Tag Archives: University of Vermont

News You Should View: Worth a Thousand Words Edition

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I’m starting this post with a tip o’the hat to Glenn Russell, ace photographer for VTDigger. His thankless task is to get good images out of the Statehouse, that notorious den of tiny rooms and bad lighting. Seriously, it’s a terrible place to be a photographer. But Glenn got one hell of a shot for Digger’s story about the state Senate’s unfortunate education reform bill passing a key committee. For those in the know, the image was a masterful piece of reporting. It showed Gov. Phil Scott’s right-hand man Jason Maulucci talking to Senate Education Committee chair Seth Bongartz on a bench in the hallway. Not that I’m saying Democrat-in-name Bongartz colluded with the Republican administration on a bill that seems to lean decidedly to the right, but Russell’s image definitely paints that picture. Fair or unfair, I loved it.

Not that our next entry doesn’t deserve top billing. Journalist David Goodman devoted his latest edition of the “Vermont Conversation” podcast to an interview with freed detainee Mohsen Mahdawi. Apparently, Mahdawi consented to the interview only if Goodman conducted it during a walk in the woods near Mahdawi’s home in the Upper Valley. You come away from the hour with a clear picture of this alleged threat to national security as a devout Buddhist whose activism is purely nonviolent. Also with a clear picture of a real Vermonter — a person with a deep love for, and profound connection to, the Vermont landscape. Beautiful piece of work, not to be missed.

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Is There ANY Good News About Vermont State University?

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I don’t want to be overly alarmist about this, so I used a smiley happy dumpster fire illustration instead of the out-of-control inferno kind. But good grief, where exactly is Vermont State University headed?

The latest is the announced departure of system chancellor Sophie Zdatny, who will leave VSU at the end of this year. Don’t forget that interim VSU President Mike Smith, who took the job in April, has promised to stay on for only six months. He’s now in month number five, so time’s running out. Smith replaced Parwinder Grewal, who resigned even before VSU was officially launched because he’d squandered all his political capital on an ill-considered decision to close the system’s libraries.

Zdatny, you may recall, replaced Jeb Spaulding, who resigned as chancellor in 2020 after floating a universally unpopular — but absolutely sensible — plan to consolidate the system by closing the Johnson, Lyndon and Randolph campuses.

It’s been bad times, and we haven’t even gotten to the finances or the precipitous 19% drop in 2023-4 enrollment or the looming demographic crisis staring the system right in the face. And now we’re looking at a leadership vacuum that will see VSU saddled with interim leadership for, what’s that? Two more years?

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A Failure With Many Fathers

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Timing, Mr. President.

Things have pretty much gone to shit at the University of Vermont. The latest installment features the announcement of a plan to take a meataxe to humanities instruction. A total of 24 academic programs are to be cut, totaling roughly one-fifth of the College of Arts and Sciences’ course offerings. The administration thoughtfully unveiled the plan via mass email because that’s the way Ebenezer Scrooge would have done it if he’d had email, right?

That very same day, after metaphorically turning out the lights in many a campus precinct, UVM President Suresh Garimella posted the cheery tweet reproduced above. Tone-deaf much?

The plan has not been received well, to say the least. The UVM-related Twitterverse has been ablaze with recriminations. Nearly 2,000 people have signed an online petition to reverse the cuts. Campus reaction has been muted because, well, the students have been sent home and teaching is being done online.

Hard to put together a protest under those conditions.

UVM administration has often seemed out of touch and, shall we say, uncollaboriative in management style. Garimella, an engineer by trade, has been in office for less than two years, and his hiring was seen by many as signaling a turn away from the humanities. This year has seen contract talks with the faculty union go nowhere. The administration was forced to rescind planned cuts in lecturers and adjunct faculty after it was met with an uproar.

So, you’re expecting me to slag the top brass and brand Garimella as an enemy of the humanities, right?

You’d be wrong. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

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And now, a moment of appreciation for Peter Galbraith

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Anyone who’s read this blog for more than ten seconds already knows how I feel about Peter Galbraith. The Most Hated Man in the Senate.  Happy to obstruct legislation for obscure points of principle detectable only to himself. Narcissistic. Oil baron of questionable provenance. Leaves a trail of enemies wherever he goes. Questionable temperament for the state’s highest office.

I’m not voting for the guy, but he did a couple of things this week I truly appreciate.

First, he unveiled the most progressive higher-education plan of any of the three Democratic contenders. And second, he made a practical, hard-headed, economic argument for a social safety net initiative — which is something Democrats almost never do.

It’s a shame, because there are solid, evidence-based arguments to be made. I mean, appeals to fairness and helping the unfortunate are fine, but they’re not enough.

But first, back to the college issue, which is one of the most crucial in terms of helping people achieve success AND boosting the economy. After all, employer after employer complains about the lack of trained workers. Getting more high-school grads into college is a sound investment in our own future.

Galbraith’s plan, unveiled Tuesday, would cover the cost of a college education for Vermont students at state colleges and universities, and offer reduced tuition for some UVM students.

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