This story was originally published by the Times Argus on October 9, 2025.
RUTLAND – Leaders of the Vermont State Colleges System gathered Wednesday morning to update stakeholders on the status of the system.
Held at the Community College of Vermont’s Rutland campus, the event provided a progress report on the work already underway to strengthen both CCV and the VSCS and previewed initiatives that aim to expand access to education and training.
VSCS is composed of Vermont State University and CCV.
VSCS Chancellor Elizabeth Mauch welcomed attendees with a brief overview of highlights from the past year, including strengthened CCV to VTSU and workforce pathways, flood resilience renovations at the VTSU Johnson campus and addressing the needs of a new student demographic.
“Students today are actually older than you might think,” Mauch said. “On average, our part-time students are almost 30, and our full-time students (are) closer to 23. We don’t really have as many of those 18- and 19-year-olds. … We have students who want life and use college at the same time, and they will have different housing needs.”
Regarding development on the Johnson campus, Mauch said the town was devastated by the 2023 and 2024 floods and, as such, has been working with the campus to reimagine town needs.
In addition to some congressional spending that has been awarded to the campus’s McClellan Hall for senior housing, Mauch said the community has been brainstorming ideas such as student apartments; giving local schools extra classroom space; or moving the town office and other emergency services to the campus and out of flood paths.
During a question-and-answer portion of the event, VSCS leaders were asked about work that has been done to inventory assets across all campuses to evaluate need and potential adaptive reuse.
VTSU President David Bergh said architecture and planning firm Dumont Janks had completed an analysis that determined VSCS was 30% overbuilt across the system in terms of all physical infrastructure.
“There are opportunities on all our campuses, including Castleton, with fewer traditional campus-based students,” Bergh said. “We’re going to be doing a deep dive on each of these campuses. Castleton will have its turn at that in the coming years.”