After briefly trying to quell the crowd of chanting Burlington College students who surrounded her car Friday morning, the school’s president, Christine Plunkett — clearly flustered — told them what they wanted to hear: “OK, I resign! Happy?”
The students cheered, hugged one another and dispersed, allowing Plunkett to drive out of the parking lot.
“I do not believe Christine is resigning,” said the board chair, Yves Bradley, reached by phone after the meeting. Emphasizing that the board remains “in full support” of her, Bradley said he had not spoken to Plunkett since the students confronted her but had been apprised of the situation. “I think she was ambushed,” he said.
The college’s spokesperson, Coralee Holm, told reporters “I’m not confirming anything,” and she did not return phone calls later.
Approximately two dozen students had marched roughly one mile from the college to the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, where Plunkett and the Burlington College Board of Trustees were meeting. Before starting off, they’d walked the hallways of the school, trying to recruit professors to come with them. At least two did. “When 20 of them show up at your office door, it’s kind of hard to say no,” explained Piers Kaniuka, who chairs the college’s integral psychology program.
Stationing themselves at each of the chamber building’s four exits and chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Christine Plunkett’s got to go,” they waited for an hour until Plunkett and Holm came out the front doors a little after 11 a.m.
They followed her as she walked to her car, got in, and shut the door. Unable to back out of the parking lot because students were blocking her way, she opened her door and tried to schedule a time to meet with students at her office next week. “I’ve got a college to run,” she said in response to students demanding that she talk to them there.
Burlington College is facing financial problems that led a regional accreditation group to put the school on probation earlier this summer. Several weeks ago, a majority of the faculty and staff union and 68 members of the student union took separate votes of no confidence in Plunkett.
Students have criticized how Plunkett has run the school and the way she communicates with them, and they accuse her of creating a culture of fear among faculty and staff.
Mark Covino enrolled in Burlington College in 1999 and finished his degree in 2006 but stuck around to work in the film department. Walking down Battery Street with students, Covino said the financial situation and the tension between the administration and students has been damaging for the college. “Newer students are coming in and seeing this happen and it reflects poorly on the school,” he said, adding that “I think this could help. Shouting out is better than keeping quiet.”
Two first-year students — Benjamin Gilbert and Brittany Shearer — also joined the protest. Shearer had been surprised to learn of the college’s financial troubles — “I didn’t even know until orientation.” Gilbert said he saw something on Wikipedia about the college being put on probation.
Board chair Bradley said he was alarmed by the student demonstration and considered it counterproductive to the school’s efforts to recover from its financial problems. “It’s certainly a voice that needs to be heard but it should be constructive.” The president, he continued, “was confronted with an extremely difficult and aggressive situation.”
According to Bradley, “the board is doing everything it can to bring the situation under control” and it’s been “extraordinarily active in the day-to-day operations” of the school.
Students created the student union after disbanding the formally recognized student government in protest of faculty and staff layoffs that took place under Plunkett’s leadership last fall. Bradley sent a brief email to the student union after their vote, suggesting that they pursue formal recognition and attaching a copy of the board’s response to the faculty and staff, reiterating its support for Plunkett. Students say the board disregarded their opinion and they were protesting in a “demand to be heard.”
Friday marked the fifth day of fall semester classes at Burlington College.
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I hope all these kids are trustifarians, Plunkett has been forced into iron pants by jane Sanders and the Trustees who approved to transfer the endowment to Sanders as a going away parting gift for not producing on her promises and the liar loan at VEHBFA. Buying that property with no money downa nd no visible means of support just insider deals from Millionaires to control the property with the public being forced to assume the risk. It was a flim flam scam.
Pommerleau has stated the property development is too expensive for him to make money but now that Burlington College has pulled the firealarm ie they lied and failed. Too get seet polly pure bred out of Trouble or old plain jane we must demand more public money to improve the property sewers electrical hookups roads all to enrich BErnie and Ernie at the expnse of the rest of us Muppets.
Same as it ever was Tony Pommerelau knows it pays to keep a politician on his payroll and on a short leash.
Once the public paid for the down payment and next the improvemnts and permits he stands to make a few million on his Sanders connection..
Come January the federal loans and pell grant money will dry up for these kids, who have misplaced anger shouting and attacking Ms. Plunkett. How is she supposed to run when it was Jane Sanders greed that bankrupt the college and cut her legs from under her.
The kids should be asking why Jane Sanders didn’t move the soap dishes the Diocese had mounted on the floor of the showers in their dorms???
Walt,
Your history of this situation is spot on. Now that there’s a vacancy, maybe Jane Sanders will come back to the College and actually earn the money she’s getting paid, by meeting with the students and explaining to them why she trashed their college.
As for these students of social justice, have they contemplated how this insider deal that Sanders cooked up with his millionaire and billionaire buddies will affect the VICTIMS OF CHILDHOOD RAPE by the priests and nuns at the Burlington Diocese??
It is my understanding that the victims were to be paid from the proceeds of the sale of the property.
If and when the college goes bankrupt the Dioceses default s on their obligation to pay the victims. is that Social justice will my tax dollars not only bankroll millionaires development dreams of picking the last waterfront plum in Burlington, financed with no money down liar loan using public backstopped bonds. But now I am forced to support the child rapists too??
There are only two kinds of people in this world those that think it is okay to support raping children and the rest of us.
The Diocese has made their position clear in their support of the molesters. What is social justice kids or did you skip that meeting too?
This college deal has devolved into nothing more than land development deal for Bernie Sanders cronies to profit while feeding at the public trough.
There will be no gain for the local taxpayer or the city workers who are waiting for the pensions to be paid.
Why would the Dioceses not sell to the highest bidder to pay out the victims of child Rape why does Pommerleau a 97 year old multimillionaire not settle the bill for the victims he cant take it with him. Maybe he is planning on buying his way out of hell.