Category: Presidents

I was appointed as President of CCV in August of 1991, but returned to Oregon after only three years in the position.  As such, it is important to remind myself that my time with CCV was brief and long ago.  I hope what follows is reasonably accurate.

When I arrived in Vermont, I was surprised by most of what I discovered at CCV.  I marveled at how the prior Presidents, and the wonderful staff at CCV, had created a vibrant college with pure energy and imagination alone.  CCV received almost no money from the Vermont State Colleges yet served more than half of the entire system’s headcount enrollment, paid all employees starvation wages, operated out of derelict facilities, and was almost totally without modern technology (e.g., information technology).  Facing these challenges, the former Presidents had delivered a college that somehow worked and was actually hungry for an even larger role in Vermont’s higher education community.

I was also surprised by how CCV was viewed by some of the other leaders in Vermont’s higher education community.  Rather than encouraging CCV to expand its offerings to include recent high school graduates and employers, there was a determined effort to limit CCV’s work to low income adult Vermonters who would not otherwise have access to college.  The fear, often expressed explicitly, was that CCV’s statewide presence, low tuition, and entrepreneurial energy would tap into student markets that more traditional colleges wanted to preserve for their own recruitment efforts.   An aggressive CCV worried its sister institutions.

The final surprise I will mention was discovering the depth of CCV’s pool of talent.  I have worked in higher education for nearly 40 years, only three of these years in Vermont.  However, if asked to name the 20 most talented people with whom I have worked in 40 years, it would surprise many to see the number of Vermonters on my list.  I should also add that these wonderfully talented people were deeply attached to the mission and students of CCV; attached in a way that was striking then and remains a clear memory to this day.

So what did we actually do when I was there?

A)     The very first thing I wanted to improve was the physical spaces our staff and students were using.  With the exception of our site in Brattleboro, every other teaching site in Vermont was impossibly inadequate (and often unheated and unsafe).  Over the course of three years the college developed its first “built for CCV” building in St. Albans.  This was followed by another new building in Springfield.  Soon after Springfield, CCV was fortunate enough to partner with the State of Vermont and relocate its Burlington operations to a new state office building in downtown Burlington.  During my three years we also relocated our Rutland site, White River Junction site, Montpelier site, and were close to relocating the Bennington site.

With these improved sites came appropriate signage announcing our presence and presenting our brand in a way that was much more visible. (The current maple leaf logo made its earliest appearance at this time).  It is very important to note that none of these improvements would’ve happened without the leadership of Tim Donovan.   When I first arrived I immediately became aware of Tim’s talents and energy, and brought him into the central office to fully engage him in transformational projects, including these buildings.

B)      Beyond buildings, it was also necessary for CCV to enter the electronic age.  When I first arrived, sites communicated with each other by telephone or courier.  Desktop computing was rapidly being deployed throughout America and networked work sites were transforming the workplace.  CCV needed to join this movement and when a cash surplus appeared in the spring of 1992, we decided to take the plunge.  In a little over a month from the time the decision was made, every full time CCV employee had a desktop computer and the computers were all networked (another Tim Donovan miracle).

I still remember with amusement the conversation I had with one staff member about “why are we wasting money on these damn computers.”   Six months after installation we had a brief power outage at the Waterbury office and this same staff member was in the hallway saying he should go home because he couldn’t do any work without his computer.    While CCV wasn’t the only place transformed by personal, networked computers, the decentralized nature of the college magnified the importance of this step forward.

C)      While I was at CCV, we also began to rethink our degree attainment model.  In 1991 it was expected that all degree seeking students would engage in a deeply introspective, but staff guided, process to design an individualized degree plan.  Final plans might look very similar for any randomly selected group of students, but it was in the college’s DNA that every student had to walk their own path to arrive at a degree plan.

While it was difficult to argue with the good intentions of self-discovery, the degree attainment process was very labor intensive for staff and served as a kind of natural limitation on how much we could grow enrollment.  Sites with only two coordinators can only serve so many pioneers on the path to self-awareness.   CCV did not complete this process while I was there, but the rethinking and reimagining of the curriculum had started.  And, with typical CCV concern for its students and its culture, it was critical that the transformation leave intact important student accountability elements.   Barbara Murphy, serving then as CCV’s Academic Dean, was a masterful guide as this difficult work began.

D)     When I came to CCV I was struck by how modest our efforts were to serve employers in the State of Vermont.  Our price structure and flexibility were advantages that, to my mind, ought to be attractive to businesses that needed customized training for workers.  I soon learned that the VSC was not terribly excited about CCV becoming ambitious in its outreach to employers.  The concern was that an active, inexpensive CCV option for employers might have a negative impact on the traditional role of Vermont Technical College.  CCV and VTC never did work out “rules of the road” while I was at CCV, but I was proud of the fact that CCV began to be more assertive and ambitious in its work with business and industry and that today its workforce role is robust and valued in Vermont.

A short tale to close, most of which is true:   When I was at CCV, Tim Donovan constantly bragged about this wonderful coordinator what worked in our Springfield site.   I finally got to meet this wonderful person whose name was (and is) Joyce Judy.  Tim was right in his talent assessment, and after being at CCV for several months, I noticed that Joyce did not have a Master’s degree.   The next time I saw Joyce I pulled her aside and said I thought she should complete her degree.  I told her she had limited prospects at CCV without the degree, and unlimited prospects with the degree.  A short time later, Joyce completed a Master’s degree program.  I wonder what became of her.

It was my honor to serve as CCV’s President from 1991 through 1994.  The wonderful work of the college, and the unbelievably good people who worked for the college, changed me more than anything I did to change the college.   I will remember fondly, and forever, the time I spent at CCV and hope that I had a small positive role in its development.    My best wishes to all.

CCV President 1970 – 1978

Listen to Peter talk about how CCV started.

CCV: In the beginning

We were at the New Careers conference in Stowe, spring, 1970.  And it became apparent quickly that there was a barrier between the needs of poor local learners in rural Vermont, like Head Start mothers, and any organized higher education. We agreed to write a grant to OEO and same was done, asking for $65,000 to conduct a study for a rural, community-based, community college that would take education to the learner, meet the learners’ needs, and do so with existing resources.

Lo and behold the grant came through in the fall of 1970 and the search for a Director began. I was on the planning group and kept arguing that, if we looked for a traditional approach to the task, we would get the same thing and would fail; because the traditional campus-based model wouldn’t work in rural Vermont.

At some point, one of the other team members said, “if you are so clear about this, why don’t you do it?”. So, at age 24+, and with very little experience behind me, I jumped in. I got the job and in retrospect, I think I was actually the best candidate which gives some sense of the pool. I quickly hired my top competition, John Chater, a community organizer from Cabot, and we launched.

Some atmospherics

1. The governor, a conservative republican, Deane Davis had a son, Tom Davis (still alive and a former Leahy worker) who was a liberal democrat and head of the state OEO office. Otherwise, the grant might never have been accepted.
2. Gov. Davis appointed Bill Craig, president of Johnson State and new to Vermont, also a founder of the Peace Corps with Sargeant Shriver, to chair the Vermont Regional Community College Commission (VR CCC). Craig was a stout defender of our play, as was Alan Weiss, superintendent of schools in Montpelier who succeeded Craig as Chair of the Commission. (Alan is still alive and lives in either Northfield or Montpelier.)
3. The first office was in what is now the redone old Montpelier Tavern. At that point it was closed for demolition and we talked the landlord/owner into letting us string an electric cord into one of the second floor offices and there we started. After that, we went across the street into what became the Thrush Tavern on the first floor where we stayed for 2 years.

Initial research showed quickly that there were no operating models of a community-based community college that used the existing human, physical, and programmatic resources of the community to meet learners needs. So, with the commission’s approval, we chose to simply go get some learners and begin. If there were no examples, we had to create one.  And that is how and why we enrolled our first students in the late fall, early winter of 1970-71, some in Barton at the Parent Child Center and some in east Montpelier, at the newly opened U-32 High School.

This was a major tactical coup, as it turned out, because we began to create a Political constituency that a study never would have achieved. Also, at that point we were half way through the grant year and needed to get something done. We were tuition free, had an unpaid faculty, and were using community spaces.

Now it becomes a little more complex. So let me address themes as they unfolded:  funding, expansion, staff, threats, the development of the academic approach, and the merger with the VSC.

Funding

I am a little hazy on the exact dates, but between 1971 and the year we Got our first state funding (1975, I think) we raised another $270K from OEO, $750k from FIPSE, $120k from the Carnegie Corp., and approximately $2m from the Kellogg Foundation. This money allowed us to grow and expand without the approval of any state agency or the legislature.

Expansion

We sent a team to southeast Vermont (Tom Yahn, 1st director, is still in Brattleboro) in 1971 and to Lamoille and Franklin (Peggy Williams) in either 72 or 73. The thinking in all cases, was to go into parts of the state that were either unserved or totally underserved to avoid the politics of competition. The exceptions were Lamoille county, where Johnson State (because of Bill Craig and his successor, Ed Elmendorf (at AASCU in DC) were our friends. Our office there was on the JSC campus. Also, Caledonia County and Lyndon State where Lyndon State operated, they were hostile from day one. But the Northeast a kingdom was the poster child for poverty and remote rural isolation in Vermont, and we had to be in all three counties with offices in Hardwick, St. Johnsbury, and Newport.  With these sites in play, the initial shape of what was to become CCV was set and stayed the same through the end of my presidency.

Staff

Inevitably I will forget a few important people. But we were blessed with an extraordinary group of people across the college in these early years. And , as an aside, I can say that the influence that Tim Pitkin, recently retired President of Goddard, had as well as the Goddard Low residency program (GEPFE) were instrumental in informing our approaches to learning and assessment.

In the field: Margery Walker, Clo Pitkin, Don Hooper (still living in Brookfield) and Tim Welch in CVT; Tom Yahn, Nancy Chard,  John Turner, Priscilla Newell in SEVT; Peggy Williams, Pixley Tyler Hill, and Kathi Rousselle (who also worked in The Newport office) in Franklin County; and John Findlay and his team in the NEK.

In the central office, Dot Hanna kept the books and I am sure that is one reason why we raised money. Funders had confidence that she wore the boots and would protect the money. She has passed, but her sister, Julia Northrup is still alive in Underhill. Other critical people were Ken Hood, Larry Daloz, Steve Hochschild, Dick Eisele, and Mary Wade.

John Holden (former commissioner of education who advised us), and later on Myrna Miller who brought professional grade assessment expertise to the college. The current chancellor, Tim Donovan, literally worked every position at the college, beginning at age 26 or so, and became a pillar of its later development.

Threats

Other than the continual search for dollars in the run up to state approval, and the general astonishment among many establishment people and educators that what we were doing was not higher education which led to constant harassment and attacks, There were three sources of threat through the first four-to-six years: University of Vermont College of Continuing Education, Lyndon State ( and more passively the other VSC), and private higher education in Vt.  UVMCE wanted our market, the other VSC wanted our money (federal and state), and the privates wanted us gone because they thought we were low quality. I can elaborate more on this if and when it is important. But the high point was a meeting with Gov. Salmon and UVM administrators in the governor’s office in which he warned them off a strategy that would have put us out of business. Luckily, I saw it for what it was, and we were able to stop it.  This was another completely fortuitous event.  If it were a different governor, it would have been a different outcome in all likelihood. Also, Graham Newell, a Lyndon State professor, had drafted the VSC authorizing legislation and chaired the Senate education committee. He was an ardent and persistent foe.

Development of the Academic Approach

Until the FIPSE and CAEL connections developed, we were flying by our own compass. We were outcomes -based because we know that without the traditional input measures — campus, faculty, library, etc.–we had to show results. The outside money bought us the time to get minimally good at this as well as the assessment of prior experiential learning that we could make the case. We were community-based so we drew on the brains of the community to structure our programs. etc.

Merger with the VSC and State Funding

A clever tactic embedded in a larger strategy.

1. I approached the Provost of the VSC, Bob Babcock, who I had known since birth (mine), and asked that he and his President’s council approve our courses as being of college level. He agreed and, from then on, we had regular reviews and approvals of all our courses.
2. We then approached the VSC to enter the system. I had read the statute and it was permissive. In other words they could add colleges when they wanted to. There was no requirement to petition the legislature and the governor for a charter. The logic was that, if the legislature and the governor wanted the college, they would fund it.  If not, they would not. There were three steps to this.

• First, the board appointed a commission chaired by Sister Elizabeth Candon, with members Frank Smallwood (I think), Ruth Page (board member) and Dick Wadhams. The Candon committee recommended that the VSC Board take us in, that what we were doing was post-secondary.
• Second, we were taken in conditionally. The deal was that if the legislature would fund us at $50k that year, that was approval and we would become members of the system.
• Third, we went to the legislature and, ultimately, the deal was done ad we got the $50K. The stories around this process are too numerous to even refer to here. But if you are interested, I can do them in person. The “near death” experiences were numerous and dire.

In the meantime, I had made liaison with a lot of the Agricultural Extension group, Bob Davidson at UVM and State Sen. Keith Wallace from Waterbury. So we had great support from some traditional sources.

There were three affiliations that made a huge difference for us.

Connecting to Out-of-state Networks

1. The FIPSE grant brought us money and connections.
2. CAEL, a new assessment group of which we were charter members. It was there that we, through Larry Daloz, began to develop a comprehensive approach to assessment.

Developing In-state Leadership Networks

1. The Candon Commission led to a network of influential people who, behind the scenes, kept making the case for what became CCV.