Corporate downsizing, it seems, is becoming an ethical solution to every organization's financial woes. The idea is to get rid of some employees, whether it be temporaries or older employees that are asked to leave as an early retirement, and the results are that the remaining employees work harder and longer while the company prospers off the cut backs.

We have seen it literally thousands of times over the last few years in big companies like the recent layoffs by AT&T, where 40,000 employees got the ax while the CEO got a raise. It even happens in companies with stock that is skyrocketing, and yet the powers that be feel the need to decrease the workforce while increasing production.

In the workplace, democracy is ruled by the almighty dollar, which is why it is so rare that we see an organization that is specifically designed to adhere to a democratic process -- a process, by definition, that is ever-changing.

Many say that this process is one that has broken down in the last year at Goddard College, a small college in rural Plainfield founded in 1863 that is "dedicated to hard thinking and plain living" and has achieved a reputation for innovation in higher education. Its mission is to advance the theory and practice of learning and ideals of democracy based on the principles of progressive education as developed by Vermont philosopher and educator John Dewey.

After three years of strong financial growth and an operating surplus from 1992 to 1995, the current year's budget was revised in the fall in light of an estimated $773,000 shortfall, a situation that will most likely lead to faculty and staff downsizing as well as the restructuring of Goddard's admissions policies, including the phasing out of need-based financial awards.

In response to the fiscal shortcomings, President Greene issued a memorandum to the core faculty last fall stating that he and the College Executive Committee (CEC) "did all we could to cut everything except people. Non-personnel cuts were cut well into the bone. Next year, to cover inflationary costs and provide, I hope, some increase in salaries, CEC and I see no choice but the extraordinarily painful one of reducing personnel and an additional non-personnel cuts."

In other words, heads will roll at Goddard unless a drastic turn in events occurs.

Not everyone agrees with Greene's fiscal analysis of the college, however. Richard Schramm, a part-time core faculty member who also facilitates business group studies at Goddard as well as the Goddard Business Institute, said that Greene's conclusions -- which appeared in his Jan. 23rd report to the Board of Trustees -- are based on faulty premises. Schramm, in in March 27th letter to the CEC, urged the CEC to reexamine Goddard's recent fiscal history before planning its future.

Some faculty and staff members have resigned in protest of Greene's management style, while many students, faculty and staff have engaged in hunger strikes to call attention to what they feel are unfriendly labor practices. Peter Burns, director of admissions, announced his resignation on April 11, an event that triggered student and faculty protests on-campus. Burns' resignation followed the October, 1995, resignation of dean of academic affairs Stephen Shapiro. Two other administrators have resigned this year.

On April 18, the faculty of Goddard College issued a formal no confidence vote in Greene and called for his resignation. "We believe the president is threatening the very soul of the college and placing its long tradition of progressive education in jeopardy," said an April 19th statement that also accused Greene of "seriously mismanaging" college finances and "employing a 'management style' that is demoralizing staff, faculty and students." "We have no confidence in his leadership ... and feel he must resign immediately."

After a vote of no confidence meeting a week prior -- where 96 members of the college community reached a unanimous decision -- students, faculty and staff marched into the administrative wing of the Community Center and began screaming and banging on the walls surrounding Greene's office, an incident that left some staff and students shaken and upset. Many felt the outbursts discredited the point the protesters were trying to make.

The students involved in the struggle feel they have no voice regarding decisions that will affect them. Student activist Jen Reardon, who fasted and helped organize attention to staff and student grievances, said it is the students that will be most affected by the proposals, citing "significant changes in the admissions department" as one example. "Admissions is telemarketing and working longer days -- downsizing like a corporation," she explained. "Goddard is not a corporation. It's a place."

She also said that the school has proposed the addition of an extra 120 incoming students, which would almost double the current number of 140 resident undergraduate students.

Limits on contracts would mean that associate faculty would most likely be the first to go, said Kay Grossman, a student who also fasted. The associate faculty cover a wide range of educational topics, from multicultural studies, women's studies, video studies, music, history and ceramics, explained Grossman. "There would be a lot less hands-on education in diversity," she said. "We're looking, most of all, to [get] the boards attention and demand that they investigate or create another avenue for discussion."

"A lot of the students," added Reardon, "feel that... if everything goes into effect, Goddard is not really going to be Goddard."

A lot of students feel that ... if everything goes into effect, Goddard is not really going to be Goddard. There are a lot of people that respect this place and care about it and want it to be what its suppose to be. So, hopefully, we will make people aware of what's going on and let them know we are serious. Goddard student activist, Jen Reardon

In Greene's two years as president, Goddard has gone from a position of financial growth to a place of fiscal crisis. Operating surpluses (which reached $461,415 in 1995) and funds for capital improvements ($243,769 in 1995) have totally evaporated in 1996, leaving the college with a likely deficit and no capital improvements budgeted. Fund-raising levels have also dropped. Gifts and grants have fallen from $191,480 in 1993 to $84,132 through eight months this year.

Greene, who was hired in July 1994 to straighten out Goddard's finances, says he has no plans to leave the school, and the Board of Trustees is standing behind him.

Jane O'Meara Sanders, chair of the board and a Goddard alumna who is married to Vermont's Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders, said the trustees have no plans to call a special meeting to seek Greene's resignation.

The executive committee of the board, however, has meant to discuss the situation, it is trying to address some of the issues raised by students, faculty and staff about Greene's management style, said Sanders.

Goddard has had six presidents and several interim presidents during the past 20 years, all of whom have been forced out of office. "We fired or run out of town every single president since [founder] Tim Pitkin," said Lucille Cerutti, Goddard switchboard operator for the past 31 years, in an interview in the college newspaper. "There's something wrong with that," she added. "I think it's high time we took a long look at ourselves. What part are we playing in this?"

"Democracy is a great word", says Walt Whitman in "Democratic Vistas" (1871), "whose history... remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted." A Governance Plan was written and adapted by the Goddard campus and board in 1993. Governance at Goddard College, says the document, "strikes to be Democratic" and is "an ever-evolving process reflecting the teaching of philosopher John Dewey, who believed that democracy is both a means with instrumental value and an ethical idea without absolute definition."

"Democratic self-governance is experienced daily through the life and work of citizens in a community of scholarly affairs," it concludes. "Because Goddard is a college organized to advance the principles of progressive education, governance has a central role in both the curriculum and the organization of college life. Thus, it is necessary to discuss and evaluate college governance from time to time. As Dewey encouraged, we are free 'to criticize and re-make its political manifestations.' Yet because we enjoy this freedom, there is a responsibility to be mindful of prudent ways to propose, debate, ratify and implement political change."

Governance at Goddard, it goes on to say, "seeks the appropriate balance between democratic participation in decision-making and clearly defined lines of authority and responsibility." Having evolved over the past 55 years, the current plan "combines representative democracy in having elected representatives on college-wide communities; direct, participatory democracy within various student, staff and faculty groups; and collaborative democratic dialogue in the planning of each student's educational program."

In this way, governance at Goddard is "intentionally educative because every generation of people who pass through the college are asked to struggle with the ideals, the creative tensions and the frustrations of striving for democracy. This educational motive is an integral part of the college's mission. With such a system, creative tensions between the leader in the group -- and within the group -- will occur. Conflict is inevitable in a democracy, and this governance system is designed to manage conflict creatively."

Indeed, conflict has played an integral role throughout Goddard's history, with many in the community having spoken out about war, hunger and oppression, among other things. Now, they are speaking out against "unfriendly" labor practices at an institution that was built upon the notion of social responsibility.

At a recent Goddard-style protest on April 25 -- complete with a jug band, singing and roaming puppies -- Manuel O'Neill, director of financial aid and leader of a three-day fast shortly after Burns' resignation, explained that the fast "was meant... to bring attention to what we think are unfriendly labor practices that are being imposed on the faculty and staff here at the college, and also... to the fact that we feel the Governance document --[created with] a spirit that calls for collaboration and democracy both in the classroom and curriculum -- is being violated."

"To those who say that we have a problem with authority," said O'Neill, "our problem is not with authority -- are problem is instead with leadership that would usurp both the letter and spirit of the college's Governance document. Our problem is with leadership that does not understand the role of the leader in an institution dedicated to learning, ... the advancement of the theory and practice of democracy in both the curriculum and workplace, (and) to the empowerment of its students, it's faculty and its staff."

Goddard's "model of management may sound alien, unfamiliar and even threatening to those who are spent their entire careers in traditional corporate or a hierarchical learning environment," added O'Neill, "but at Goddard College, and collaborative management model is at the core of our mission statement, at the core of our Governance document and at the core of our curriculum. Thus, to violate the collaborative decision-making process or to manage dictatorially is to violate our sense of who we are, what we believe in what we teach."

"How can we inspire our students to become agents for social change and spokespersons for democracy if we are not, as faculty and staff, committed to meaningfully participate in the decision-making process?" He asked. "And how can we expect our students to personify the values of democracy, to become empowered and acquire leadership skills, if we as faculty and staff fail to act as role models because we fear to speak out against oppression or defend democracy in the workplace? The truth is we cannot. We will have failed ourselves and our students. We'll have shortchanged our students and their education."

Many unanswered questions remain about the fate of Goddard College. Will it embraced its democratic roots or model itself after other colleges and corporations? A chance to discuss options for budget cuts will hopefully be on the agenda the next Board of Trustees meeting in June.

The demonstration, which attracted about 200 people to the campus, was organize "to bring people out in support of the college," said Reardon, "to understand what Goddard stands for and why we're all here, and also to get the attention of (Greene) and the board and the administration to see that there are a lot of people that respect this place and care about it and want to be what its supposed to be. So, hopefully, we will make people aware of what's going on and let them know we're serious."