Date |
Message/Communication |
From Who?
To Who? |
10/11/2007 |
Summary: Communication from Office of the Dean of Graduate Programs to PIM’s and MAT announcing multiple lunch sessions for information and input regarding proposed changes. Dates included 10/25, 10/30, 10/31, 11/5 and 11/9.
Many students noted it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be, that it was a session in which Provost(Adam Weinberg) and Dean of Education(Marla Soloman) asked students for introductions and asked them to highlight their reasons for coming to SIT. One student said “it wasn’t what it was titled” and mentioned that “it ended up being Adam asking us about SIT and why we like it” |
From: Office of the Dean of Graduate Programs(Jennifer Travis)
To: PIM’s and MAT’s |
10/25/2007 |
Summary: An online survey was placed on the www.sit.edu website asking questions to visitors about future program. Questions asked about their interests in field based programs and multi-site programs, multiple additional concentrations, program size, and location of field-based.
Results were used in the strategic planning process. |
From: SIT Office of the Dean of Graduate Programs
To: Future Students |
12/15/2007 |
MAT faculty proposed new program models, after 13 months of planning. |
From: MAT Faculty
To: Provost (Adam Weinberg) Dean of Education (Marla Soloman) |
12/20/2007 to 01/21/2008 |
Winter Break, students are off campus |
|
01/10/2008 |
Meeting between Provost(Adam Weinberg) and MAT Faculty
Summary: The majority of the MAT students were out of the country on internships, and many professors were away supervising. Administration presented faculty with an underwhelming amount of information; the details included nothing from the proposals made by MAT professors and lacked a fluid financial model. The proposals by the MAT faculty were made during 13 months of planning, the MAT faculty believed that their efforts would lead to an improvement and scaling up of their programs. Unexpectedly, the Administration presented them with an alternative plan. They were handed three lines that conveyed their plans to scale-down the MAT program. The following lines highlight the scaling down efforts:
5 full time faculty will be fired (language used was “right sizing”)
The MAT program will cap at 30 students
1 MAT faculty will run the MAT Summer Program
As of 04/22 it is known that the Chief Financial Officer, Stephen Fitch, never viewed the new program proposals worked on by the MAT faculty. One of the main criteria given to the MAT faculty was that the new programs must correct a 600k budget deficit over three years. After submitting their proposals it was stated that they must adjust the deficit in only one-year.
Up until now, the math is still unclear. How does cutting 32 students revenue (32*25K=800K) and cutting 5 faculty costs(5*86K=430K) save the graduate institute money? |
From: Adam Weinberg
To: MAT Faculty |
01/16/2008 |
MAT faculty wrote a letter contesting the proposed changes, due to lack of financial and mission-related justifications for the cuts. |
From: MAT Faculty
To: Administration |
01/21/2008 |
Community Forum Working Group Formed - First Meeting
Summary: Concerns were expressed at the lack of transparency and participation in campus issues and changes. Advocates expressed desire to create an “open community forum” |
Attendees: Seema Manohar, Kya Kowalczyk, Farah Council, Shiri Barr, Chris Burley, Ei Ei Khin, Will Blaschko, Chris Adams, Rich Berkfield, Angela Berkfield, Brian Schwadron, Chantal Sheehan |
01/24/2008 |
Dean of Education(Marla Soloman) sends email to PIM & MAT students saying “We would like to share our plan with you at a meeting on January 28, at 5:30-6:30 pm, in IC 101.” MAT & PIM presentations were separated to more accurately manage each programs individual questions. The majority of MAT students were off-campus in their practicum phase, a required phase where many MAT’s travel to another country to teach English for 3 months. |
From: Marla Soloman
To: PIM & MAT Students |
01/28/2008 |
Community Forum Working Group Formed - Second Meeting
Summary: Ideas about how the community forum would be structured and carried out were considered. It was decided that the goal of the forum was to facilitate an “open forum of discussion” to address on-campus issues relating to the organzation. |
Attendees: Seema Manohar, Kya Kowalczyk, Farah Council, Shiri Barr, Chris Burley, Ei Ei Khin, Rich Berkfield, Angela Berkfield, Chris Adams, Brian Schwadron |
1/28/2008 |
Future Plans for SIT Graduate Institute Presentation with Adam Weinberg and Marla Soloman
Administration told MAT students of changes to be made, and assured that their strategic plan would be backed by the Board and then implemented. |
From: Carol Bellamy, Adam Weinberg, Marla Soloman
To: MAT Students |
01/28/2008 |
Future Plans for SIT Graduate Institute Presentation with Adam Weinberg and Marla Soloman
Summary: During initial "Future Plans for SIT Graduate Institute Discussion with Adam Weinberg and Marla Soloman" meeting, Ei Ei Khin requested of Adam to see the financial models that these changes were based on as well as a request for the market research. Marla answered somewhat about the market research, Adam mentioned the usage of some models but without mentioning specifics.
Strategic Changes Document Handout (available upon request)
Full Strategic Changes Document (available upon request) |
From: Carol Bellamy, Adam Weinberg, Marla Soloman
To: PIM Students & Faculty |
01/30/2008 |
Multiple MAT students wrote expressing their concerns regarding the cutting of the MAT program, specifically stating their desired to continue the “passion, energy and peace” that encompasses the program. |
To: SIT
From: Martha Kaser and others |
01/31/2008 |
MAT Community Meeting - Professors informed students of the 13 month strategic planning process that they had been involved with, which ended on Jan 10th with the announcement of the changes. |
MAT Faculty & Students |
01/31/2008 |
Summary: Email sent by Registrar announcing World Learning/SIT will be rebranded and students encouraged to visit a new website(www.worldlearning.org/welcome). School for International Training will be renamed “SIT Graduate Institute”, diplomas will have option of old or the new name. |
To: PIM & MAT Students
From: Registrar(Jennifer Cannizzaro) |
02/02/2008 |
World Learning Board of Trustees Meeting in D.C
The strategic plan was approved. Students and faculty were not represented at the meeting. The January 16th letter from the MAT faculty was not given to the members of the Board. |
Attendees: Board of Trustees, CEO |
02/02/2008 |
Current Issues group First Meeting
Summary: A group to discuss current issues in the world. The meeting was attended by over 40 people. Topics included Improving the Quality of Education at SIT, Social Change on an individual level, Capitalism and others. |
|
02/04/2008 |
02/04/2008 First SITSA Town Hall meeting, 6:00 PM in the IC
Summary: Concerns were expressed about the cutting of the MAT program, the need for a higher quality of education in PIM program, the need for an open forum of communication regarding community and the need for more continuity between each student class. |
From: SITSA
To: All students, faculty, staff (not administration) |
02/05/2008 |
Faculty Assembly Meeting with Senior Administrators and 3 trustees (Ken Bartels [Chair], Mary Davison, and Bob Adams. Chair tells faculty that the board "unanimously and enthusiastically" supported the decision. When asked about the MAT Program, the Chair responded, "It's a good program, but it's not financially viable." |
|
02/05/2008 |
Meeting between the SIT Board of Trustees and SITSA
The board “unanimously and enthusiastically” passed the proposals.
Only the strategic plan was voted on. The plan does not include how changes will be implemented. The implementation phase of the changes will begin now that the plan has been approved.
Questions and answers focused primarily upon the need for and the rational behind changes (particularly in the MAT program). Financial justification was the major theme in the discussion. Students asked to see financial models that decisions were based upon, and were told that copies would be made available. Board members stressed that students are a priority, and that changes are being made with the intent to strengthen programs. Board members were asked if the MAT program had a place within the mission and goals of World Learning. They said ‘yes’. Board members spoke at length about the need to act now to take the school in directions that will align it with its reputable siblings’ (SIT SA, EIL, and Delphi) connections whose web spans 77 different countries. |
Attendees: Ken Bartels - Chairperson of the Board, Bob Adams – Board Member, Mary Davidson – Board Member, Carol Bellamy, Adam Weinberg, Dottie Morris, Tony Drapelick, 2 MAT representatives
& 4 PIM representatives |
02/07/08 |
Email sent to PIM Students speaking about and articulating more clearly the details of the strategic plan including “World Learning Practitioner in Residence”, “International Seminars”, “World Learning Structured Practicum: “, “Concentrations in Arts and Social Change, Social Entrepreneurship, and Youth and Peace Work”, & “Creating a campus without borders”. |
From: Provost(Adam Weinberg)
To: PIM Students |
02/08/2008 |
In a personal meeting Adam talked extensively about the advantages of the strategic plan, the need for unity among disparate groups of World Learning, and the losses of the PIM program being 1.1million.
Christopher Burley and Ei Ei Khin asked Adam Weinberg to show us the financial documents that indicate the MAT program "loosing 700k per year". He agreed to show the documents in less than a week. |
From: Adam Weinberg
To: Chris Burley, Ei Ei Khin |
02/09/2008 |
Second meeting of “Current Issues Group” |
|
02/12/08 |
Meeting between PIM students and PIM faculty in the auditorium to talk about the impacts of the strategic plan on the faculty, their concerns, and the hopes for the future directions. |
From: Student Advocate & Faculty
To: PIM students & faculty, administration (Marla, Sean?) |
02/15/2008 |
MAT faculty meet with Steve Fitch and Carol Bellamy to clarify the financial analysis and figures that justified cutting the MAT Program and faculty. The explanations are based on outdated figures from previous years. Nothing presented showed how eliminating the MAT positions along with severe cuts in enrollment (20 AYMAT + 15-20 SMAT) would actually save the organization huge amounts of money. |
From: CFO (Steve Fitch) & President (Carol Bellamy)
To: MAT Faculty |
02/19/2008 |
Meeting with Adam Weinberg about MAT Cutbacks
Questions about why MAT program costs org so much, violation of Academic Affairs committee procedure, Recruitment for field based programs, new “NGO website”, & Wheaton University Study Abroad Media Issue
Financial documents requested again. |
From: Melissa Bodola & Kelly Underwood
To: Administration |
03/10/2008 |
MAT Students returned to campus. The majority had been off campus for their internships. The few students who had remained held a teach-in for the students who returned. |
Attendees: MAT Students |
03/11/2008 |
March SITSA Town Hall Meeting
Questions were largely raised by recently returned MAT students who were disturbed by the cutting of the MAT program, the lack of proof and lack of logical and reasonable justification. Other concerns included the need for greater dialogue between administration and students regarding input for these strategic changes.
During the Town Hall meeting Adam Weinberg mentioned that he would, by Friday March 14th, provide the financial documents that he and his CFO have used for the March 14th meeting. (no response from him yet)
|
From: SITSA Facilitated, Adam Weinberg, Marla Soloman
To: PIM, MAT, Faculty, Staff |
03/13/2008 |
Community Forum Working Group Meeting (1:30-3:30pm in IC 101)
Summary: Discussion surrounding the need to create stronger ties between the MAT and PIM students, and to support and strengthen each other's experience at SIT. |
From: CFWG
To: All students |
03/14/2008 |
Way of Council meeting with Marla and MAT students & faculty (PIM students were encouraged to attend)
Summary: The meeting was very productive for MAT student & faculty voices to be heard, there was a lot of healing through sharing and understanding. Financial documents were not produced. |
From: MAT Students
To: All Students, Faculty, Marla |
03/16/2008 |
MAT Gather signatures for Petition
170 signatures were collected in one day on campus. Over 275 signatures have been gathered as of 04/29/2008
Petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TakeBackSIT/ |
From: MAT Students
To: All Campus |
03/17/2008 |
Ei Ei Khin emailed Adam Weinberg & Steve Fitch as a reminder of March 11th commitment to deliver financial documents. No response yet.
|
From: Ei Ei Khin
To: Adam Weinberg, Steve Fitch |
03/18/2008 |
The MAT petition delivered March 18th (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TakeBackSIT/) asked for a response from the Board of Directors. They have NOT responded to any of the four requests. |
From: Melissa Bodola & Martha Kaser representing MAT
To: Peter May |
03/18/2008 |
The MAT petition delivered March 18th (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TakeBackSIT/) asked for a response from the president and the provost. They have responded to the 1st request via an email. The 2nd, 3rd & fourth request has not been honored. These requests are concerned with "access to more information regarding the rationale of decisions and more information about the financial models. |
From: Melissa Bodola & Martha Kaser representing MAT
To: Adam Weinberg, Marla Soloman |
03/21/2008 |
Email from President Carol Bellamy
Subject: MAT Petition
Summary: Carol acknowledges receiving the petition regarding the MAT program from students, faculty and staff. Expresses hope that a continued dialogue will provide an opportunity for view points to be shared and concerns to be addressed so that students, faculty, and staff can all move forward constructively.
|
From: President Carol Bellamy
To: PIM67 List, (CC'ed Adam Weinberg, Marla Soloman, James Bernard, Peter May) |
03/25/2008 |
Community Building Session (1:30 ñ 3:15 pm, Rotch 108-109)
"This is NOT a Q&A session but an Opportunity to Process Together our responses to changes in SIT, from both MAT and PIM perspectives.
Talking in small ìway of councilî circles everyone will be able to share thoughts & feelings raised by the past 2 months of information sessions. (No mandatory hugging!).
The last half-hour will be dedicated for updates and (some) planning following the MAT petition.
This space is valuable for us to better understand Each Other and Ourselves in regards to the SIT change. The different student (and others) forums that thought it out see it as an important step toward SIT community building (including in the future each and everyone who wishes to participate). The Goals are:
- To build community (among PIM, MAT and faculty)
- To share our hopes for the future of SIT as well as our frustrations
- To process as a group the information weíre getting
- To recognize that there is a range of legitimate ideas and opinions
For those of you unfamiliar with the "Way of Council", in brief it is a group of people desiring to talk/share about any issue, who sit in a circle and take turns speaking and actively listening to each other (one can only speak when holding the "talking stick"). This will be explained further in depth at the meeting." |
From: Dottie Morris & PIM representatives
To: All Campus |
03/25/2008 |
Ei Ei Khin emailed Adami Wienberg a reminder about financial committment. No response yet. |
From: Ei Ei Khin
To: Adam Weinberg |
03/28/2008 |
Students performed a skit to represent their understanding of the dialogue between students and the administration. Asking for greater awareness regarding the process in which the changes have been made and the direction of some of the changes. |
|
April, 1st week |
TESOL Convention: Administration went to the MAT community events for the first time in history, and held meetings with small groups of alumni. |
|
04/02/2008 |
Anne Koplinka-Lohr met with Adam Weinberg at 9am
Rough Meeting Notes from Anne's viewpoint
"Overall he said there is no resistance to sharing financial models (at
least the basics), but the problem is that no one has time to really
pull everything together, it would take about a week to do that.
However, he's asked Marla and Steve Fitch to pull together something
to share with people (like students who have asked), and the bottom
line is that the grad program is and has been financially challenged,
and he doesn't really want that to get our because it might make us
look bad (i.e. we accepted 99% of our students last year). So ... what
can be shared? He showed me some charts (quickly) that look at the
last 8 years and percentages of direct costs before allocations. For
the most part, the programs should be at about 53%, and they were
around 57%, but MAT has gone up, and PIM has gone down in the past few
years. (He wanted me to run numbers by him before I shared them around
to make sure they're accurate, so this is just rough from my notes).
The programs shouldn't be losing money on auxiliary costs, but they
are.
He talked about how cuts in faculty could ultimately save about
$300,000-400,000 per year in the MAT program, and how they want to get
enrolment confirmed earlier in the year. In general, things will be
getting more expensive in the coming years, so they need to think
ahead. He emphasized that all programs are important, and that they
wanted to invest specifically in programs that had a strong reputation
and would really bring in returns to World Learning.
He also talked about the process and how it could be seen from several
angles. In the past everything was done by the consensus of a small
group of "elite" people/faculty on campus, but that not everyone in WL
was involved. When Carol arrived they tried to get everyone involved
in the process, although they couldn't do it by consensus anymore." |
From: Anne Koplinka-Lohr
To: Adam Weinberg(Provost) |
04/04/2008 |
Solidarity in Training Group Sends Carol Bellamy “A request for resolution”
Dear Carol,
On behalf of all who signed the Petition delivered to you on March 19th, we thank you for your response to the student body on March 21st. However, we are dissatisfied with your response to the first and second points, and we urge you to address the third and fourth points immediately. Also, we are still awaiting a response from the Board regarding the petition, which we assume they received according to your promise. Please share if you have any suggestions on how we can accelerate that response.
The petition asked for the following...
1. A statement, which shows understanding of the concerns of students in regards to inclusion in decision-making, processes on campus.
2. A public apology to the faculty, students and staff, which recognizes that these decisions were not based on democratic processes.
3. Access to the research, which documents the administration's reasoning behind the decisions. These documents should be made public.
4. Evidence that the administration and the board considered various financial models with scrutiny and diligence to ensure that the MAT program would not have to be cut drastically.
In the email you wrote, "Please know that we always review our processes and learn from them, as we will with this one." In addition, the MAT Program Changes - Talking Points document states, "We welcome input and dialogue on ways to include decision-making and communication at World Learning going forward." We would like to take this opportunity to work collaboratively and creatively to help alleviate the financial pressure that is facing the Graduate Institute as a whole.
You also suggested that requests 3 & 4 can be answered in future Q & A (either future Q&A's or a future Q&A) with Marla. However, many of us have attended multiple Q & A sessions and engaged in multiple appointments with Adam and Marla. Our requests are yet to be answered. In fact, this is why we gathered our voices in the form of a petition. We believe Adam, Marla, the Board and you have the answers. We request you to put together comprehensive answers to present to the 275+ people who have signed the petition (with more signing online every day). We, as one of the organization's primary stakeholders, will continue to ask these questions until they are adequately answered.
During the faculty assembly both PIM and MAT faculty voted in support of the student movement to address these issues. There is growing discontent with the future direction of SIT, the changes and more importantly, the way in which they are being implemented. As student clients of World Learning, we are dedicated to the future of SIT Graduate Institute, a unique place with values essential to the world we live in today.
We stand for community solidarity and quality education, complemented with collaborative, transparent, accountable, and responsive leadership. The practice of these values is one of the core competencies of WL that can be leveraged in the competitive world of education and International work. The Board and the Administration are entrusted to uphold these values. At this critical time of change we feel strongly that these values are being compromised. We find it contradictory to espouse them within the Graduate Institute, Study Abroad, EIL, and the International work World Learning does, when WL Leadership does not embody these values. When teaching us about the Triple Bottom Line—accountability to our society, our environment, and financial stability—the organization itself must demonstrate the practice of that philosophy.
Now is the time to reflect, invite the responses of all stakeholders, and reconsider the direction, as well as the change process, that the leadership of World Learning is taking. The spirit of SIT and the shared values of World Learning are essential to the continued success of the organization. We encourage you to listen to the voices of the students, faculty, staff and alumni who are all key parts of this dynamic organization of global change makers.
By working together we can transform our energy into improving World Learning through action, based on the strong and long lasting values that shape our great organization.
Respectfully yours,
Solidarity in Training – S.I.T. |
|
04/14-18 /2008 |
Students began demonstrating on the SIT campus. Students hung banners that said "Take Back the Soul of SIT," and began wearing tee-shirts with statements protesting the proposed changes and the process used to determine the changes. |
|
04/17/2008 |
Meeting with Steven Fitch to discussion SIT Finances – part 1
Note: This meeting is a result of over 10 separate requests by email, one in person request, two phone calls and many months of waiting.
Steve Fitch gave us a broad overview of the strategic plan and how finances fit into the situation. The attendees were also given a few specifics regarding the deficit, the fixed costs vs variable costs on campus. He mentioned that cuts were needed because Study abroad is the only program currently making any money and that WLID and EIL are for the most part breaking even with SITGI loosing 1.1 million/year. Publicly available IRS 990 2006 forms were requested, no response to date. From a specific details and evidenc perspective, this meeting was fairly uninformative but important to set the stage for the second meeting. |
From: Ted Borek, Kara Swedlow, Ei Ei Khin, Phil Cole, Chris Burley, Natalie Merril
To: Stephen Fitch(CFO) |
04/22/2008 |
Meeting with Steven Fitch to discussion SIT Finances – part 2
A document revealing the individual program costs and strategic plan was handed out. It was revealed that Steven Fitch had not seen the new program proposals by the MAT faculty which they had worked on for 13 months.
After over 2.5 months of requests this meeting with Chief Financial Office Stephen Fitch occurred and some of the financial picture was made available. Still no justification for the MAT cuts were explained by the documents. The only indicator was that reduction in MAT students and faculty will reduce “support costs”. Most likely the support costs will be shifted to other areas. |
From: Kara Swedlow, Lucinda Megill, Ei Ei Khin, Chris Burley, Natalie Merril
To: Stephen Fitch(CFO) |