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The Vermont College of Fine Arts will stop hosting students on campus and will end on-campus programs in Montpelier after the 2022–23 academic year. The college is also exploring selling or leasing some of its buildings, it announced Wednesday.
Starting in summer 2023, the students in its six low-residency graduate arts programs will spend their summer residencies at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, and their winter residencies will be virtual.
About 340 students are currently enrolled at the college, President Leslie Ward told VTDigger. Residencies were shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic, and only one fully on-campus residency was held last year. Previously, two residencies per year were held on campus, one each in the winter and summer, meaning that students were present for roughly two and a half weeks total.
The campus “doesn’t serve our needs,” Ward told VTDigger. “It's not going to serve our future vision of how we want to best serve our students. So how do we think about that differently?”
The institution was established in 2008 and has used its current campus as its home ever since. The campus and some of its buildings date back to 1868 and have housed several institutions of higher learning. The college describes itself on its website as “the only college in the country dedicated solely to low-residency graduate arts education using an individualized mentorship model.”
The institution is not closing, nor is it merging with Colorado College, according to the announcement. The administrative offices will still be located on the campus at College Hall, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
