Vermont College of Fine Arts Is Looking for a Buyer or Partner

Vermont College of Fine Arts, the school that last year moved its residencies out of state and sold off most of the buildings on its 15-acre campus in Montpelier, is looking for a buyer or a partner.

Interim president Andrew Ramsammy, who joined the school in late December, said on Thursday that his goals are to raise enrollment and donations and to find another college that can strengthen VCFA at a time when many higher education institutions are closing their doors.
“I’m not looking beyond the horizon, which is to position VCFA for long-term sustainability and to truly find us a partner that would allow us to maintain our identity and keep our pedagogy and our faculty and the spirit of VCFA,” said Ramsammy, 46. “That’s what I am focused on 100 percent.”

Alumni, students and neighbors have been pressing the VCFA administration for information about its future since administrators announced in June 2022 that residencies would no longer take place at the Montpelier campus. Some complained heatedly that then-president Leslie Ward did not give staff or students adequate notice before moving the two yearly residencies to Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo.

VCFA holds its summer residencies there and has started holding its winter residencies at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa. Ramsammy attended the most recent one in Pennsylvania earlier this month, with all of VCFA's 280 students and staff.

Ramsammy, who lives and works in Arizona, said in an interview last Thursday that he’s committed to providing more information about VCFA’s plans and its challenges. He is holding a public meeting at the college on Wednesday, January 31, at 6 p.m. In a letter to the community on December 30, he pledged to provide updates then on campus building sales, enrollment figures and sustainability strategies.

Tavia Gilbert, one of the administration’s fiercest critics, said in an interview on Friday that she talked to Ramsammy on the phone for 45 minutes in December.

“I feel like the school is in better hands,” she said. “He will be a more communicative, more transparent leader. I wish them all the best.”

In the interview, Ramsammy didn’t downplay the challenges ahead for the 16-year-old school, which has about 235 full-time students. But he said there were “no immediate plans” to close it, and that it’s vital to keep the college’s administration in Montpelier in order to hold onto its accreditation.
"I want folks to see what we're trying to do, which is preserve VCFA through the long term," he said. "It was a hard decision to announce we're closing our campus, because there is a very strong connection to the campus and a sense of place. But as new students come in to VCFA, they are creating their own new experiences in Colorado, at Susquehanna."

The college has sold five of its Montpelier buildings and plans to sell two more. It is keeping only the striking College Hall, which faces a large green in a residential neighborhood on a hill.

VCFA is trying to survive in a difficult environment for higher education. Several small Vermont colleges have closed in the past few years, and Goddard College, a small alternative school that has been offering its classes online and at brief residencies on its campus in Plainfield, announced on January 19 that it will go online only in the coming academic year.

Last year, VCFA sold five of the campus buildings to the Greenway Center for Equity and Sustainability, a newly created nonprofit that offers sustainable engineering education. The New School of Montpelier, which provides special education services, has also purchased two buildings; a physical therapist bought another.

Greenway’s administrators have met with people who live or work nearby to allay their concerns and talk about what to expect, said Joe Castellano, who lives two blocks from campus. 

“All the neighbors have met with Greenway, and we’re all supportive,” Castellano said on Friday. “We even had a potluck.”

Some VCFA alumni questioned why Greenway is able to operate a school on the Montpelier campus if VCFA administrators say it's too expensive. Greenway started using the buildings in the fall for off-campus residencies, bringing in students from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

“So a college in Pennsylvania will use the buildings in Vermont while the Vermont College of Fine Arts sends their students to Pennsylvania,” was one reaction on a Facebook group for VCFA stakeholders. “Genius!”

VCFA is in debt, said Ramsammy, who has worked in corporate communications and the media, but the sale of the remaining buildings is expected to put it in the black. VCFA has no endowment. He thinks VCFA will be an attractive option to a buyer or a partner.

"There are advantages to our accreditation," he said. "There are things VCFA can do in terms of being able to teach students anywhere — we're not just limited to Vermont — which makes our accreditation and model and pedagogy very attractive."

Clarification, January 30, 2024: This post has been updated to reflect that Ramsammy is seeking a potential partner institution to help shore up VCFA.