1/18/1973, Burlington Free Press

By Fred Stetson

PLAINFIELD - Goddard College President Gerald S. Witherspoon announced Wednesday he will not seek immediate trustee action on a controversial proposal he released only a week ago.

Witherspoon told a faculty meeting last Wednesday he would bring the proposal before the college trustees at a meeting to be held Friday in New York City.

Students, faculty and staff were shocked by this intention and they expressed their disapproval and opposition in many ways. Some of the most extreme reactions came at a campus meeting Wednesday afternoon of an estimated 200 to 300 members of the college community.

GODDARD PPRESIDENT Gerald S. Witherspoon (at microphone) responds to students at a campus meeting Wednesday. At Witherspoon's right is Stuart Adler, a faculty member.

"The only solution I can see, quite frankly, is to consider a new president,"said Stuart Adler, and education professor. Adler said he had asked Witherspoon to resign the night before, but the president declined.

But, he added, "I'm going to do everything I can to encourage him to resign."

Adler's sentiments were shared by another faculty member in the audience from the college's theatre department. While implicitly critical of the Witherspoon administration, the faculty member said, "the choice then, is to ask for Jerry's resignation or to follow his lead."

Witherspoon, who was attending the afternoon gathering, did not respond to these statements, but he later smiled in a corner of the room when a young co-ed criticized him for his self-degrading comparisons to Timothy Pitkin, Goddard's longtime president who preceded Witherspoon.

The Goddard student said life at the school under Witherspoon's administration was a "continued pattern of advance and retreat - the sword of Damocles is about to fall on our heads so everybody freaks out."

Continuing, the Goddard student, dressed in blue jeans and a tight fitting gray jersey, said Witherspoon's apologetic comparisons to Pitkin make him look like a "spineless yuk."

Nervous laughter filled the room and was echoed by Witherspoon.

In another reaction Wednesday, members of the college staff voted 40-0 to express "no confidence in the reorganization plan" proposed by Witherspoon.

The staff members said in a prepared statement, "The process the plan was arrived at, with no consultation from staff, faculty or students, we find highly objectionable."

Last week more than 150 students demonstrated outside the president's house and later issued a statement saying "we strongly censure Gerald S. Witherspoon," for failing to consult the Goddard community on his plan.

Witherspoon did respond to the gathering and expound upon views he had already made known in a pink, prepared statement.

"I have been surprised by the reaction of some members of the Goddard Community to my proposal for the realignment of administrative responsibilities among the administrative staff of the college," he said in his statement.

Witherspoon said his plan would not change the college's governance structure, nor would it "anticipate any significant increase - perhaps none at all -in the total size of that (administrative) staff."

Witherspoon also said further discussion of his proposal would be appropriate and he promised he "will not ask for board action" on his proposal "until further discussions have taken place."

At the same time, however, Witherspoon announced the appointment of John Andrews of Cincinnati, Ohio, as "director of management" who will work with administrative officers in the preparation of the college budget "and in the improvement of the college's general administrative services."

Witherspoon also announced that William Hogan, admissions chairman, will assume added responsibilities related to alumni relations and fund raising.