6/1/1973, Burlington Free Press
GODDARD PRESIDENT By Frederick W. Stetson
PLAINFIELD -- Gerald S. Witherspoon has been on and off a college president's hot seat for more than a year, but he faces his trustees in New York today - confident tht he will continue to lead a financially sound Goddard College.
Students on the campus prepared a 60-page report, which determined that Goddard's administrative costs exceed the national norm for colleges of equivalent size by 13 to 14 per cent.
The Goddard president answers that students' work "didn't seem to us to be very useful" because they added in costs such as food and secretarial services, which normally wouldn't be described as "administrative" costs. Faculty in the college's undergraduate program voted 20-14 to ask the board to seek Witherspoon's resignation. He, in turn, pointed out the vote is "cause for concern," but it only represents about a third of Goddard's 100 or more faculty. In New York City today, the president will discuss his $5 million fiscal 1974 budget with the trustees, and he remains confident that it will be approved.
"So far as I know the budget proposal is a good one," he said here this week, in a tape-recorded interview at his home. "I'm not aware of any significant questions about it by any member of the trustees - at least by the budget committe of the Board of Trustees. My guess is that it will be approved in something very similar to its present form."
Witherspoon said there is nothing particularly new or controversial in his budget proposal (which gets final trustee action in July), execpt that "the income in the college as a whole is shifting more toward adult degree programs" that noneducational or teaching budgets are "substantially smaller", and the budget will include a $350 tuition increase to generate additional income. The college faces a $500,000 deficit in fiscal '73, he said, and the new tuition revenue will allow a "balanced" budget in '74. "Our capital costs as well as our operating costs come from tuition," he added.
In the following series of questions, Witherspoon describes Goddard's financial outlook and discusses his position at the college:
Q: Is there any time during your fiscal year when, because of the timing or because of the fact that the income isn't coming in, you have any difficulty meeting your cash needs or commitments?
A: Well, there are periods of the year, in monthly cash flow statements, when one is furthest away from particular income bulges and is living off the income that came in earlier. Q: You don't anticipate Goddard having any problem living on its income resources during those periods?
A: No. We have to carefully watch our annual budget and watch our cash flow as every other institution has to month in and month out. Institutions have to be managed and their finances have to be managed month by month and year by year.
Q: So, how would you describe the financial health of the insitution, generally,at this point?
A: It is very characteristic of the health of the private, non-endowed institutions of the country - that is to say schools that do not rely on federal or state financing and that do not have endowments that make up a significant part of their income.
We live on tuitions as all such schools do. Goddard has been for over 35-40 years successful in meetings its commitments. We fully expect it to be for the next 35 to 40 years. Happily, we have good fiscal and accounting advice, both internally and from our board of trustees.
Q: So, you think the outlook is pretty good?
A: It's not fat. Private education isn't fat these days - that came in the '60s not in the '70s.
Q: There have been statements from some of the faculty and students that the college is in real financial trouble. How would you characterize those statements?
A: Well, I think one should probably look more to accountants and financial managers and Board of Trustee members than to 17-year-olds to decide about the financial circumstances at the college. And, the view of the board and the view of the administration of the college is that the situation is sound.. but the situation will be one of tight belts through the '70s... I think our situation is less stringent than that of the State Colleges this coming year, but they'll survive through the year and we'll survive through the year.
Q: Since this financial situation seems to be one of the major concerns of the students on campus, and you have expressed confidence that Goddard will cotinue to survive as it has for the past 30 years, do you feel this talk about your resignation is very meaningful? How do you account for this?
A: I am currently in a five-year term in my contract which began a year ago (June 1, 1972). ... it would be in violation of my contract with the board for me to resign. I don't have any inclination to violate my contract with the board. If they should decide, at any time - last year, this year, next year - that the school would be better served by another president and thus should release me from the contract terms, of course I'd be happy to step aside. That isn't the problem. They haven't decided that I don't see at the moment the likelihood that they would, but they're serious men and women and they try to judge what's in the best interests of the institution. But the option isn't in my hands, its in theirs.
Q: I think you said something that might be misinterpreted. You said you would be"happy" to resign. You aren't looking forward to resigning, are you?
A: No. My point is, if they felt it was in the best interests of the college to have another president, and thus they released me from my five-year contractual obligation, that's quite another story.
Q: You would like to lead the college through the remainder of your contract,wouldn't you?
A: Well, put it this way, if you ask any college president whether he likes being a college president, some days you'd catch him with a good night's sleep and he'd say, "Sure, I like it' and the other days he'd say, "Sure, I do it." - it gets pretty grim and hard at times. In that context - if you understand what "like" means - yes. I like being at Goddard. As I say, I don't have the option to resign. I don't anticipate (resigning), but times and circumstances should change - but the point is Goddard works on fixed five-year contracts and I'm on one year of a five-year contract.
Q: Could you describe the vote taken by the faculty the other day (concerning Witherspoon's status at the college)?
A: There was a meeting of about 35 faculty members of the residential undergraduate program - that's about a third of the faculty at the college. They had a discussion around a motion made by one of the faculty members that the board (of trustees) should release me from my contract and the vote was 20-14 in favor of that motion. What the vote of the full faculty of 100 would be, I don't know. I suspect it would be at least even and at best somewhat better than that. But, this was a vote from a group of faculty from the program at Goddard that I think has been the most troubled in recent years. It (the residential undergraduate program comprised of 40 percent of the Goddard students) is a program that has had a rather difficult time coming to terms with the tumultuous times of the late '60s and early '70s. And it's a program we have real work to do. Q: Does that 20-14 vote mean anything to you, does it signify anything, does it give you any direction as to how the faculty feels?
Well, it doesn't tell me how the faculty as a whole feels. As I assess the situation, the faculty as a whole would vote somewhat differently. But, it is a cause for concern. I don't jump up and down and say hooray when 20 people think that another president would be better for the insitution than I. I take that seriously. But I take it as the board tends to take it at the moment - that the program requires a good deal of attention and work by the faculty to solve some basic problems that date back into the mid-60s.
ANSWERS CRITICS
Witherspoon, a former Vermont tax commissioner and University of Chicago Law School graduate, received blistering criticism from segments of the Goddard community recently for his financial and administrative policies.
