GODDARD PRESIDENT TO RESIGN
PLAINFIELD - After withstanding bitter criticism for months,
Richard E. Greene has apparently decided to resign as the
president of Goddard College.
Although officials at Goddard won't confirm or deny Greene's
plans to resign, informed sources say he will officially step
down as the college's president, possibly as early as next week.
Jane Sanders, the chairwoman of Goddard's board of trustees
refused to comment on rumors that Greene had resigned, or
was planning to resign.
"I can't say anything," Sanders said Friday. "I can't comment
on that, there is nothing really to report. Richard Greene
is still president of the college."
Greene himself could not be reached for comment. But other
members of the Goddard community say Greene decided to resign
after losing some support from the trustees.
"He still had a majority, but he lost the support of a few.
I guess he just decided he couldn't take it anymore," a
well-placed official at Goddard said.
"He still had a majority,
but he lost the support of a few. I guess he just decided
he couldn't take it anymore." -- A well-placed official
at Goddard
Sources say Greene is involved in discussions with the
trustees over the buy-out of his contract.
Greene has been under fire from faculty, staff, and students
at the college almost since the day he was picked by the board
to become Goddard's president in July 1994.
Protests against Greene intensified this spring after
Peter Burns, Goddard's popular admissions director
resigned, prompting a demonstration
on campus that some said nearly turned violent.
Greene's critics accused of him threatening the democratic
principles Goddard was originally founded on, and failing
to run Goddard in a collaborative and open manner.
Goddard's faculty issued a nearly unanimous
vote of no
confidence in Greene and called on him to resign in mid-April.
Greene refused and in early May the trustees issued a
statement strongly backing his
administration.
A couple of weeks later, Greene fired
16 employees, including three members of the union's organizing
committee.
That led to a showdown with the
trustees at a meeting in June, when the board once again refused
to ask for Greene's resignation.
As a compromise, the board agreed to consider a
proposal to recognize the union
and create a new administrative position to oversee daily
operations at the college.
But just as it appeared that Greene had dodged one more bullet,
he lost the support of some trustees, and decided he had
finally had enough.
