The books being kept would be the most popular ones and those deemed “academically valuable.” A few part-time librarians would be kept on as well. Administrators said about half of all items in the library had never been checked out or even used. It said it would keep about 10 percent of the 300,000 books housed in the three campuses libraries. Then, in early March, the administration modified its plans. The sports plans would have moved Northern Vermont’s programs from the NCAA to the smaller United States Collegiate Athletic Association and dropped Vermont Technical’s teams from the USCAA.īoth moves sparked almost immediate controversy.Įight days after the email announcing the change, the faculty voted no confidence in then-President Parwinder Grewal, the board, and the system chancellor. While its advice wouldn’t be binding, the committee was expected to issue recommendations on what to do with the libraries as the merger took place. In February, system leaders announced plans to transform the new university’s libraries into all-digital entities, get rid of the physical books, and lay off seven full-time and three part-time librarians.įaculty, staff, and students felt blindsided, said Linda Olson, a professor at Castleton University and faculty union official, largely because a transformation committee of faculty and staff put together by the university had been working on a plan for the libraries that would have made them digital-first and kept some, but not all, of the librarian’s jobs. The new institution was tasked with finding ways to cut costs. (As of this winter, it stood at $25 million.) But the state rejected that proposal, gave emergency funding to the system, and blessed a merger of the same three campuses. In 2020, just after the pandemic began, the Vermont State Colleges system recommended closing the three rural campuses as an answer to a staggering budget deficit. But the state-colleges system had been in turmoil for longer. The distractions began in early February, with a surprising announcement about libraries and sports at the new institution. I will find a way to not make those a distraction.” The board and the chancellor’s office asked me to pause those and come back with recommendations. ![]() “There is no doubt been distracting and taken away from the main goal. “My goal is to keep the goal of transformation and not get distracted,” Smith said then. On Friday - his first day in office - he told The Chronicle he wanted to minimize distractions. In making the moves, Smith was also following through on his plans for his tenure. (Dec.In wiping out the two policies, which caused considerable angst and protest among faculty, staff, and students, Smith did what he promised as he stepped in to lead the institution that will, starting July 1, combine Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College. Auden, among others, will find Lindop's book an informative and accessible introduction. Readers interested in learning more about a writer whose work was highly regarded by T.S. Lindop does a masterful job of relating Williams's expansive bibliography to his intellectual passions and his messy personal life, which was frequently complicated by platonic love affairs with the young female coworkers he mentored. A tireless workaholic, Williams also wrote novels, plays, essays, tracts, and reams of verse in his spare time, much of it steeped in Christian theology and concerned with the relationship between the spiritual and the sexual%E2%80%94what he referred to as "the Church system and the love system." Williams's complex, original vision brought him to the attention of Lewis in 1936 and made him a perfect fit with Lewis's circle of fellow academics and writers. Williams's formal education ended at 17, but he read omnivorously and rose rapidly at Oxford University Press from proofreader to editor. Tolkien%E2%80%94fellow members of the Oxford-based literary group the Inklings%E2%80%94but he gets his due in this exhaustively researched biography from Lindop (Travels on the Dance Floor). Williams was overshadowed in the years following his death in 1945 by C.S.
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