by displaying the controversial autocratic style of decision making that she exhibited during her tenure as board president. Once she becomes president there will be nothing preventing her from reverting to her previous style of leadership.

It would be ironic if the Goddard community were to hand its most powerful administrative position to the individual in whom decision making power was most clearly concentrated during the Greene presidency and who bears the greatest responsibility for the misdeeds of that era. Indeed it would be suicide, democratically speaking.

Jane chooses to ignore her role in the Greene fiasco and does not accept the responsibility for the decisions and actions that the Board of Trustees took at that time. The current board president makes this point for her:

There is no issue of blame and regret, Blanc said. This is a time of transition, and we're building on a solid base that Dr. Greene built. Otherwise, I never would have taken this position. Sanders agreed. (Times Argus - August 18th, 1996)

One of the greatest ironies of Jane's candidacy for college president is in fact that she has personally benefited from all of the problems that she and Greene visited on the community. It must be remembered that Jane was the chair of the presidential search committee that chose Greene. It is her name that you will find on the contract with Greene, a contract that contained a corporate style "golden" parachute which required the school to pay him big bucks in order to buy out his contract after he resigned. Sanders was the president of the board during Greene's entire tenure and was the power behind Greene during that period. Had she been democratically oriented the problem with Greene would have been solved the day he walked in the door. Without her support he could not have acted autocratically, unilaterally, and in a retaliatory manner. Jane, as board president, was directly involved in:

• Corrupting existing democratic processes at the college and acting as the primary apologist for the autocratic policies and practices of Richard Greene

• Orchestrating the formal approval of a budget (1996-7) that eliminated essential services, was politically retaliatory in nature, and excessively costly in administrative overhead

• Ensuring approval at the board level of what amounted to a faculty purge -- the termination of 16 employees in 1996

• Suppressing criticism and stifling dissent

  
  

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• Enabling Greene to render existing governance committees ineffective by rescinding the decision-making authority that had been delegated to legitimate standing committees and depriving them of necessary information

• Stonewalling proposals for the design and implementation of progressive organizational development processes, including a performance appraisal process for the president, climate analysis of the college, and strategic planning

• Suppressing the open discussion of proposals for progressive structural change in the college's governance processes

• Creating an environment where an inordinate number of talented and committed staff felt compelled to resign

• Stalling the efforts toward faculty/staff unionization

The following incident demonstrates how Jane is prone to act when her own political agenda comes in conflict with group democratic process. On April 19th, 1996 Jane held a conference call with the Board's Executive Committee (comprised of Jane and 5 of her appointees) to discuss the three page document that the faculty presented outlining its reasons for their near unanimous vote of no-confidence in Greene and their request for his immediate resignation. The executive committee minutes (April 19th, 1996) reflect what was decided in that meeting:

The executive committee unanimously agreed that a statement that the Board does not support the call for the President's resignation should be drafted, approved, and issued by the Board of Trustees...

The group discussed the best timing for the release of the statement from the Board regarding Richard [Greene]... Specific language for the statement was discussed .... The executive committee agreed that Jane will create a new draft of the statement from the Board based on input from other committee members before asking for a decision from the full Board about the statement.

If Jane had had democratic process in mind she would have called a full meeting of the Board in order to discuss the Board's response. However, she did not. In a divide-and-conquer strategy she polled each board member individually by telephone to secure consent for her prefabricated statement. Although I was a board member at the time I was never contacted at all about this matter and did not see the statement until after it had been published in the papers. Despite the fact that a number of board members disagreed with the statement and offered alternate language, it was released as drafted by Jane and the executive committee. Adding insult to injury the first sentence of the statement strongly implied that there was unanimity amongst board members when in fact there was not only a lack of consensus but strong opposition. The report begins with the words, "the Goddard College Board of Trustees presents this statement of shared values and beliefs held by the board -- and held, indeed, by many members of the Goddard community...", and proceeds to declare "strong" support for Greene, proclaiming the matter of his resignation, as well as structural changes at Goddard, "non-negotiable" (Board Statement, May 6th, 1996).

Peter Lazus, one of the trustees who disagreed with the statement as published, asserted that it "did not adequately recognize the validity of the concerns which have led some of the faculty and students to direct several letters and petitions to the Board" (Amended Statement to the Community, May 6th, 1996). But Peter's dissenting opinion wasn't reflected in any way in the document released to the press. In an open letter (Nudepaper -- May 13th, 1996) to Jane Sanders I identified the undemocratic nature of the processes that she used to railroad her position on the matter through the board:

...an emergency meeting of the full board should have been called, which would have provided board members with an opportunity to debate the relevant issues with each other, to hear out faculty, staff, and students, and to publicly present their own views regarding the situation in a responsible, reciprocal, and accountable fashion. In short, it would have provided an opportunity to honor a large number of important stakeholders, entertain divergent points of view, and work toward forging a real consensus and future plan for Goddard. It is unrealistic to expect board members to rationally and intelligently respond to a telephone poll seeking support for issuing a board statement drafted by the executive committee, especially when board members have received little "official" or unofficial information about the crisis on campus. A polling of board members is not an adequate substitute for an open public meeting. It limits debate and dissent (especially when members are selectively cut out of the process), prejudges the outcome (by offering one prefabricated 'statement' on which to vote), gives the appearance of unwillingness on the part of the board to directly face the community, and concentrates power in the hands of Jane Sanders (Board Chair) and the executive committee.

On April 19th, 1996, a few months prior to the termination of 16 employees, Goddard union organizers submitted a letter to Jane Sanders. This letter was the culmination of a year of concerted efforts toward unionization and was approved by 50 employees. It requested that the board voluntarily recognize the group as a union as soon as union card signatures had been collected. As reflected in the Executive Committee Minutes (April 19th, 1996) Jane shared this letter, via conference call, with the Board's Executive Committee. Within 6 weeks 16 employees were terminated including two of the three union organizers, individuals who were amongst the most outspoken about Greene's presidency.

On May 29th, again in executive committee, Jane and others reviewed Greene's "action plan", which outlined "the details of the personnel cuts... and the details of the personnel reorganization" (executive committee minutes). The minutes from this meeting also reflect that the executive committee considered "whether to delay personnel changes until they could be discussed with the full board of trustees", but again, under Jane's leadership, they elected not to do so. With the executive committee's consent Greene acted on his "reorganization" plan -- terminating the 16 just one week prior to the next meeting of the full board. The layoffs were an accomplished fact by the time the board convened. By once again narrowing participation in decision making Jane undermined democratic process and the capacity of the remaining board members to exercise their fiduciary responsibility as trustees.

In contemporary mean-spirited corporate fashion three of the sixteen that were terminated were asked to clean out their desks the day they were dismissed and banned from setting foot back on campus. In his attempt to justify this treatment Greene cited his "fears that they might be disruptive" (Times Argus -- June 13th, 1996), but others suspected that it was a deliberate attempt to quash further debate and dissent and was a very real demonstration of scapegoating. Community members had suffered Greene's retaliatory management style on a number of occasions in the past and feared that something like this might happen. I, for instance, in a public document seven months prior to the terminations had asked if the new personnel policies that Greene proposed was a "signal that he intends to 'clean house"' (Off-Campus Newsletter -- December, 1995). But after the terminations, in an interview with the Burlington Free Press (June 16th, 1996), Jane denied that they were politically motivated. However, in the board's response to the faculty's demand for Greene's resignation, dissident employees were reminded of their "contracts":

Despite areas of disagreement, we expect faculty, staff and administration to maintain the orderly operation of the college for the benefit of the students and in full compliance with their contractual responsibilities. (Board Statement, May 6th 1996)

Not only did Jane declare the continued tenure of Greene non-negotiable she also proclaimed the termination of the 16 employees "irreversible". In an interview with the Times Argus ( June 16th, 1996) she stated: "we can't reverse what's been done here. I wish we could". Not only was that decision eventually reversed -- as a result of continued community pressure which included a nationwide petition with the signatures of Noam Chomksy, Howard Zinn, Grace Paley, Dave Dellinger, and Pete Seeger demanding a moratorium on the sixteen terminations pending full investigation -- Jane now claims credit for accomplishing this reversal. It was reported in the Times Argus (August 18th, 1996) that:

One item she (Jane] is putting at the top of her agenda is finding funds to rehire some of the 16 employees who were fired by Greene last spring. Sanders spent most of Saturday reviewing the school's budget, attempting to determine what is feasible.

In addition to the terminations a number of good people were forced to resigned under Greene and Sanders. It is so much easier to destroy something good than to build it. A lot of energy that could have been better applied toward the realization of progressive new goals was exhausted on rear-guard actions that were nonetheless necessary in order to protect and save the heart and soul of Goddard.

Not only did Jane refuse to reverse herself on the president, his policies, and the possibility of his removal, she also refused to change her position on the president's budget, despite serious objections and reasoned argument presented by people holding significant official roles in the college's governance process. In a manner typical of the autocratic manager, Sanders was afraid that she would lose control if, on the basis of new information, she were to reverse poor decisions that had previously been made. Instead she chose to dismiss the new information. In an interview in the Times Argus (July 7th, 1996), Jane revealed that loss of control was her paramount consideration in choosing to continue to support Greene's position on the budget despite mounting opposition:

What we're [the board] trying to do is not just do what previous boards have done which is back down from the decisions...

The plan proposed by the President was developed without our advice or consent... many of the cuts were not in accord with CEC recommendations. (Response to the President's Report -- June 14th, 1996)

Furthermore, in their reports to the board, the interim deans outlined the academic and financial impact that these cuts were going to have on the college:

The cuts will devastate the campus program academically, leave the off-campus individualized BA-MA program and perhaps the MFA program with absolutely no leadership or coordination... this will make the college vulnerable to suits from students and to the scrutiny of NEASC in regard to the breach of contract and failure to deliver the program for which they had enrolled. ...This is not a plan it is a purge. (Response to the President's Report)

Instead of working in concert with others to seriously design an adequate solution Jane stonewalled dissent and politicked among board members in order to ensure the passage of Greene's budget as originally proposed. Ironically she would later, as provost, attempt to take credit for having single-handedly discovered the inadequacies in Greene's budget. Recently Jane has said in Clockworks (Spring 1997):

The existing budget plans simply weren't adequate to carry out the school's responsibilities. My first weekend here, I had to literally sit down and rewrite the budget, then work with the CEC to pass the revisions.

In several instances now I've had the opportunity to trade highly paid administrative positions for a [sic] midlevel ones, and/or more support staff. You know, the last year, our Management Team was made up of seven individuals and cost $450,000. This year, there are five of us and the cost has been cut by more than a third. (Clockworks -- 1997)

Jane's autocratic (and "political") style resulted not only in the suppression of dissenting voices but also in the failure to consider innovative proposals for change. When I joined the board in the fall of 1995, for instance, the extreme tension in the community resulting from Greene's behavior motivated me to suggest in writing (Off-Campus Student Newsletter, Dec. 1995) that a number of common organizational management practices be initiated: 1) a presidential performance appraisal process -- one which would include an evaluation of the president's collaborative skills and the ability to promote democratic processes, 2) a climate analysis (a technique that is particularly useful in climates in which there is fear of retaliation) -- such techniques typically involve the use of independent management consultants who conduct confidential interviews of members of all constituent groups and report back their findings to the community, and 3) a comprehensive strategic planning and "future search" process.

At the time, these suggestions were completely ignored. Recently, as provost, Sanders has suggested strategic planning -- crediting herself with the idea. Although strategic planning is still a good idea it would have been more effective had it occurred before the search for a new college president, since a genuine planning process would have had to seriously consider proposals that were floating around at the time regarding important structural changes at the administrative and board level -- ones which suggested replacing the position of president with a more suitable governance design. But as things stand now, we will again be in the position of having to deal with an accomplished fact -- a new college president who is hired before the need for such a position is seriously and systematically evaluated.

The alternate proposals that I refer to -- ones that would have brought governance at Goddard into alignment with democratic principles -- were at the time articulated by faculty members and presented to the board, but to no avail (October Board Meeting, 1995). Jane, and the board under her leadership, would not hear these proposals out; as they proclaimed in the board statement followings the faculty's demand for Greene's resignation:

Goddard is, has always been, and will continue to be a college with a policy-making board of trustees, a president, and an administrative structure to implement that policy. That is non-negotiable. (Board Statement -- May 6th, 1996)

How did Jane come to be "acting" college president?? When she was president of the board and Greene was still in the position of college president, the board decided to create the new position of college provost. A board committee, selected and chaired by Jane, was formally charged with designing this position and drafting a job description. Interviews of candidates for the position had begun. But when Greene unexpectedly presented his resignation to the board at a special meeting a new plan was devised by the board under Jane's leadership. Jane offered herself as a candidate for the provost position, resigned from her position as board president, and was immediately appointed provost. Jane's actions constitute a clear conflict of interest. Despite her essentially symbolic gesture (resigning from the board before her hiring was formally approved) Jane orchestrated the board's decision to hire her as provost. She clearly parlayed her powerful voluntary position as board president into a high paying salaried position in the administration, on the basis of insider information and a privileged position in the decision making process.

Greene's resignation became formally effective on January 1st, 1997 and Jane is commonly referred to by board members as "acting" president. This gives her a distinct leg up on other candidates for president as the INCUMBENT in the position. And again the community is faced with an ACCOMPLISHED FACT, and deprived of a role in the decision-making process. Notice a pattern here??

But Jane would have us think that it was the community-at-large that was clamoring for her leadership:

Right now, Goddard needs leadership and they seem to think I'm the kind of leadership they need. (Burlington Free Press -- August 31st, 1996)

There is an additional danger in hiring a recent board president as president of the college. Many of the people on the board are there with her approval and the strong influence that she had over the board as board president persists to this day.

Jane is quietly consolidating her power in yet another way -- by filling a number of the administrative positions vacated under her watch as board president with political cronies. The job of college president, as it currently exists, has no provisions establishing accountability, and no method for recall, and will further consolidate her power in the community to an extent that should concern the community.

Jane lacks a genuine commitment to democracy and an understanding of the theory that underwrites it. She lacks the requisite experience in creating environments that are conducive to participatory democracy. She has characteristically chosen to see widespread dissatisfaction within the community as the work of a handful of agitators (ironically this tactic was a common one among administrators dealing with protesting college students during the sixties). In an interview Jane said:

"What we're seeing is the same old pattern of putting all the blame at the president's doorstep and no blame whatsoever at anyone else's." In Sanders' view, the blame resides mainly with "a distinct group of very organized and outspoken people who want no hierarchical structure at all and want to be accountable only to themselves." (Seven Days -- May 1st, 1996)

The above passage is evidence of the fact that Jane fails to understand the critique of hierarchy that underwrites commitment to "power-with" as opposed to "power-over", and is a quintessential feature of the tradition of radical socio-political thought. The position that she ridicules is widely embraced by progressives with a commitment to participatory democracy and many a Goddard community member.

From the perspective of one who is committed to democratic process blame not only can but must be placed at the door step of the autocrat who insists on wielding power over others, making unilateral decisions, and avoiding accountability to the community at large.

Jane's conclusion that those in the community who critique hierarchy do so in order to usurp personal power and avoid accountability is absurd. No one in the community had ever suggested usurping from Greene the "power-over" that he exercised in the community. Rather, what was suggested was a dismantling of the hierarchies that permit individuals to avoid accountability, and the redistribution of decision-making powers to the governed. THIS, after all, is what democracy is.

There is tremendous irony in Sander's fear that others would attempt to usurp the "power-over" that was left behind when Greene resigned. If anybody is close to accomplishing this feat it is Jane herself. She is working her way into an autocratic administrative position that has experienced no significant structural changes since the time of Greene's departure.

Autocratic control is not what Jane fears; she fears democracy, as an interview in a national publication reveals:

But when Goddard's board hired Mr. Greene... the trustees talked about how much democracy was too much. "Goddard is extremely decentralized," says Jane O'Meara Sanders, ..."we talked about that at length, about the need to not make every decision by committee, the need to have leadership." (The Chronicle of Higher Education -- August 2nd, 1996)

... [the Trilateral Commission] warned of an impending "crisis of democracy" as segments of the public sought to enter the political arena. This "excess of democracy" was posing a threat to the unhampered rule of privileged elites -- what is called "democracy" in political theology. The problem was the usual one: the rabble [public] were trying to arrange their own affairs, gaining control over their communities and pressing their political demands. There were organizing efforts among young people, ethnic minorities, women, social activists, and others, encouraged by the struggles of benighted masses elsewhere for freedom and independence. More "moderation in democracy" would be required, the commission concluded... (Chomsky -- 1992)

If we must proceed with selecting a new president at this time we have to make sure the candidates have experience in creating democratic environments, experience that Jane does not have. Candidates must have demonstrable knowledge, experience, and commitment to participatory democracy. This ought to be the primary consideration in filling the position.

To find an individual with adequate fiscal and administrative experience is not difficult, comparatively. People receive training in these areas in various ways that can be documented. And any deficiencies in these areas can be rectified by creative job redesign or addressed by the creation of an administrative team competent in areas in which the president is not. What one cannot afford to neglect, because it cannot be provided by others, is the cherishing of the democratic model of governance that should be the first consideration of a president. The president ought to be coordinating governmental processes without imposing his or her own personal decisions on the college. This requires a significant body of knowledge and experience that can not necessarily be inferred from traditional experience in management or administration, which typically assumes top-down administrative control and the legitimacy of hierarchy.

In addition to these qualities a president under the present circumstances would need to have experience in culture building (building one that is conducive to participatory democratic governmental processes) and organizational restructuring (a capacity to reconfigure the organization so as to rectify current key anomalies in governance at Goddard: i.e., non-democratic processes and procedures). In fact, the president should be someone who has experience in dealing with resistance to democratic process exhibited by persons in powerover positions that don't want to relinquish their power.

The best strategy at this point is not in hiring a traditional president but in the creation of a transitional governance team comprised of community members and consultant experts in the field of democratic governance, charged with a mandate to put in place a fully democratic governance structure at the college. Short of that, two things can happen: 1) the consolidation of power under a traditional autocratic president, which amounts to the demise of the socio-political experiment in democratic education that Goddard was conceived as, and 2) another prolonged struggle with such an autocratic leader, probably in the form of Jane Sanders. Neither of these options is something to look forward to.

During the last thirty years Goddard has seen ten different college presidents. When will we learn that replacing the person "at the top" is not going to resolve the tension at the college? That tension is the result of a contradiction between the deeply ingrained democratic ethos that has infused the community-at-large and the corporate assumptions that guide the governance of the college -- assumptions that would concentrate decision-making power in the hands of a president and a non-accountable governing elite.

Andrew Dinkelaker
May 1st, 1997

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