The college was established 62 years ago as a trailblazing learning laboratory, where a “girl could hang upside down from a tree in her bloomers if she felt like it,” according to one founder. There were no grades, few rules, a rich mix of performing arts and academia, and a rare abundance of pupil-teacher tutor time. Educators looked to Bennington as a bellwether in higher-ed innovation. But until now, it was never known for its corporate budget slashing. “Bennington is sending up a flare that says some institutions will take very bold steps to define their future,” says David Warren, of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
There is bold, and there is desperate. The American Council on Education found in a July report that 65 percent of the public institutions surveyed thought theft budgets were inadequate. Two thirds of all U.S. colleges have reorganized their administrations. The University of Pennsylvania eliminated three departments. The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., hiked tuition by 28 percent, and sliced adjuncts from the payroll. But Bennington’s radical solutions stand alone, so far.
President Elizabeth Coleman believes the draconian cuts will put the college in the black. The plan promises to cut its $25,800 tuition–one of the nation’s highest–by 10 percent in the next five years, and fill its roster with the 600 students it needs to break even. She also believes the plan will bring Bennington back to its roots. Academic departments, argues Coleman, are “centers of self-perpetuating power.” Eliminate them, and students may more freely float from one discipline to another.
In this view, eliminating tenure, too, is a liberating gesture. Professors who no longer publish, perform or paint are moribund, says Coleman. Replace tenure with five-year contracts, she maintains, and real change is possible. “There is a strong feeling that Bennington can reassert its position as a great innovator, not by changing things at the margin,” argues Coleman.
But many of the 27 fired faculty members-including full-time, nontenured and adjunct professors-believe this rhetoric is simply scorched-earth economics disguised as education reform. Coleman’s argument that all professors should be “teacher practitioners” does not jibe with reality. The original literature department, which once attracted such luminaries as W. H. Auden, was reduced to three. The foreign-language department was axed. Musicians were summarily eliminated. Gone are professors in flute, piano, cello, violin, guitar and clarinet. “Who will play the composer’s compositions?” asks one 20-year instrumentalist. “It’s like trying to run a baseball team with only an ump and a catcher.”
What it saved on teachers, the college may have to spend on lawyers. The dismissed faculty members are poised to sue for breach of contract. The American Association of University Professors is threatening to put Bennington on its censure list, which would make it difficult for the college to recruit quality instructors. The AAUP’s investigative team is expected to complete its probe by next spring.
That will be too late for some students. “My photography teacher was fired,” says Ramaa Mosely, a 22-year-old senior directing and photography major. “His love of the students and photography is blinding. If I had found out in April, there is a good chance I wouldn’t have come back.” Still, the rhetoric for revolution builds in college boardrooms. “Like a gambler or a poet, the place is in love with the risk,” writes trustee chair John W. Barr. “It is Bennington’s character to live on the edge.” There is on the edge, and then there is over the cliff.
Tuition room and board: $25,000
Student body: 450
Full-time faculty fire: 19.5
departments eliminated: All
Famous grads: Carol Channing, Jill Eisenstadt, Andrea Dworkin, Bvet Easton Ellis
