Elizabeth Coleman is, at the time of this writing, the
President of
Bennington College in
Bennington,
Vermont.
She has single-handedly ushered Bennington into a "
new era", or so she says. The year before I showed up at
Bennington as a
freshman (so we're talking about 1993-4), Ms. Coleman decided to do away with
tenure. She fired - oh, I'm sorry, she
neglected to renew the contracts of some 30-odd professors. This may not sound like much, but at a school of 450-ish students, with a faculty hovering around the 60 mark, 30 is A LOT. And then she didn't tell my incoming class what she'd done until we showed up for
orientation. "Hmmm...." I said to myself.
Liz Coleman is very mannish in her speech, attire, and attitude. There is much
speculation that
she was once a man (or is slowly becomming one).
Ms. Coleman has also taught classes at
Bennington in the past, usually in the
Political and
Current Events areas, both of which most
Bennington students (while at school , at least) could care less about.
She has the tendency to make
sweeping statements about her students, faculty, and staff, that don't reflect the
majority opinion or even
the truth.
The
Board of Trustees seems to love her, as she's brought the
enrollment up from 250 (in
1994) to over 600 (
2001), brought in the single largest
endowment the school's ever seen, and kept the school out of
"The Most Expensive School in the USA" slot for the past few years.
For a general summation on my personal feelings about this person, let us take a look at a poem that I've always associated with
Richard Scarey, but it was written by someone entirely different, apparently.
"I Do Not Like Thee Doctor Fell":
"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why, I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell."