Students submit update to Vermont Attorney General Complaint
On February 22, 2023, current MFA students at Vermont College of Fine Arts submitted an update to their initial complaint to the Vermont Attorney General dated November 19, 2022. A copy of the submitted update is available below.
February 22, 2023
Honorable Madame Attorney General,
On November 16, 2022, Vermont College of Fine Arts student and donor constituents submitted a complaint regarding potential illegal conduct and violations of Vermont Statutes committed by the college’s Board of Trustees. Since the filing of our original complaint, President Ward’s and the Board of Trustees’ failed leadership continues to affect the execution of VCFA’s Mission and its stated responsibilities to staff, faculty, and students. This letter seeks to update the Attorney General on events that have taken place since the submission of our original complaint.
The Attorney General’s Guidelines for 501(c)3 board members state that board members have a responsibility to fulfill legal duties, further the Mission of the organization, and act in accordance with Vermont Law. We believe that the VCFA Board continues to act contrary to its responsibility to ensure that the organization follows its Mission, and to ensure that the college has sufficient internal structures to protect its assets and employees.
VCFA has prided itself as a low-residency program located in Montpelier, Vermont. As a reminder, the college’s stated Mission is:
Mission
Anchored on its historic campus in Montpelier, Vermont College of Fine Arts is a global community of artists continuously redefining what it means to be an arts college…
Students come to Vermont College of Fine Arts for our rigorous course of study, our emphasis on the creative process, and the opportunity to work closely with award-winning faculty who advance and inspire their work. Our unique low-residency programs bring students and faculty together on our historic campus for intense and invigorating residencies…
Since our initial complaint, concerns that President Ward and the VCFA Board of Trustees have not upheld their Legal Duty of Care and Legal Duty of Loyalty have only increased. As it relates to Legal Duty of Care, the Board continues to thwart transparency and exclude constituents from the decision-making process, creating detrimental conditions that have led to considerable employee attrition and threats to student enrollment.
In the months following the June 2022 announcement that VCFA would be leaving its historic Montpelier campus, Program Directors from four out of six of VCFA’s programs have resigned - including Graphic Design, Writing, Film, and Visual Arts. The loss of leadership and associated historical knowledge has been extremely disruptive to individual programs, and especially onerous for faculty at a time when major programmatic and pedagogical changes have been announced.
The destabilizing effects of losing four Program Directors to the institution have been further impacted by a staggering rate of employee attrition. Over the last 14 months, approximately 50% of all VCFA’s faculty and staff administrative leaders have left the college. In 2022, half of the faculty and staff who left did so after the announced move to Colorado.
In addition to the resignations of several long-term core faculty members, critical administrative leadership positions have also been vacated, including the Director of Student Recruitment, the Director of Information Technology, the Associate Director of Admissions for Visual Art and Film, the Assistant Director of Visual Art, the Program Assistant for Writing, the Program Assistant for Graphic Design, the Director of Marketing, the Website and Publications Manager, the Digital Marketing Campaign Manager, the Social Media & Video Content Manager, the Director of the Center for Arts and Social Justice (recently refilled by and Interim Director of the Center for Arts and Social Justice, then vacated when that Director was promoted, currently hiring) and the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (recently refilled by an Assistant Dean for Equity & Inclusion in Teaching & Learning) have been vacated. (See VCFA Faculty and Staff Attrition).
This exodus of skilled experience and institutional memory has left the college without mission critical faculty and staff leaders. Admissions, recruitment, and marketing – essential operational components for maintaining a continuous pipeline of qualified students – have all been deeply affected.
The Board has further failed to meet its Legal Duty of Loyalty by moving forward with plans that threaten the college’s Mission to provide low-residency MFA programs in historic Montpelier, Vermont. In our original complaint, we raised concerns about the Board’s pursuit of zoning amendments and a mixed-use residential zoning designation to qualify for Tax Incremental Financing as part of a plan to sell campus properties. Constituents learned that the Montpelier TIF District was dissolved in November 2022. On December 5, 2022, the college submitted a Property Development Application to the City of Montpelier to continue its plans to sell campus properties. (See article on Dissolution of Montpelier TIF District, and City of Montpelier Development Application.)
On February 14, 2023, constituents learned that three of the campus properties: Martin House, the Crowley Center, and Gary Library are under contract with 150 Main Street LLC which plans to turn the properties into a health and wellness center. The Board’s pending sale of three campus properties for a spa facility not only fails to support or align with the Mission of the college, but it threatens the very existence of critical facilities essential for campus operations. In addition to the part that such a sale implies towards the Board’s Legal Duty of Loyalty, we also question the legality of the sale of the Crowley Center, which was financed with donations to a non-profit and is now being sold to a for-profit entity. VCFA leadership has refused to disclose the sales price, but if that price is less than the original cost to build Crowley, then a for-profit entity is benefitting from non-profit contributions.
On February 17th , constituents also learned that the VCFA Board of Trustees withdrew its Public Use Development Application from the City of Montpelier in response to significant concerns from neighbors and the surrounding community. Even though the Board has been unsuccessful in its pursuit of zoning amendments and acquiring a mixed-use residential zoning designation related to Tax Incremental Financing, and in its bid to secure special use and amended zoning permits through the City of Montpelier, they have made it clear that they will push ahead with their asset conveyance plan at any cost. The Board of Trustees has abdicated its legal responsibility to further the Mission of the college in accordance with Vermont law. The Board continues to mislead faculty, students, and alumnx about the urgency and due-diligence research behind the need to sell the campus. At no time was the dissolution of the TIF District, or the subsequent development application to the City of Montpelier communicated to constituents. Consequently, the Board has provided no opportunity for constituent input, much less any opportunity to pause and collaboratively reevaluate the best way to proceed. The Board refuses to consider or discuss any alternatives to vacating and selling the campus with the college’s constituents and is singularly focused on shuttering the Montpelier campus in favor of re-locating all Masters programs (along with unsuspecting faculty and students) to alternative locations in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Each day that passes allows the President and the Board to move forward with their plans to dismantle one of the most prestigious fine arts graduate colleges in the country. Their careless leadership not only threatens the Mission and legacy of the institution, it does so in a manner that ignores and neglects their responsibilities of Legal Duty of Care and Legal Duty of Loyalty. We implore you to take immediate action and intercede on behalf of faculty, students, staff, alumnx and local community members whose trust has been betrayed, and remove and replace the college’s Board of Trustees and its current President, Leslie Ward.