5/26/1973, Burlington Free Press

FIRE WITHERSPOON, SAYS FACULTY

By Leo O'Connor

PLAINFIELD - Goddard college faculty members voted 25-14 Friday to oust Gerald Witherspoon, the college's president.

The vote came after maneuvering by some members of the faculty to qualify so-called "adjunct" faculty members to vote and an abortive attempt by a group of friends of the president to win support for him.

Following the vote against the president, faculty members also requested the trustees to review the functions of the President's Council, the college's policy-making body. The vote on the motion was 25-1. The council, made up of deans of various campus programs and a few administrators, has been a thorny issue with the faculty.

Before the faculty meeting broke up, another vote of no-confidence in the president was tabled on a 14-12 vote after six persons had left the meeting.

The faculty's recommendation to dump Witherspoon will be made to the board of trustees, according to Otis McRae, who is a nonresident trimester coordinator at the progressive college in central Vermont.

"My personal feeling is that the board must respond immediately to heal the breach," said McRae who did not take part in the vote.

"The vote enables the board to move with dispatch in removing the final barriers to a united community," he added.

Thought there are about 70 persons on the Goddard faculty, McRae explained that a number of them are not now on campus, some on sabbaticals and others on vacations under the trimester system.

Witherspoon was not at the meeting, according to McRae. "There was some talk that he would or might appear, but he never showed up," he said.

Witherspoon could not be reached last night for comment on the faculty action. He has been under fire for some time from the faculty and the student body for his fiscal policies.

A new round of troubles began for him last Saturday when the board of trustees stalled action on his proposed $5 million budget for fiscal 1974. Finance Committee Chairman Howard Vaness blocked the approval, observing the budget contained discrepancies and was in need of revision and updating. He said the committee would present a "proper budget" at the next meeting of the trustees. The board normally would meet in July.

McRae, however, said he believes the board has little choice but to meet "very, very quickly to deal with the problem" of the president.

He said the question of a new president for the college will be a problem considered by the entire community.

"I believe there is an infinite level of energy here which is capable of transforming Goddard into the finest college in America," McRae said.

He said he believes other differences can be overcome.

Lin Webster, dean of the resident undergraduate program, was chairman of the faculty session and noted that the first action of the meeting was to slash the number of people who were eligible to vote.

Even though he is an administrator, Webster said he was given permission to vote, but did not exercise his right because he was chairman.

He described the motion of no-confidence as a "very difficult and tricky thing to understand."

"The clear purpose was to try to shift the 20-14 vote to a larger majority," he observed.

The 14 faculty members, who voted against Witherspoon's removal, expressed "unhappiness" about some specific actions by the president, he explained, but did not want to take the drastic step of firing him.

But the confusion over the meaning of the vote of no-confidence, he added, led to the move to table it.

Asked about his views on the faculty vote, Webster said, "With a seven-week experience as dean and coming off a long history of disagreement with Gerry, I think our faculty and student body and the program generally has a lot of important work to do that does not involve the president."

Webster said he knew and shared the "view of his history that caused this vote today."

"But I think if he were actually removed that just that much more time and attention and energy of our faculty and our student body would get caught up in figuring what to do for a president," he added.

"For some, the time would not be available to answer the questions about how we, among ourselves, want to change and improve the resident program, he added.

Webster noted he considered it as part of his responsibility as dean and "weirdly-placed guest chairman of the meeting" to report to the trustees on the vote.

He said trustees might call a special meeting to deal with the matter.

"They might have been ready to call a special meeting after last weekend without this vote," he said. "I know they were unhappy with the turmoil around them last Friday."

The trustees met last Friday and Saturday on the Goddard campus.

"I am not going to guess how they will deal with the vote," Webster said.

"But I would guess they wouldn't automatically feel they are bound to it."

Witherspoon, a former Vermont tax commissioner, has been president of Goddard since 1969.