Goddard College
Goddard College was a private college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle. The college offered undergraduate and graduate degree programs. With predecessor institutions dating to 1863, Goddard College was founded in 1938 as an experimental and non-traditional educational institution based on the idea that experience and education are intricately linked.
For many years, Goddard College provided a mix of residential, low-residency, and distance-learning programs. Its intensive low-residency model was first developed for its MFA in Creative Writing Program in 1963.
In April 2024, Goddard announced that the college would close at the end of the spring semester, due to financial issues and a decline in enrollment. The college was accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
History
Goddard College began in 1863 in Barre, Vermont, northeast of Middlebury as the Green Mountain Central Institute. In 1870, it was renamed Goddard Seminary in honor of and his wife Mary. Goddard was a prominent merchant in Boston, and was one of the school's earliest and most generous benefactors.Founded by Universalists, Goddard Seminary was originally a four-year preparatory high school, primarily affiliated with Tufts College in eastern Massachusetts. For many years the seminary prospered. Many public high schools opening in the 20th century made many of the private New England academies obsolete. Attempting to save it, the trustees added a Junior College to the seminary in 1935, with a seminary graduate, Royce S. "Tim" Pitkin, as president.
In 1936, under his leadership, the seminary concluded that for Goddard to survive, an entirely new institution would need to be created. Many educators and laymen agreed with him. Pitkin was supported by Stanley C. Wilson, former governor of Vermont and chairman of the Goddard Seminary Board of Trustees; Senators George Aiken and Ralph Flanders; and Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Pitkin persuaded the board of trustees to embrace a new style of education, one substituting individual attention, democracy, and informality for the traditionally austere and autocratic educational model. On March 13, 1938, Goddard College was chartered. In July 1938 the newly formed Goddard College moved to Greatwood Farm in Plainfield, Vermont.
The new Goddard was an experimental and progressive college. For its first 21 years of operation, Goddard was unaccredited and small, but it built a reputation as one of the most innovative colleges in the country. Especially noteworthy was Goddard's use of discussion as the basic method in classroom teaching; its emphasis on the whole lives of students in determining personal curricula; its incorporation of practical work into the life of every student; and its development of the college as a self-governing learning community in which everyone had a voice.
In 1959 Goddard College was accredited. One of the founding principles of Goddard was to provide educational opportunities for adults. There was a great need for a program for adults who had not completed college, to obtain degrees without disrupting their family lives or careers. The Adult Degree Program, created by Evalyn Bates, was established in 1963. It was the first low-residency adult education program in the country. Over the years many experimental programs were designed at Goddard. The programs included the Goddard Experimental Program for Further Education, Design Build Program, Goddard Cambridge Program for Social Change, Third World Studies Program, Institute for Social Ecology, Single Parent Program and many others.
Based on its use of narrative transcripts instead of traditional letter grades, as well as learner-designed curricula, Goddard was among the founding members of the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities.
In 2002, after 54 years, the college terminated its residential undergraduate degree program and became an exclusively low-residency college. In 2005, the college expanded to the West Coast and established a residency site in Port Townsend, Washington. In July 2011 Goddard began to offer their non-licensure education program in Seattle.
Goddard was placed on probation in 2018 by the New England Commission of Higher Education because of a perceived " stability of executive leadership" and concerns about the college's financial resources. The probation was lifted in 2020 after the college satisfied the commission that it had rectified those issues. In January 2024, Goddard announced that it would temporarily end its low-residency programs in favor of online learning.
Goddard College closed at the end of the spring semester in 2024, due to a precipitious decline in enrollment from 1,900 in the 1970s to less than 250 in 2024. The main campus in Plainfield was put up for sale and in late May was announced to be under contract at a price of $3.4 million to an undisclosed buyer. A group of alumni and townspeople organized to attempt to block the sale. In early July 2024 the school announced it was for sale again, with no explanation of what had happened with the previous deal. On August 2, 2024, the college announced plans to sell the campus to a local group, the Greatwood Project, formed by college alumni and former faculty.
Campuses
Main campus, Greatwood: Plainfield, Vermont
The campus in Plainfield was founded in 1938 on the grounds of a late 19th-century model farm: The Greatwood Farm & Estate consisted of shingle-style buildings and gardens designed by Arthur Shurcliff. The Village of Learning, consisted of eleven dormitory buildings, was built adjacent to the ensemble of renovated farm buildings in 1963 to accommodate an increasing student population. The Pratt Center & Library, designed to be at the heart of a larger campus, was constructed in 1968. No other significant new construction were added after 1968.On March 7, 1996, the Greatwood campus was recognized for its historic and architectural significance by its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, Washington campus
A U.S. Army post from 1902 to 1953, much of the fort was renovated and adapted as a year-round, multi-use facility dedicated to lifelong learning. It housed several organizations which comprise Fort Worden State Park. The fort was on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Admiralty Inlet near Port Townsend, Washington.Columbia City, Seattle campus
The MA in Education program, originally held in the Plainfield-based low-residency program, expanded in 2011 into Columbia City, a neighborhood in southeastern Seattle.The program trained students in bilingual preschool education. Students focused on areas such as intercultural studies, dual language, early childhood, cultural arts, and community education, and created their plan of studies for each semester. The program was designed to serve students who could not leave their families and communities for the residency.
Academics
Each Goddard student designed their own curriculum in accordance with their program's degree criteria. In addition to fulfilling academic criteria in the subjects of the arts, the humanities, mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences, undergraduate students needed to demonstrate critical thinking and writing, understanding of social and ecological contexts, positive self-development, and thoughtful action within their learning processes.The college used a student self-directed, mentored system in which faculty issue narrative evaluations of student's progress instead of grades. The intensive low-residency model required that students come to campus every six months for approximately eight days. During this period, students engaged in a variety of activities and lectures from early morning until late in the evening, and created detailed study plans. During the semester, students studied independently, sending in "packets" to their faculty mentors every few weeks.
When low-residency education began at Goddard, packets were made up of paper documents sent via the mail. Since advances in the internet and related technology, in the 21st century most packets were sent electronically. They contained artwork, audio files, photography, video and web pages, in addition to writing. The schedule and format of these packets differed from program to program, and content varied with each student-faculty correspondence. The focus was generally on research, writing, and reflection related to each student's individualized study plan.
At regular intervals students compiled their work into "learning portfolios" to submit as part of a Progress Review before a cross-program board of faculty. The board ensured that all students' work was in compliance with the college's degree criteria. Undergraduates had to complete a yearlong Senior Study, accompanied by final graduating presentations of work, before being awarded a degree.