GODDARD STUDENTS OCCUPY BUILDING FOR ENDOWMENT
PLAINFIELD -- Students at Goddard College occupied a campus building on Wednesday to demonstrate their commitment to helping raise $1 million for the college endowment.
Classes were canceled for the day while the students held their demonstration. Administrators and members of Goddard's board supported the students and praised them for their goals.
"This was a student-initiated event but we're supportive of it," said Jane Sanders, who chairs Goddard's board and is chief of staff for her husband, Rep. Bernard Sanders I-Vt.
Goddard, a small liberal arts college east of Montpelier, has an endowment of less than $100,000, Sanders said. The administration's and the students' goal is to get that above $1 million by winning commitments of contributions from student faculty and alumni.
The students suggested that people interested in Goddard commit 1 percent of their income toward the endowment.
"We're working for tomorrow," said student Sheelah Feinberg. "We're working so my kid can come here and someone else can have this experience that I've had."
The students claimed to have commitments of $10,000 toward the endowment on Wednesday.
College president Jackson Kytle said the administration supported the students' efforts to guarantee the longterm future of Goddard.
"We have, in the jargon of the accountants, a clean balance sheet," he said. "But that's not the same as having enough money to guarantee the college is going to be here for my children's children or for their children. What colleges need endowments for is basically to provide long-term support for an institution."
Sanders said monev in the endowment would be devoted primary to student financial aid. "What's really exciting is they're dealing with this issue in a really positive way," she said.
Goddard has a reputation, which it nurtures, of being a progressive, left-of-center school, and the students' efforts to raise cash did not change that, Sanders said. "We invest only In socially responsible causes," she said.
