GODDARD TRUSTEE DISPUTES GREENE VOTE
PLAINFIELD -- A member of Goddard college's Board of Trustees claims he was never contacted about a statement the board issued last week strongly backing Richard E. Greene, the school's president.
Andrew Dinkelaker, one of two student representatives on Goddard's Board of Trustees, claims he was shut out of the process of preparing the statement.
In a letter to Jane O'Meara Sanders, the board chairwoman, Dinkelaker claims that only some of the trustees were contacted by telephone about the statement, and they were given very limited information.
"The board members were not completely informed in detail about what's been happening on campus. I'm surprised they would sign a document without having all of the information," Dinkelaker said Monday in an interview.
Dinkelaker said Sanders should have called an emergency meeting of the full board instead of selectively polling members by phone.
"A polling of board members is not an adequate substitute for an open public meeting. It limits debate and dissent, (especially when members are selectively cut out of the process) prejudges the outcome, (by offering one prefabricated 'statement' on which the vote) gives the appearance of unwillingness on the part of the board to directly face the community, and concentrate power in the hands of Sanders and the executive committee," Dinkelaker said in the letter.
Dinkelaker went on to call for Sanders and other members of the board who stand in the way of "participatory democracy" to resign, and turn the governance of the college over to the community.
Goddard's Board of Trustees issued the statement supporting Greene earlier this month after faculty members at the college issued and near unanimous vote of no confidence in Greene, and calls for him to resign immediately. At the time, Sanders said 15 of the board's 20 members supported the statement.
Sanders, who is married to Congressman Bernard Sanders I-Vt, was in Washington and could not be reached for comment.
The trustees said in the statement that they also had no intention of changing Goddard's administrative structure, saying the issue was "non-negotiable."
Dinkelaker said the board statement was "a blow that has really polarized things on campus."
The board statement, he said, essentially tells members of the Goddard community, "We heard you; now shut up," Dinkelaker said.
Dinkelaker said if Greene and the trustees don't respond to the community's concerns more protest and demonstrations will be held.
"Things could get a lot hotter," he said.
The board is expected to hold its next meeting June 14 and 15.
Greene's opponents claimed his administration is "threatening the very soul" of the college and placing its "long tradition of progressive education in jeopardy."
The president's critics say Greene has mismanaged the school's finances, fired employees who don't agree with him, and is trying to "corporatize "Goddard.
Dinkelaker and others have called on the trustees to get rid of its "hierarchical, autocratic, top-down administrative structure," and replace it with one that is more democratic and doesn't have a president at all.
"These kind of conflicts have been going on for 60 years and it's time for change," he said.
Protest against Greene began April 10 when Peter Burns, Goddard's director of admissions resign, and blasted Greene's administration.
Burn's letter, which was widely circulated on campus, sparked a demonstration the next day outside Greene's office, that according to some nearly turned violent.
A week later, the faculty issued its vote of no confidence in Greene. A group of more than 100 students, faculty, and staff states another demonstration outside Greene's office, calling for him to step down.
