News & Events
Maine-based photographer Jim Sulham opens an exhibit at the Feick Fine Arts Center June 22. The exhibit will be on display until July 24. more...
Sarah Will ’87 Named to U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame
At one time, Sarah Will ’87 was the top skier on the Green Mountain College ski team and ranked 20th in the nation. But shortly after her graduation, the U.S. Olympic ski team hopeful suffered a serious skiing accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Rather than give up the sport she loved, she took up mono skiing and was back on the slopes just one year later. Now the most decorated female mono skier in U.S. Ski Team history, Will was elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame July 1 along with U.S. athletic luminaries Michael Johnson and Picabo Street.
Four years after her start in the mono-ski, she competed in her first Paralympic Games, winning gold in downhill and super G in 1992 in Albertville, France. Will won a total of 12 Paralympic gold medals and one silver medal throughout her four Paralympic experiences, making her the most decorated female mono skier in U.S. Ski Team history. In 2002, Will took the Paralympic alpine skiing gold medal sweep, winning all four races, along with the U.S. Paralympic Spirit Award. Will was elected to the Green Mountain College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998.
Other athletes inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame include Johnson (track and field), Street (alpine skiing), Teresa Edwards (basketball), Willye White (track and field), Mary T. Meagher (swimming), the 1992 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team, longtime men's gymnastics coach Abie Grossfeld, skiing veteran Andrea Mead-Lawrence, and special contributor Peter Ueberroth.
The U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame is the only national sports hall of fame that uses fan voting as part of its selection process. The U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame Class of 2009 will be formally introduced and honored August 12 at a banquet-style induction ceremony at McCormick Place in Chicago.
Bulb Replacement Project
Sheds Light on Energy Savings
How many light bulbs does it take to change your outlook? Kenneth Coe, educational technology specialist at Green Mountain College’s Griswold Library, has one answer: 505.
This summer Coe and a few helpers began replacing existing 32 watt fluorescent bulbs in the three-story library building with more energy efficient, longer lasting 28 watt bulbs. By removing a total of 505 older bulbs, the library has cut its electricity use by 34%, a reduction that will save the College an estimated 62,216 kilowatt hours a year.
“To put this in perspective, we use 350 kilowatt hours a month at my house,” said Coe. “This yearly savings is enough to cover my family’s energy consumption for the next 178 months, or 14.8 years.”
The project stemmed from a 2008 Student Campus Greening Fund proposal developed by recent graduate Mara Smith. The fund is designed to put into action initiatives that increase environmental awareness and decrease the school’s ecological footprint. The Student Campus Greening Fund is subsidized through a $30 allocation from each student’s annual activity fee. Proposals are evaluated by a student committee and awards are based on a student vote. more...
GMC Alum and Car Talk’s Tom Magliozzi
Chat about GMC Commencement Speech
Alumna Elizabeth Sullivan '05 from Portland, Ore. called in to National Public Radio’s Car Talk program this Saturday to get some advice for a balky clutch on her Hyundai Accent. In the course of the conversation, she reminded Tom Magliozzi, co-host of the program with brother Ray, that he was the speaker for her GMC commencement ceremony in 2005. "You were the commencement speaker for my Green Mountain College. I swear that's the only reason my Dad came to my graduation," she joked.
For the record, the quasi-chirping sound in Elizabeth’s clutch was diagnosed as a defective clutch cover.
Give the six minute clip from NPR a listen at:
http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/WeeklyShow/online.html
SolarFest to Feature GMC Faculty, Staff and Students
SolarFest 2009, a renewable energy festival featuring over 90 workshops dedicated to renewable energy and sustainability topics, comes to Forget-Me-Not-Farm in Tinmouth, Vt., from July 10 - 12. The festival is in its 15th year. This year’s workshop schedule features several GMC faculty members, students and alumni.
Prof. Philip Ackerman-Leist (environmental studies) is hosting two workshops: “Back to the Land: Forward or Reverse?” and “Stretching Seasonal Eating with Season Extension.” Prof. Steve Letendre (management & environmental studies) will explore the potential benefits of a convergence between the electric power and transportation sectors, with particular focus on the emerging vehicle to grid concept that views plug-in cars as interactive parts of the electric power system. GIS mapping is the focus of a workshop from Prof. John Van Hoesen (geology), while Kenneth Mulder, Cerridwen Farm Manager, discusses how the GMC Farm and Food Project is teaching and developing farming systems that use little to no fossil fuels.
One former and one current student are also hosting workshops. Alum Joe Bossen plans to discuss Prudent Fuels, the biofuel cooperative he founded, in the context of the advantages of member-owned cooperatives for community scaled enterprise. Current student Evan Dale is part of a panel in the youth track focused on careers in farming.
GMC Block Course Garners Food Studies Award
GMC’s 2006 block course, “Food, Agriculture and Community Development in the Northeast", recently received the 2009 Food Studies Pedagogy Award from the Association for the Study of Food and Society. The award is given annually to the “teacher of food studies in any discipline … who uses innovative and successful pedagogical techniques to reach students.”
Three faculty members taught the interdisciplinary course: Prof. Jacob Park (business strategy and sustainability), Prof. Philip Ackerman-Leist (environmental studies), and Prof. Eleanor Tison. The course also featured John Turenne, a nationally recognized culinary/food industry educator and the former executive chef/director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project, as a visiting faculty member, as well as other notable individuals from private companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations as guest lecturers. The course challenged students to develop a sophisticated understanding of how food, agriculture, and community development operate as a system. The class visited roughly one dozen area farms and as a final project, created sustainable purchasing guidelines for Withey Dining Hall.
The Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) is a multidisciplinary international organization dedicated to exploring the complex relationships among food, culture, and society. The group hosts an annual conference and publishes a journal titled Food, Culture and Society.
