Mike Smith didn’t wait long to try to squelch controversies swirling around a university preparing for its launch.
Partway through his second official day as interim president of the yet-to-be-formed Vermont State University and 94 minutes into his first public board meeting, Smith wiped away two contentious plans that most believe led to the abrupt departure of his predecessor.
As the university’s audit committee came out of executive session Monday, Smith announced he was rescinding a plan to change the way the institution participates in intercollegiate athletics and also a plan that would have removed most books from the libraries while laying off at least seven librarians. At the same time, he confirmed he’s on board with “transformation,” the label that leaders had used to justify the two plans.
“This all fits into transformation,” Smith said during his comments. “We are moving this university to the new era we have to move this university to.”
In wiping out the two policies, which caused considerable angst and protest among faculty, staff, and students, Smith did what he promised as he stepped in to lead the institution that will, starting July 1, combine Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College.
In making the moves, Smith was also following through on his plans for his tenure. On Friday — his first day in office — he told The Chronicle he wanted to minimize distractions.
“My goal is to keep the goal of transformation and not get distracted,” Smith said then. “There is no doubt [the plans had] been distracting and taken away from the main goal. The board and the chancellor’s office asked me to pause those and come back with recommendations. I will find a way to not make those a distraction.”
The distractions began in early February, with a surprising announcement about libraries and sports at the new institution. But the state-colleges system had been in turmoil for longer.
In 2020, just after the pandemic began, the Vermont State Colleges system recommended closing the three rural campuses as an answer to a staggering budget deficit. (As of this winter, it stood at $25 million.) But the state rejected that proposal, gave emergency funding to the system, and blessed a merger of the same three campuses. The new institution was tasked with finding ways to cut costs.
In February, system leaders announced plans to transform the new university’s libraries into all-digital entities, get rid of the physical books, and lay off seven full-time and three part-time librarians.
Faculty, staff, and students felt blindsided, said Linda Olson, a professor at Castleton University and faculty union official, largely because a transformation committee of faculty and staff put together by the university had been working on a plan for the libraries that would have made them digital-first and kept some, but not all, of the librarian’s jobs. While its advice wouldn’t be binding, the committee was expected to issue recommendations on what to do with the libraries as the merger took place.
The sports plans would have moved Northern Vermont’s programs from the NCAA to the smaller United States Collegiate Athletic Association and dropped Vermont Technical’s teams from the USCAA.
Both moves sparked almost immediate controversy.
Eight days after the email announcing the change, the faculty voted no confidence in then-President Parwinder Grewal, the board, and the system chancellor.
Then, in early March, the administration modified its plans. It said it would keep about 10 percent of the 300,000 books housed in the three campuses libraries. Administrators said about half of all items in the library had never been checked out or even used. The books being kept would be the most popular ones and those deemed “academically valuable.” A few part-time librarians would be kept on as well.
“As we build Vermont State University to become a hybrid university, we need to transition our programs, student services, and supports to this new reality, while simultaneously working within smaller and financially sustainable budgets,” the institution said in a statement posted on its website. “This is true of the library, as it is central to the education and student learning expected at an institution like ours, but it also consumes significant financial and operational resources.
“To do this requires difficult choices and compromises. Our objective is to ensure all students, across all campuses and locations across the state, and at out-of-state locations have equitable access to the library materials and services they need. This approach is consistent with the principles driving this transformation: student first, purpose first, and digital first.”
Then, a month later came another sudden announcement: The president was gone, and everything was on hold.
Grewal said he was stepping down for personal reasons, but those around the campuses believed it was directly tied to the library and sports plans.
Grewal “was sort of the axman to do their bidding,” Olson said, referencing the Vermont State Colleges system’s board and the chancellor’s office, which oversees the presidency. It’s many folks’ opinion that Grewal became “sort of the sacrificial lamb” when the opposition to the plans became known, Olson continued.
Eileen (Lynn) Dickinson, the board chairwoman, defended the plans before Monday’s decision, even while declining to discuss specifics about why Grewal was no longer president or more details about the library or athletics plans.
“The reality is there’s nothing radical about it. We have adapted, especially with Covid, to a different situation. What we’re trying to do is to make sure we can reach the students wherever they are.”
She said all the plans were aimed at preserving the best possible options for students to get the college education they need.
Smith said he was contacted about coming aboard as interim president a week before the April 14 public announcement of his appointment to a six-month contract. “I know the importance of their mission,” he said of the new university. “It was important to me to try to help. This can be a national rural-education model.” Smith said he’s hoping to make Vermont State a true hybrid university, which leaders say will ease access for people in rural areas.
A former member of the Navy SEALs, Smith worked in a variety of local and state administrative posts before being appointed Vermont’s Secretary of Administration in 2002, a post he held until 2008. He then took on a variety of interim roles, including time at Burlington College, where he inherited an institution deeply in debt and running out of cash. Shortly after arriving, Smith found Burlington had $300,000 in past-due bills, along with $11.4 million in long-term debt. He was there just for a handful of months in the late summer of 2014 before the board named a new president. It closed in 2016. Smith’s most recent administrative role was as secretary of the Vermont Agency of Human Services, a position he retired from at the end of 2021.
The faculty at his new institution — the same ones who passed no-confidence votes in Grewal, the board, and the chancellor — aren’t sure yet what they are getting, Olson said. They are looking for a transparent leader who keeps the focus on students and listens to those who work with those students.
They got their first inkling on Monday.
Smith said he would keep the various campuses in the athletics leagues they currently are in, even while working over the summer to put together some criteria for evaluating the programs. Those criteria would include looking at the percentage of the student body that were athletes, the student body’s engagement with athletics, and the role athletics played in recruiting and retaining students at the university.
Likewise, Smith said he was rescinding layoff notices for the librarians, but would work with them to look at the libraries’ holdings and the role of the libraries going forward.
“Libraries are for books, but some books have other ways to be accessed, including digitally,” Smith said during the meeting.
The news was greeted with guarded optimism.
“I am relieved they are backtracking on these bad decisions, and it gives me some hope about the new interim president, but I am still not convinced this will mean a transparent process that puts the needs of our students and state before all else,” Olson said.
