Report on a Comprehensive Evaluation of Bennington College Bennington, Vermont
Date
1999-11
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Abstract
At Bennington College events are measured from the date of the Symposium Report
of the Bennington Trustees, issued in June, 1994. That report represented a dramatic
and courageous attempt on the part of the President and the Trustees to acknowledge
the serious financial and educational crisis that the college faced to rediscover the
college's core values. and to take the bold and difficult steps that they believed to be
necessary to set the college on course again.
This visiting team arrived on campus just over five years after the publication of the
Symposium Report. Our visit comes three years after the last (focused) visit to the
college by a NEASC team, which occurred in April, 1996. That team described its
visit as similar to "arriving in a town a couple of years after a major earthquake.
Recollection of the shock, and of the after-shocks, has begun to fade, but the features
of the landscape bear little resemblance to those described by previous visitors." The
college was still in crisis, but the team found everywhere the determination to rebuild
and prosper.
Our team finds a Bennington that has been pulled back from the brink. The events
surrounding the Symposium Report. although still referred to almost continually, have
assumed a new position as historical marker rather than descriptor of an ominous.
hovering cloud. Everywhere in the college we find a new vigor. a new confidence.
and an eagerness to look to the future. Enrollments are climbing. Students and faculty
members arc participating with enthusiasm and commitment in a new process that will
structure the students' educational experiences. Fundraising has been markedly
successful. New administrative structures are in place designed to move the college
into the future in efficient and effective ways. Plans are underway to build three ne\\.
dormitories next year. In very real ways the bold steps called for in the Symposium
Report have paid off: the college can and should feel immense pride and sense of
accomplishment in the progress it has made in the last five years. We have found a
stronger, more vibrant Bennington than has been the case for many years.
That said, the college leadership is quick to acknowledge, and the team believes
strongly, that Bennington is still far from being in a "business as usual" mode. The
college's financial situation is still cause for serious concern; its very future depends
fundamentally upon its continuing ability to meet ambitious enrollment projections. its
ability to increase still further its fundraising, and its ability to continue to apply
stringent budgetary constraints in the face of ongoing needs for "catch-up"
expenditures. The college is essentially "betting the farm" on enrollments, even to the
extent of assuming large increased debt for the projected new dormitories, and it does
not have much latitude in its requirement to meet its projected increases. So we find a college that is in a much improved but still vulnerable position. As
well, we find a college in which the structures and processes of decision-making,
planning, and budgeting are in many instances those of an institution in crisis.
Examples of this include a concentration of decision making in the President's Office
and a planning process closely linked to recent and current financial constraints. These
modes of operation may be argued to be necessary for an institution in crisis, and they
seem to have served Bennington well over the past several years. Now, however, with
the college's position beginning to strengthen, it will be important for increased
attention to be given to opportunities for responsibly shared governance, and to the
developmcnt of planning processes and structures that are more proactive and
systematically comprehensive, and that gather and use carefully collected institutional
data to inform decision making.
As we progress through this report using the structure of the Standards for
Accreditation. We will attempt to elaborate on the statements made in the preceding
paragraphs and on the major challenges that we believe that college faces at this
pivotal point in its history.
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Keywords
NEASC, Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, New England Association of Schools and Colleges