A STUGGLE FOR 'AUTONOMY' AT GODDARD COLLEGE

To the Editor:

Regarding your flippant May 3rd 'In' Box on Goddard College: Shame on you for referring to, and citing, a skewed, unreliable, irrationally virulent editorial in a local newspaper ... without considering the responses! Is this the level of inquiry The Chronicle has descended to? ...

The cliched strife between faculty and administration is not the crucial issue at Goddard. Rather, at a time when corporate America exercises an increasingly powerful influence on education and especially higher education, the school-student relationship is often reduced to a model of mechanical efficiency, in which an institution is valued for its ability to attract and churn out tuition-wielding customers. Principles such as the unique character or omission of the college become mere surface trappings, utilized as sound bites in the student-recruitment rat race. It's disheartening to see how even The Chronicle has been duped, and how it fails to recognize that the question of educational autonomy lies at the heart of the Goddard controversy.

Kiko Nobusawa Campus Program Coordinator Office of Academic Affairs Goddard College Plainfield, Vt.

[see 04/03/96 news clipping.]