Open Letter from current VCFA students
On July 1st, 2022, currently enrolled students from multiple graduate fine arts programs at VCFA emailed President Ward and the Board of Trustees with a request to provide answers.
A copy of the email and open letter are below.
Date: Fri, Jul 1, 2022 at 1:36 PM
Subject: Open Letter from VCFA Current Students
Dear Leslie, David, and members of the board of trustees,
Please see the attached open letter from currently enrolled students. A copy also follows below the signature as text. Thank you for your time and attention.
Sabrina Resnick
July 1st, 2022
An Open Letter to Vermont College of Fine Arts President Leslie Ward, Vice President David Markow, Chairman Goldstein, Vice-Chair Carvelli, and Members of the Board of Trustees,
As students currently enrolled in Vermont College of Fine Arts’s graduate programs, we are writing to express our dissatisfaction and profound disappointment with your announcement that VCFA will be shuttering its buildings, severing its historical ties to Montpelier, and permanently halving and relocating in-person residencies to Colorado College. We implore you to pause this sudden, unilateral decision. This decision was reached without the input of all affected stakeholders, including the current student body, and represents a flagrant violation of the College’s own Statement on Community Values:
We believe that everyone should have access to the opportunities and tools for expression and communication afforded by the fine arts, and that society is best served when all voices are heard and valued.
Please fulfill your obligations as responsible stewards of our tuition dollars and trust to engage us in a fair and open conversation about VCFA’s future.
We were promised in-person residencies at the campus in Montpelier, Vermont (when COVID restrictions allowed). The decision to move residencies to Colorado Springs will impact the majority of students’ ability to attend in-person residencies. Students who chose VCFA for its location will be forced to travel at personal expense to a new campus approximately 2,000 miles away.
Students that have already incurred the expense of completing their first year at VCFA are in a particularly difficult position. Who among us has the ability to transfer institutions or to walk away from a degree we have already invested tens of thousands of dollars into? Simply put, this makes us vulnerable.
This announcement marks a fundamental and potentially irreversible shift in the brand, identity, and value of a VCFA graduate degree. To represent this change as though there is minimal impact is disingenuous. To treat student, faculty, or alumnx concerns as being inappropriate or somehow illegitimate is to ignore the very individuals whose interests you claim to serve.
You say that this decision was not driven by immediate financial reasons. If not, then what is the urgency? Why not delay it so that the program is not fundamentally altered mid-flight for us? If you proceed with this plan as announced without giving current students a meaningful say in the future course of our institution, then it is our position that VCFA was marketed to us under false pretenses. We would not have enrolled if we knew such life-altering decisions could or would be made without our input.
We have many questions regarding our specific programs and individual needs that have gone unanswered as of yet. We call upon you to answer these questions directly and honestly and to reconsider your decision in the wake of its negative impact on us and the entire VCFA community.
Yours respectfully,
Sabrina Resnick, Visual Arts ‘23
Alyssa Karis, Visual Arts ‘23
Biaina Nazari, Visual Arts ‘23
Susan Snipes, Visual Arts ‘24
Margaret Mason, Writing for Children and Young Adults ‘24
Kathryn Amato, Writing for Children and Young Adults ‘22
Leslie Singer, Visual Arts ‘23
Jackie Carpenter, Visual Arts ‘23
Kayla Heikkinen, Visual Arts ‘23
Jamie Zimchek, Visual Arts ‘24
Dominic Bucca, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘22, Creative Writing, ‘18
Leah Byck, Visual Arts, Summer ‘22
Sarah E Brown Visual Arts ‘W24
Jessica Robles, Graphic Design 23
Thalia Stafford, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘23
Jennifer McKiernan, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘24
Alex Morris, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘23
Emilie McDonald, Film, ‘23
Lexi Reed, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘23
Tim Hastings, Film, ‘23
Rob Wendt, Music Composition, ‘24
Patricia Flam, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘24
Shannon Cleere, Visual Arts ‘24
Maha Haddad, Film, ‘23
Megan Brady, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘24
Victoria Ramos, Music Composition ’23
K. Kauakanilehua Adams, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘24
Hannah Hyunju Ban, Writing for Children and Young Adults, ‘24
Daniel S. Gil, Music Composition 22’