Dear Junior Leadership Team,

As we continue to develop a response to COVID-19 and its impact on our community the Senior Leadership Team seeks input from the Junior Leadership Team. The SLT takes the JLT’s input seriously. SLT cannot do it alone. We need JLT. Please fill out the questionnaire that was mailed to you last week. All forms must be filled out correctly. Do not fill in the bubbles incorrectly. Any form that is not completely and correctly filled in will be destroyed. We will not send the JLT new forms.

Sincerely,

President Henry Cotton and the SLT

Dear Campus Learning Communities, Individuals, and Persons who choose not to identify,

As I settle into my first day at Willard College, I want to share my reflections on this vibrant and loving community that we call Willard College! In the midst of Covid-19, many Thought Leaders, of which I humbly count myself, see only opportunity in the plunging enrollments, endowments, and faculty employment and the skyrocketing student debt, unemployment futures, and low morale (isn’t that funny that low morale is skyrocketing?). We have a unique opportunity to reimagine and reawaken Willard College. But we have to ask tough but loving questions. Do we need as many faculty? Do we need to have a brick and mortar campus? Which departments do not align with the Strategic Planning Process Committee? We are in the midst of a forest fire but the trees that survive, some only as saplings, will make a new and beautiful forest! We all have a role to play but need faculty participation.

Feel free to write me directly and I’d love to hear your dreams for where we can go together, or as individuals, or however you want to position yourself, or however you are positioned as we move forward, together and some of us apart.

Please also feel free to address me as Dr. Provost Shames.

Sincerely, Dr. Provost Shames

Dear Willard College Community,

As you know, there are calls from students to get refunds for room, board, tuition, student fees, late fees for student fee non-payment, library fines, grade change requests fees, etc. Some have threatened legal action. Willard College stands firm and in solidarity with its Board of Trustees that there have been no interruptions to our normal teaching standards since we moved to remote and online teaching as a result of COVID-19. In fact, as you can see from this earlier story, Willard College was a Pioneer in Remote Teaching! We are confident that we know how to do this kind of teaching better than any comparable institution.

We will continue to turn a deaf ear to the protests and threats of law suits. Willard continues on the Willard Way. Always against the odds. Always innovating. Never looking backwards.

Sincerely, President and Doctor Henry Cotton, PhD