The Council of Presidents – Sophie Zdatny, Pat Moulton, Joyce Judy, Tom Mauhs-Pugh, and John Mills – wish each of you a happy New Year. It was a busy and intense time over the last several weeks of the Fall semester, and we hope you were able to take some time to be with friends and family, recharge, and prepare for 2022.
As we begin the new year, it is a time of transition for our transformation work as well. In December, our Student Experience and Academic Operations teams completed the initial Discovery Stage, and over the next several months they will take what was learned and begin to do detailed design work to bring to life the mission and vision of the new institution, Vermont State University. It is through this design work that many of the questions to which you are seeking answers will emerge.
It was important that we took the time for Discovery before jumping into Design. It was through this process that the teams learned a great deal about how each of our institutions serve our students. We talked about what is working, what is not working, and explored best practices from others that can inform the direction we want to go. The discovery work done by the Student Experience and Academic Operations teams also served as a catalyst for the Council of Presidents to reflect more deeply on the new mission and vision of Vermont State University. The work helped to clarify our thinking about an operational vision and how the new university’s institutional mission and vision are brought to life. This clarification will guide the teams as we begin the work of the Design Stage. We would like to share some of this emerging direction that has been provided to the transformation teams but, first, it may be helpful to revisit why we are doing this work.
The Context of the World We Live In
Over the last decade, higher education across the country has been going through rapid and wrenching changes brought on by shifts in student demographics, societal attitudes about the value of higher education, the needs of employers, economic circumstances, and the expanding capabilities of technology. Many smaller institutions around us have had to close their doors as enrollments declined and the economic challenges became insurmountable. These pre-existing trends were accelerated and intensified by COVID which forced us to react quickly, changing the ways we provide a quality education and student experience while also seeking to keep all members of our communities safe. There are many things we did on-the-fly as stop gap measures to respond to the crisis that we have not been sorry to see go as life returned to campus, and yet the challenges of the pandemic also introduced new technology, capabilities, and expectations that have helped to transform how higher education institutions are thinking about the future.
Looking to the Future
The Vermont State Colleges, as a system, together with each of our individual institutions, have not been immune to the pressures facing higher education. Our own challenges with declining enrollments and long history of inadequate state support have resulted in the need to transform the way we do things, to be more efficient, and able to invest in the programs, infrastructure, and capabilities that will ensure we can continue to serve the needs of Vermonters and the communities where we live.
We are fortunate that the State has stepped up as our partner in this work. While challenging us to consolidate and transform, they have come forward with significant resources to bridge the budget gap and fund the enormous, complex, and expensive work of Transformation. We will continue to need increased financial support from the State as we work through the transition over the next several years and we will be able to show them the progress we are making and a plan for how we will get where we are going.
As we look to the future, we are excited by the potential of what we will become through this transformation. Our Discovery work has confirmed for us the unique value, culture, and character that each of our institutions brings to Vermont State University, and we are discovering the complementary strengths and the common threads that will help us to come together and be even stronger. Unlike many of our peer institutions without the capacity or will to respond, our state-funded transformation initiatives are allowing us to construct Vermont State University in a way that will serve the higher education needs of Vermont and Vermonters into the coming decades.
To do this effectively, we must continue to examine who it is we are trying to serve. We need to preserve our strengths while also doing things differently, in ways that are more efficient and provide better student outcomes and provide an unparalleled student experience to all our students at an acceptable cost to them.
Our Operational Vision
As in other parts of the country, the population of students engaged in higher education in Vermont is changing. See generally Today’s Students Research – Advance Vermont, Vermont’s Higher Education Goals (Lumina Foundation), and Complete College America. Across our universities, more than a third of our students can be described as non-traditional, which means that they have one or more characteristics that differentiate them from what we think of as traditional college students. They are 25 or older, are financially independent, have children or families, work full time jobs, commute to campus, or study part time. We will continue to have a large group of students seeking an on-campus residential experience and we aim to continue offering a traditional campus experience to those seeking it; but consistent with the mission and vision of Vermont State University, we must be equipped to serve all our students. All students, regardless of their location, also have increasing expectations for how we use technology to enable learning and provide the services and support they will need to succeed.
Our vision for what this means at Vermont State University is that this new institution should be the first truly hybrid university, providing a high-quality education across all our campuses and across the state, regardless of which location a student chooses. Some elements of what it means to be a hybrid university are well described in a report called “The Hybrid Campus: Three Major Shifts for the Post-COVID University” (The Deloitte Center for Higher Education Excellence and Strada Education Network, 2021).
While the word “hybrid” may be scary or negative to some who see it as code for a learning experience that feels impersonal and disconnected, that is not what is intended. The idea is to use technology to provide the capacity and capability to deliver the personal one-on-one and group interactions that are so important to the relationship-based educational and transformative learning experiences that we all believe in. At the same time, providing these programs, experiences, and services in a hybrid way allows us to expand access to the high-quality and personalized education to more people across Vermont and beyond. This is not limited to instruction. Hybrid models for advising, health supports, financial aid, tutoring, and more are being adopted by colleges and universities across the country and their use is increasingly expected by students and their families
We can build on what we have learned about working and studying remotely during the pandemic to increase flexibility in our delivery of student-facing services. For example, this might mean holding virtual office hours for students to accommodate those who cannot meet in-person on campus. It could also mean offering telehealth services to supplement campus health centers, as well as providing student support services, such as academic advising, tutoring, financial aid counseling, etc., both in-person and virtually.
How we Will Get There
We are already providing a mix of programs and courses in a variety of learning modalities, and student options for hybrid, face-to-face, and online will continue to expand as faculty finalize the programs that will be offered at Vermont State University. As we build out our student services and support, we are taking a “digital first” perspective to ensure consistent quality and access for students across all locations and modalities. This does not mean every interaction will be digital, but rather even face-to-face services will have an online equivalent or a “digital front door” that allows for universal access and provides student flexibility. Over the next several months we will be working across our teams to design the processes, services, and systems that will help us to bring the new university to life in time for the arrival of students in Fall of 2023.
What This Vision Means for You
Despite the significant changes we have described, things will not change completely overnight. It will take several years to fully enact our shared vision. Even after the launch of the new university in 2023, we will continue to invest in the new systems, staff, and capabilities that will be needed to get where we are going. Your continued engagement and input as we continue to problem solve and design the new University is essential. Together, we can meet this challenge by keeping the needs of our students at the center of all that we do. We will be broadening our engagement with additional students, faculty, and staff as we dig into the design work, and we encourage you to continue engaging with transformation team members on your campuses to offer input, seek answers to your questions, and hear about what is being planned.