While facing severe financial problems, Goddard College was threatened with the loss of its accreditation. Enrollment fell in the future looked bleak. Interject Lindquist, a longtime student of higher education, who rolled up his sleeves and help put the Plainfield college back on track.

GODDARD'S REBOUND

By Susan Green - Free Press Staff Writer

PLAINFIELD -- "There are still people who think it's a place that's surely going to die tomorrow and should have yesterday," said Jack Lindquist.

"But it's important to me and to a lot of other innovators in higher education that Goddard is in fact open, and not only is it open, it is improving."

This assessment by Goddard College's 41-year old president, who during the last three years has helped devise and implement a survival plan for the Plainfield school, comes as a new semester is underway, with increased enrollment.

Goddard College President Jack Lindquist

Increased enrollment for Goddard, about to enter its 45th year as a liberal arts college and its 120th year as an educational institution, means 152 students, compared with last year's fall total of 114. But then, the traditional Goddard concept has always been "small is beautiful."

'We are reaffirming Goddard's mission, Goddard's philosophy, Goddard's smallness. We're heading back out to make Goddard the kind of leader in education it has taken'.

"We are reaffirming Goddard's mission, Goddard's philosophy, Goddard's smallness," Lindquist said. "And then, we're heading back out to make Goddard the kind of leader in education it always been."

Lindquist himself may be a prime example of the magnetism of the college, despite years of financial woes and heart wenching changes. At a time in his life when he was in great demand in the academic world, Lindquist chose the rather risky road of reshaping the college at the edge of the precipice.

With a doctorate from the University of Michigan, Lindquist had done stints at UCLA, Memphis State, Rollins College, Empire State College, and his alma mater, among others, always with an emphasis on innovation in higher education. Along the way, he became increasingly aware that, among the country's top educators, Goddard was looked upon with reference as the pioneer of dynamic, experimental, progressive learning.

Long concerned with how education can affect human development, Lindquist happened to read a book, "Education and Identity" by a former Goddard faculty member, Art Chickering.

"I discovered that Goddard was much more involved than any other school in America in shaping and doing," Lindquist said. "Teachers were not directors but resources. There were closer relationships possible, with requisite developmental gains."

In 1971, Lindquist was named director of Strategies for Change Project in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This four and a half-year program, geared to study and assist change in liberal arts colleges around the country, culminated in a Lindquist book called "Strategies for Change."

During that time, he worked with two Goddard master degree students who impressed Lindquist by "their freedom to pursue what they needed to know and what they were able to accomplish with that."

With Goddard "creeping into my consciousness," he was, in 1975, offered a shot at the presidency by former Goddard president Royce "Tim" Pitkin, who had retired in 1969 after 35 years with the school. Lindquist was then working on policy analysis and planning at Empire State College in Saratoga, N.Y.

"It's had occurred to me that this was something I might want to do," he said. "I was perfectly happy with what I was doing. I went for the interview, however, but told the search committee all the reasons why I would be such a poor candidate for the job."

This self-evaluation may have worked. Someone else was hired and Lindquist returned to the University of Michigan to direct the Use of Innovations Project, sponsored by the Kellogg Co..

In 1977, Lindquist was once again nominated for the Goddard post, but he declined outright.

By 1978, he was at Memphis State in Tennessee as director of the Institute for Academic Improvement. Though he loved the work, the position had several personal drawbacks. "I was on planes three or four days a week, saving higher education from itself, which was about as effective as you might imagine."

He was also based some 1300 miles from Saratoga, where his daughter Erin -- now 7 -- lived with her mother. "Erin is my first priority," Lindquist said.

So in 1981 Goddard once again put out the welcome mat to Lindquist -- this time in the form of an offer to act as consultant to the school's Title III grant implementation -- he acquiesced. His task was to train the faculty and staff in ways to come up with a reorganization plan.

"Within one year they wanted to totally restructure the college," he said. "I was intrigued. To me, Goddard had come to represent one of the most important education institutions anywhere. I've learned more from my contacts with Goddard than from any other college or university with which I've been involved."

During that period, Goddard was transforming itself: eight separate programs, each with its own administration and faculty and most with declining enrollment, had become too unwieldy and costly. There was a need to consolidate the school into one integrated program.

"This was painful and exciting," Lindquist said. "The tension was enormous."

Goddard's Adult Degree Program and Goddard Experimental Program in Further Education as well as five masters degree programs had to be sold, it was decided. This staff was to be drastically trimmed.

After the reorganization concept was completed, Lindquist returned to Saratoga, planning to take a work-holiday in the Bahamas. The phone rang.

"It was a call from Goddard," he said, laughing. "They wanted me to be the academic dean. It was time to do the trimming and they needed an outside objective figure to determine who would be kept for this new All-College faculty as it was being called." Lindquist accepted.

But the task proved horrendous. "I felt lousy," he said. "Retrenchment is like divorce: There is just no way to feel good about it, no matter who initiated it."

Lindquist's first year was fraught with problems. "The crisis continued to mount," he said. "The worst thing that happened is that, in December 1980, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges sent a team to check us out and they recommended that accreditation be pulled, not because our educational policy was diminished, which it wasn't, but because they thought the financial crisis might ultimately affect the education adversely." Goddard with some $3 million in debt at the time.

Though accreditation, never actually lost, was renewed in May 1981, the story had already gone out across America that Goddard had flunked.

At the same time, the sale of seven Goddard programs, to St. Michael's College and Norwich University, gave the appearance that there would be nothing left in Plainfield.

This downward spiral of rumor and gloom led to severely declining enrollment, which had peaked at 1700 in 1978.

"Even with that predicament," Lindquist said, "Goddard still seem to me one of the best places to be in higher education and the very best place to be to help higher education take the next step." In May 1981, he had taken his next step. "I had somehow agreed to become president."

"within one year they wanted to totally restructure the college. I was intrigued. To me, Goddard had come to represent one of the most important education institutions anywhere."

Lindquist began to tackle Goddard's complex financial tangle. "During the 1960s and '70s Goddard's rush to expand the campus and the programs had incurred those large debts, so there were now threats of foreclosure. And, of course, enrollment was in limbo."

Lindquist, along with others in the administration, had devised what is termed Goddard V. Goddard I was the school's 75 years, since the Civil War, as a Universalist seminary in Barre. Goddard II would be considered the time in which it was a seminary and junior college. Goddard III represents the fruitful Tim Pitkin years (He actually served for 35 years, beginning in 1938, when the school moved to Plainfield.) In the mid-1960s began Goddard IV, an era of expansion, eight separate programs, political and social crisis, faculty labor problems.

Goddard V devotes itself only to Low and High Residency -- in other words, on and off campus -- with High Residency people required to spend nine days at the school after three months or so of independent study on either bachelors or masters degree programs.

"Meanwhile, we've realigned our mortgages," Lindquist said. "As a result, last year we were able to trim our deficit and this year we are almost balanced. We're getting out from under our dance. This is our last year of delicate finances."

This path to revival has been paved with property: The Plainfield Inn and the 40 acre Cate Farm among others have been sold, and the President's House (Lindquist lives in an on-campus apartment) and Northwood Campus are on the market.

But even more importantly, a four-year Title III grant -- $166,000 for the first year -- was acquired. This money will help develop a new management information system at Goddard, ushering in the technological era with computerized financial and record-keeping systems. The grant will also cover fund-raising and recruitment efforts in the rebuilding of Goddard's summer program.

This year's budget is only $134,000 away from being balanced, compared with last year's $206,000. But for 1983-84, Lindquist predicted, "we anticipate a surplus, perhaps as much as $66,000."

Against the odds, Goddard's regeneration has begun. "It is very doable," Lindquist proclaimed. "We can now get back out there and be visible, back out into the marketplace. Our biggest problem is now how to turn the public image around, how to inspire confidence that Goddard, with such a unique tradition as the best in innovative higher education, also has a strong, assured future."