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Woodruff Hall at Castleton College. Wikipedia image.
Castleton State College is on its way to becoming Castleton University.
At a committee meeting of the Vermont State Colleges’ Board of Trustees on Thursday, the hoped-for name change proposal was unanimously approved.
That proposal now advances from the the Long-Range Planning Committee to the full VSC board, which will vote on it at the next full board meeting on July 23.
The committee passed a three-part resolution that includes consideration of a name change for the VSC system overall, approval of the Castleton University name change and a new commitment to ensuring that the Vermont State Colleges function as “a comprehensive, cohesive, inter-connected system with multiple distinct institutions.”
The resolution is on page 39 of the board’s materials from Thursday’s meeting.
At the last meeting of the committee a consensus was reached in support of the name change in concept, but Jerome Diamond, the committee chair, said there were lingering questions about the unintended consequences associated with the Castleton name change. Diamond asked the chancellor to provide a question-and-answer sheet to deal with questions from the public.
Trustee Churchill Hindes said there will be consequences “that we cannot anticipate yet” and constituents might ask “‘What were you knuckleheads thinking?’”
The fact that the word ‘State’ is being dropped from the name, if approved next week, may raise questions, Hindes said.
“I think what people are going to ask, and I’ve heard some of it already, is does this mean Castleton is going independent, out of the system? I think that would be a concern that people would have,” said Jeb Spaulding, chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges.
Spaulding said the change will support Castleton’s evolution, and the evolution of the system as a whole.
David Wolk, the president of Castleton, explained that the name change is part of a plan to increase enrollments at the school, which is located near Rutland.
“We’re hoping for an ability to attract more international students, and that’s already started for us, and we’re hoping for more out-of-state students given the decline that’s happening in Vermont,” he said.
Two higher-education experts, who spoke to the board recently cautioned that international students may not be drawn to the school by a name change.
Wolk insisted Castleton is poised to welcome more international students.
“We’ve had two trips to China this year, one by the academic dean and one by the admissions dean,” Wolk said. “We’re already seeing more students. So if you’re very thoughtful and you have a well-planned approach, you’re going to have success.” He said that a dozen Chinese teachers were at Castleton taking courses in a special education masters’ program, and there has been general uptick in enrollment.
“The doors are open as we become a university,” said Wolk.
Wolk said, “We have a presence in India,” and there is outreach to parts of Europe, Peru, Canada and more. “We fly the flags of about 25 countries in the foyer, and we want to increase that.”
Some faculty and staff at Castleton have not felt part of the process; an anonymous letter expressing that concern was circulated to members of the Vermont media last week.
Wolk said there may be “a handful of people who feel like they should have a vote, but we have had polite discussions about this,” and the faculty and staff have been engaged multiple times over a period of several years.
“I feel like we’ve conducted this effort in the last few years in a very respectful way,” said Wolk.
Hindes said he would be watching the enrollment figures carefully, “and (assuring) that the enrollment does not come at the expense of Johnson and Lyndon,” the other two state colleges in the system.
Spaulding warned that it may be hard to know what enrollment fluctuations are related to.
The Vermont State College system also includes the Vermont Technical College and the Community College of Vermont.
Read the story on VTDigger here: VSC planning committee advances Castleton State College name change.