Community bicycle program ready to begin

Phil Lamy, Josh Ovaska, and Jocelyn Emilo

The new Castleton Community Bicycle Program is getting ready to open. Any student or employee can become a member of the community bicycle program for the semester by filling out an application (and waiver) and making a $5.00 donation or deposit— refundable to students at the end of the semester. Membership includes access to a bicycle, lock, and protective headgear for a couple hours, a couple of days, or up to a week.

The bicycle fleet, maintenance, and pick-up/drop off space will be located in the Bike Shop (the small white garage near Hope House and the Campus Center), with student Josh Ovaska as the Program’s Fleet Manager. Program operations and management will be located in the Center for the Support and Study of the Community, with student Jocelyn Emilo as the Program’s Communications Coordinator. Assistant Director of the Center, Jan Rousse, is also a contact person at the Center and Prof. Phil is the faculty advisor to the program.

The program now has 15 bikes, but is looking for more. Donated bicycles can be dropped off at the Center at Moriarty House/Coffee Cottage.

Community College of Vermont is One of 20 Community Colleges in Seven States to Join National Student Success Initiative

Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a national initiative to help more community college students succeed, announced today that the Community College of Vermont (CCV) is one of 20 new community colleges in seven states to join the initiative. With the addition of these colleges, the initiative has grown to include 102 institutions – 98 colleges and four universities -- in 22 states.

Achieving the Dream is a long-term national initiative to help more community college students succeed — particularly those students who traditionally face the most significant barriers to success. The initiative is built on the belief that broad institutional change, informed by student achievement data, is critical to significantly improving student success rates.

“We are thrilled that CCV has been selected to participate in such a critical, ground-level effort to help students succeed,” said CCV Interim President Joyce Judy. “We realize that providing access to college is not enough; we need to help students be successful in college.” As a member of the Achieving the Dream program, CCV has made a two-year commitment to focus its efforts on student success and closing performance gaps among students in targeted populations.

This most recent expansion of Achieving the Dream has been made possible with grants provided by four foundations across the country. Lumina Foundation for Education is making matching grants to provide first-year funding for community colleges in California, Illinois, Indiana, New York and Vermont. The Kresge Foundation is supporting an institution in Michigan. The Greater Texas Foundation is supporting several community colleges in Texas. The Vermont Community Foundation is providing grant support in Vermont. In some cases, the colleges themselves are funding their participation in the initiative.

“Achieving the Dream colleges are identifying methods for increasing student success and implementing interventions to create institutional improvements for all students,” said Carol Lincoln, a senior program director at MDC, Inc., the managing partner of Achieving the Dream and its national director. “We’re excited about bringing these new colleges into Achieving the Dream and continuing our tradition of providing educational and societal benefits to colleges, students and communities around the country.”

“Achieving the Dream colleges have proven successful at ensuring that a student success agenda is a clear strategic focus at all levels of the campus community,” said Jamie P. Merisotis, president and CEO of Lumina Foundation for Education, which has been the initiative’s primary funder since its inception in 2004. “We’re very pleased to help provide this opportunity to additional colleges and, more importantly, to the students they serve.”

Achieving the Dream helps participating colleges implement strategies designed to help more students earn degrees, complete certificates or transfer to other institutions to continue their studies. The initiative emphasizes building a culture of evidence, in which colleges use data to identify effective practices, improve student success rates and close achievement gaps.

CCV’s graduation rate has been below the mean for community colleges across the United States, and the College has prioritized work to support students in attaining their goals of graduation. According to CCV Academic Dean Linda Gabrielson, “Through the Achieving the Dream initiative, we will focus on strategies to better help students progress through the curriculum, earning degrees that prepare them for employment in their chosen field or transfer to a four year college.”

Veteran Educator and Nationally Known Poet Join JSC Faculty

The Johnson State College community will welcome two new faculty members during the upcoming year: Dr. David McGough, in the education department, and Elizabeth Powell in the writing and literature department.

Dr. David McGough, an educator with 25 years experience in secondary and postsecondary education, begins the fall semester as an associate professor in the department of education, where he will teach Educational Psychology, Education Research, and Adolescent Development.

A resident of Plainfield, N.H., he most recently taught in a large teacher education division of a private college in upstate New York, Nazareth College of Rochester. He was chair of the Department of Social and Psychological Foundations of Education there.

"I'm looking forward to continuing with the work of teacher education in a smaller division with more opportunities for cross-disciplinary instruction," he says, "and for becoming more directly involved with students."

Dan Regan, dean of academic affairs at Johnson State, says the faculty search committee was most impressed with McGough's broad background in secondary education, which is where many of the educational challenges and opportunities are in Vermont.

"David has a long and strong track record of working collaboratively with secondary schools," Regan says. "He also has a strong record of successful work with teacher candidates."

McGough says he is particularly excited about an initiative within the Vermont Department of Education, to partner with secondary schools around the region to develop school-based learning opportunities.

"These will be of great benefit for the teacher education students, the school community and the college faculty," he says.

During the past two decades, McGough has presented widely at conferences and workshops around the United States, focusing on issues around school leadership, education in urban settings, and student retention through college graduation.

Before his work at Nazareth College of Rochester, he was a lecturer and instructor at SUNY Cortland in Courtland, N.Y., Tompkins-Cortland Community College in Dryden, N.Y., Antioch University in Seattle, Wash., and Centralia College in Centralia, Wash. He also taught high school math and computer science at Morris Knolls High School in Denville, N.J.

He holds a doctorate in educational policy and administration from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn., a master's degree in teaching from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J., and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University in Villanova, Pa.

"I am very pleased to be joining JSC," he says, "with its beautiful campus and collegial ambience."

Elizabeth Powell, a widely published poet and the recipient of more than a dozen writing honors, will start the fall semester as an assistant professor in the department of writing and literature, where she will teach Introduction to Literature, Creative Writing, and College Writing

"I am really looking forward to working with everyone at Johnson State—students, faculty and staff," she says. "It's such an amazing, wonderful place."

A resident of Underhill, Vt., Powell has a tremendous amount of experience teaching at the post-secondary level. She has been a lecturer, instructor and visiting writer at the University of Vermont, Saint Michael's College, Champlain College, Burlington College and Goddard College. She was also on the poetry faculty for many years for the New England Young Writers' conference at Middlebury College.

Dan Regan, dean of academic affairs at Johnson State, says the faculty search committee was impressed with how engaged Powell is with her students' learning process.

"The sample class on poetry she gave during her campus interview revealed that clearly," he says. "It was directed to students' discovering insights about poetry rather than being handed them."

She is also devoted to helping students extend their learning beyond the classroom, one of JSC's priorities.

"She is committed to experiential learning," Regan says. "For instance, her students take hikes through the woods as material for literature and creative writing classes."

Outside the classroom, Powell has garnered many honors for her writing and received fellowships and grants from Yaddo, Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education, Vermont Council on the Arts, and the Arts Vermont Endowment. She has published dozens of poems in magazines and anthologies around the United States, and she is the author of "The Republic of Self," winner of the New Issues First Book Prize for Poetry.

Her earlier work as a journalist, combined with being an established poet, make her uniquely suited to supervise students working for Gihon River Review, Johnson State's student-run literary journal.

She has a master of fine arts degree from Vermont College and a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Wisconsin. She also has completed graduate studies in poetry from the University of New Hampshire.

Lyndon State College

Vermont Tech Ranked Among Top 10 Public Colleges in the North!

Vermont Technical College has once again been named among the top 10 best public baccalaureate colleges in the North by U.S.News & World Report.

In its 2010 "Best Colleges" issue, Vermont Tech placed seventh among the best public baccalaureate colleges in the North and 22nd among all northern colleges, up two notches from its number 24 ranking in 2009, and eight notches from its number 30 ranking in 2008.

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