§ 1-1. Establishment as corporate body
The University of Vermont and the Vermont Agricultural College, with such other corporations
as may hereafter become united therewith, are hereby united and constituted a body
corporate, by the name of the “University of Vermont and State Agricultural College,”
for the purpose of carrying out the objects contemplated in their respective charters,
and as such, shall be and remain a body corporate forever, and as such may hold and
convey real and personal estate, have a common seal, and shall be recognized and utilized
as an instrumentality of the State for providing public higher education, with all
the rights and powers incident to corporations; and the General Assembly of the State
of Vermont shall, from time to time, appropriate such sums as it deems necessary for
the support and maintenance of the corporation.
§ 1-2. Board of Trustees; membership, terms of service; presiding chair
The Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College
shall be composed of 25 members, whose term of office shall be six years, except as
to those who are members ex officio and to those who are student members. Three members
shall be appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate. During the legislative
session of 1955, the Governor shall appoint one member for a term of two years, one
member for a term of four years, and one member for a term of six years and it shall
be the duty of the Governor during the session of the Legislature prior to expiration
of the term of office of any of the members to appoint for the term of six years a
successor to the member whose term is expiring. The terms of office of the Trustees
shall expire on the last day of February in the respective years of expiration, and
the terms of office of their successors shall thereafter begin on March 1 and expire
on the last day of February.
Nine members shall be those who have been heretofore elected by the Legislature as
members of the Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural
College, and whose terms have not expired, and their successors, and it shall be the
duty of the Legislature at its session during which the terms of office of any class
of the members expire to elect three successor members for terms of six years. The
terms shall commence on March 1 in the year of election. The nine Trustees and their
successors shall also constitute the Board of Trustees of the Vermont Agricultural
College.
Nine members shall be those who have been heretofore elected on behalf of the University
of Vermont as members of the Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont and State
Agricultural College and whose terms have not expired, and their successors, and it
shall be the duty of said nine Trustees to elect successors to fill vacancies occurring
among their number upon expiration of the terms of office of any of them or otherwise.
The nine Trustees and their successors shall also constitute the Board of Trustees
of the University of Vermont.
Two members shall be students enrolled at the University of Vermont and State Agricultural
College. Their terms of office shall be two years. Prior to February 1, 1978, the
Associated Directors for the Appointment of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural
College Student Trustees, Incorporated shall select and appoint one student for a
term of one year and one student for a term of two years, both of whom shall be enrolled
as full-time undergraduate or full-time graduate students. Annually thereafter, the
Directors shall meet to select and appoint one student trustee for a term of two years
in accordance with the provisions of this section. The Directors shall fill any vacancy
occurring among the student trustee members upon the expiration of the term of office
of any of them or otherwise. A student shall be eligible to serve as a Trustee, provided
the student is a full-time undergraduate or full-time graduate student matriculating
in accordance with the degree qualifications and requirements established by the University
of Vermont and State Agricultural College and if the student remains in that status
throughout the length of the term of office. The term of office of a Student Trustee
shall begin on March 1 following the date of appointment, and the term of office shall
end the last day of February in the year of expiration. Any student elected hereunder
shall have reached the age of 18.
All Trustees so appointed and elected as hereinbefore provided, shall, together with
his or her Excellency, the Governor of the State, and the President, who shall be,
ex officio, a member, constitute an entire Board of Trustees of the corporation known
as the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, who shall have the entire
management and control of its property and affairs, and in all things relating thereto,
except in the elections to fill vacancies, as aforesaid, shall act together jointly,
as one entire Board of Trustees; provided, that all future elections or appointments
to the Board of Trustees shall be made with special reference to preventing any religious
denominational preponderance in the Board. The Board shall annually, at its first
regular meeting after the election of new trustees, elect one of its members to serve
as Chair.
§ 1-3. Conferral of degrees; election of officers; governance
The Board of Trustees, a majority of whom may constitute a quorum for the transaction
of business, may confer such honors and degrees as are usually given in colleges and
universities and any other appropriate degrees, and may, from time to time, as occasion
may require, elect a President, also a Secretary, Treasurer, Librarian, professors,
instructors, and any other necessary officers, and prescribe their duties, salaries,
and term of office, and may make all necessary bylaws and regulations for the government
of themselves and others connected with the institution, not inconsistent with the
provisions of this charter, and therein prescribe the terms of admission, rates of
tuition, modes of study, and course of instruction, including any proper regulations
for uniform, discipline, and military drill, as well as for experimental and practical
instruction in the different branches of agricultural labor.
§ 1-4. Control of lands and rents; rights and obligations
Except as otherwise provided by Sec. 4 of No. 66 of the Acts of 1955, the Board of
Trustees shall have the right to use, control, sell, or dispose of all the real estate
and personal property now or hereafter belonging to the University of Vermont, belonging
to the Vermont Agricultural College, and belonging to any other institution at the
time of its union or thereafter, if such union shall be made with this corporation
agreeably to this charter; subject, however, to the payment of any debts of any of
the institutions existing at the time of such union, and subject to any trusts, duties,
and obligations connected therewith, and shall be entitled to receive and use, for
the purposes aforesaid, the rents and uses of any of the aforesaid lands, including
the rents and uses of all such lands as have been heretofore reserved in any charter
of land in this State for the use and benefit of any college, and may have the same
rights in respect to the lands, and to any leases of the same, and to any rents arising
therefrom, that the institutions respectively now have, and may maintain suits in
their own name, or in the name of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural
College, to recover the same; provided, that the rights of all parties shall remain,
and the same defenses shall be had to such suits as if the same were brought in the
name and as between the original parties; and the corporation hereby created shall,
at all times, assume, discharge, and perform all the debts, duties, trusts, and obligations
which the several institutions were subject to, at the time they became united in
the corporation known as the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College,
by virtue of this charter.
§ 1-5. Curriculum to be maintained
There shall, at all times, be maintained, in the institution hereby created, such
instruction, in the various branches of learning, as is contemplated in the several
charters of each of the institutions hereby united; and more particularly including
a four years’ course of studies, similar to such as are generally taught in other
colleges, and not inferior to that recently taught in the University of Vermont, and
in addition to that which is usually taught in other colleges, the instruction in
this institution shall include such enlarged facilities, and extended scope and variety
in the study of those branches which relate to military tactics, agriculture, and
the mechanic arts, as shall render the whole instruction in conformity with said act
of Congress, as well as with the several charters aforesaid.
§ 1-6. Experimental farm
The Trustees may, in their discretion, obtain by gift, grant, or otherwise, a tract
of land which, together with the land now owned by the University of Vermont, shall
amount to at least 100 acres, to be used as an experimental farm, whereon they may
make any desirable experiments in the breeding of stock, field culture, the analysis
and adaptation of soils and horticultural and botanical gardening, or either of them,
as they may deem proper, and also for the purpose of military encampment, target firing,
drill and review; and the trustees may use, lease, or dispose of the same, as they
may think proper, so as best to promote the objects of the institutions.
And in case the land shall be procured, as aforesaid, a sum not to exceed one-tenth
of the money which has been received by the State Treasurer for the sale of land scrip,
in pursuance of the act of Congress authorizing the same, shall be paid to the Board
of Trustees for the purposes aforesaid; provided, that no agricultural labor shall
be required of students, except by their voluntary agreement or consent.
§ 1-7. Congressional fund; interest income
Whenever this corporation shall have been duly organized, there shall be appropriated
and paid to its Treasurer annually, for the purpose herein mentioned, on the warrant
of the Governor, the interest or the income which may be received from the fund created
under and by virtue of the act of Congress.
§ 1-8. Legislative reports; Board of Visitors
The corporation hereby created shall make annual reports to the Legislature of this
State, of its condition, financially and otherwise, and make and distribute the reports
required by the act of Congress, herein referred to, and the Legislature may annually
appoint a Board of Visitors, who may annually examine the affairs of the corporation.
The provisions of 2 V.S.A. § 20(d) (expiration of required reports) shall not apply to the report to be made under this
section. (Amended 2015, No. 131 (Adj. Sess.), § 4.)
§ 1-9. Permanent location
The permanent location of the institution hereby created, shall be in Burlington,
in the State of Vermont, and the first meeting of the Board of Trustees shall be there
held on November 15 next, at 7:00 P.M., or if the meeting shall not be held at that
time, it shall be held at such other time and place as the Governor of this State
may appoint, seasonable notice of the appointment having been first given to each
of the Trustees or corporators of the University of Vermont and Vermont Agricultural
College.
§ 1-10. Middlebury College; Norwich University
The President and fellows of Middlebury College, and Norwich University, or either
of them, may hereafter, with the assent and concurrence by vote of a majority of each
of the nine Trustees elected, as aforesaid, and their successors, become incorporated
and united with the corporation hereby created, by vote of their said corporations,
at any meeting legally warned and holden, and by leaving for record, in the Office
of the Secretary of State, a true and attested copy of such vote or votes, and of
all the proceedings of the meeting or meetings, at which the votes aforesaid were
passed, and causing the same to be recorded in the Office.
§ 1-11. Vacation of charter
If at any time, the corporation hereby created shall fail substantially to carry out
the provisions and requirements of this charter, the Supreme Court of this State may,
at any stated session thereof, having first given due notice to this corporation,
annul and vacate this charter, and in such case, or in case the corporation shall
otherwise be dissolved, the Supreme Court may, on application, order and decree that
the income thereafter to be derived from the proceeds of the sale of said land scrip,
in the hands of the State Treasurer as aforesaid, together with such amount as may
have been paid over by the Treasurer for the purpose of an experimental farm, shall
revert to the Vermont Agricultural College, and all the other property and effects
which, at the time of the union, belonged to the other institution, shall revert to
and be the property of the other institution or institutions which shall have been
united and incorporated by, or in pursuance of this charter, and in case more than
one such other institution shall have been thus united, such other property shall
revert to them separately, such specific property to each, as the Court shall adjudge
and decree, having reference in making such decree to what was originally owned or
contributed by each; provided, that in respect to any property or funds hereafter
acquired by the new corporation, by gift, grant, bequest, or otherwise, the same shall
be awarded and distributed to each of the institutions hereby incorporated or hereafter
united, in such manner as the Court shall deem just and equitable, having reference
to the manner the same was acquired, and to any specific trusts, or expressed intention
of any donors, made at the time the same was acquired. And for the purposes aforesaid,
as well as for all other purposes, the several corporations, which shall have been
united by virtue of this charter, shall be deemed and treated as having continued
in life, and the several Trustees which shall have been elected by each at the time
they were united, and their successors shall be deemed and treated to have been, since
the time of their elections, the Trustees of their respective institutions, as well
as Trustees of the united corporation, and, as such Trustees may receive the property
and effects which may revert to their respective corporations by such decree of Court,
and they and their successors, whom they may thereafter appoint, may continue and
manage the affairs of their respective corporations thereafter, in the same manner
as the Trustees of each might have done before they were united as aforesaid.
§ 1-12. Charter in effect
This charter shall take effect, whenever the two corporations hereby united shall,
at a meeting duly warned, vote to accept the same, and to surrender and relinquish
to the corporation, hereby created, all the property belonging to them, whether real
or personal, and all the rents, profits, and income therefrom arising, including said
proceeds from the sale of the land scrip, for the purpose, and subject to all the
rights, trusts, and conditions as in this charter provided; and it shall be the duty
of each of the corporations to cause a copy of the record of such votes, duly certified
by the secretaries of their respective corporations, to be left for record and duly
recorded in the office of the Secretary of State; whereupon, by virtue of such votes,
such property, rents, profits, and income shall become the property of the corporation
hereby created, for the purposes and subject to the rights, trusts, and conditions
aforesaid, and the property, and the property hereafter acquired by the corporation
hereby created, shall be subject to all the conditions, immunities, and exemptions
now pertaining to the property now held by the University of Vermont.
§ 1-13. Repeal of inconsistent law
All of an act entitled “An Act to Establish the Vermont Agricultural College,” approved
November 22, 1864, which is inconsistent with the provisions of this act, is hereby
repealed.
§ 1-14. Vermont Agricultural College
The divisions of the Vermont Agricultural College set forth in section 4488 of Vermont
Statutes, Revision of 1947, shall be continued as divisions of and in the name of
the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, and all references to Vermont
Agricultural College in sections 4489 through 4493 shall be deemed to apply to the
University of Vermont and State Agricultural College or the agricultural college of
the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College as the context may require.
§ 1-15. Tax exemption
Real and personal property now held or owned or hereafter acquired by the University
of Vermont and State Agricultural College for educational purposes shall be exempt
from taxation.
§ 1-15a. Statutory purposes
The statutory purpose of the exemption for the University of Vermont in section 1-15
of this chapter is to allow institutions providing higher education to deploy more
of their financial resources to their educational missions. (Added 2013, No. 200 (Adj. Sess.), § 10.)
§ 1-16. Amendment of charter
This charter may be amended from time to time by the General Assembly to provide for
the more perfect and effective accomplishment of its objects.