portfolio for class

Eric BlaisdellEditor

Every year is a rebuilding year for theLyndon State College men’s basketballteam.

Between the 2008-09 and 2010-11seasons, the team has had 25 freshmen,according to the North Atlantic Confer-ence website. Six of them came back toplay their sophomore year.

This year was particularly bad as theschool had ten freshmen on the team theprevious season and none of them re-turned, including NAC rookie of the yearPhil Warrick. In fact, the team had onlytwo players come back from last year’sentire roster.

There are currently eight freshmenon the team now, but it is anyone’s guesshow many of them will be suiting up forthe 2012-2013 season.

“The reason I left LSC was becauseit was a little expensive and I was livingoff campus and I didn’t think it was goingto be good for me,” said former LSC bas-ketball player Antonio Mena in a phoneinterview. “I just couldn’t afford it and itwas a little far from home.”

There are many reasons, besidesmoney, why players leave. Sometimesthey do not like the area or the weatheror they transfer to a different schoolcloser to home. Even if Mena, from Cen-tral Falls, RI, could have afforded it, stay-ing at LSC for four years was not in hisplans.

“When I went to LSC I was thinkingabout going for two years and then trans-ferring to a better school for basketball,but my plans didn’t work out,” said Mena,

who now attends the Community Col-lege of Rhode Island and is taking generalcourses without playing basketball. Hesees how students who are not fromaround the area may find it difficult tostick around the Northeast Kingdom.

“It’s mainly because it is far fromhome for the other players that comefrom different states,” said Mena. “Theyare city kids and in Vermont all you see istrees and stuff like that. There is nothingaround.”

Asa Smith is a current freshman LSCbasketball player from Cheltenham, Md.who does not mind the rural atmosphereof Lyndonville. He likes the calm, peace-ful environment of Vermont.

“People who might think it’s boringdon’t make the most out of it,” saidSmith, who went on to talk about thosewho come to LSC and think it is boring.“I feel that those guys just aren’t takingadvantage of the opportunity of makingLyndonville as much fun as it could be.”

While he enjoys the atmosphere andplans on staying all four years, he has notruled out playing somewhere else.

“Don’t get me wrong, if I get an op-portunity to play somewhere for acheaper price or for a full ride I’m defi-nitely taking it,” said Smith. “If it comesto where I can go to school for a cheaperprice I would strongly consider it.”

NCAA Division III schools, likeLSC, cannot offer scholarships to ath-letes. This makes it difficult for out-of-state players to stay at LSC.

The two players who did come backthis year, Jason Gray from Thetford, Vt.and Ben Sackett from Lyndonville, are fa-miliar with the trees and location. But

the solution of keeping players is not assimple as going after more in-state stu-dents.

“In Vermont, just with the popula-tion, the amount of players is not as greatas they are in other areas so if we can geta great local player we’d love to do that,”said head coach Joe Krupinski. “It’s justfinding them.”

The problem is more than just thescarcity of local players.

“A lot of kids from Vermont want toleave Vermont for the same reason kidsfrom Maryland come up here,” he said.“They want to try something different.”

Krupinski focuses on certain areassearching for those players who wantsomething different.

“When I first got here we really fo-cused on the Springfield (Mass.)/Bostonarea and a couple urban areas in thenortheast,” he said. “We’re still focusingon those areas, but it’s changed. TheD.C. area is our new spot that we’ve beenfocusing on.”

There are currently eight freshmen

on the team.To try to keep the players he recruits,

Krupinski checks with their professors,holds study halls, and has exit interviewsat the end of the season to see what theplayer’s plans are. He says, for the mostpart, he knows when a guy is not comingback, but there have been surprises. Likethis year.

“It seemed like every time youturned around something else was goingon,” said Krupinski about losing playersfor various reasons. “This has been themost challenging I’ve ever seen in myyears coaching (at LSC). I don’t intend tobe in this situation again where we have10 or 11 guys, period.”

Even though this year highlightedthe team’s struggles with preserving itsplayers, Krupinski does not see anythingwrong with his recruitment system.

“We’re going to recruit the sameamount of players we’ve been recruitingand try to get the best guys we can getwherever they’re from,” he said. “We justmight need to get a few more of them.”

SPORTSFeb. 10, 2012 The Critic, Page 9

The Revolving Door The LSC Men’s Basketball Team is in a Constant Struggle to Keep Its Freshmen

File Photos

Above: Former LSC player Phil Warrick is just one of many freshmen players to not return.Right: Antionio Mena, another former LSC player, left the school for financial reasons.


Freshmen have a dismal suc-cess rate in some first-yearcourses.

Students say they are askedto learn too much in the classesthey take when they first arriveat Lyndon State College; profes-sors say that the students are notprepared for college-level work.

70 percent of first semesterfreshmen failed to get a C- orbetter in Intro to New Medialast semester. LSC keeps statis-tics on first semester freshmenthat receive a D, withdraw, fail,or get an incomplete from a class�DWFI�. Intro to New Mediawas at the top of the list withonly three freshmen succeeding

in the course.There are about 90 class op-

tions available for freshmen atLSC. According to the list ofDWFI classes provided by Deanof Academic and Student AffairsDonna Dalton, 20 of thoseclasses had a DWFI rate of 20percent or higher.

In terms of sheer numbers,College Writing had 76 out of316 first semester freshmen thatwould have to repeat the course.In two math courses that manyfreshmen are required to take,almost half of first semesterfreshmen did not succeed.Thirty-two out of the 70 fresh-men who took Problem SolvingWith Math were DWFIs and inIntermediate Algebra the num-

ber was 35 out of 79.Freshmen who are currently

taking Intro to New Media citethe abundance of new softwarethey have to use for the class,which they may not be familiarwith, as one of the reason theirclassmates have issues. The classfocuses on using the AdobeSuites software which includesInDesign, Photoshop, Illustra-tor, Dreamweaver and Fire-works.

�If you have no prior knowl-edge of Adobe going into thisclass you are automatically at adisadvantage in terms of whatyou can do,� said graphic designmajor Cody Brackett. �You re-ally have to learn what otherpeople may already have learnedyears ago in high school.�

Adjunct professor MichaelNiggel teaches the class and stu-dents say that not having theteacher on campus is an issue.Another problem students haveis that it is a hybrid, meaningthat the class meets once aweek, but the majority of thework and communication withthe teacher is online.

�That definitely contributesto not getting credit for a classbecause not having access to aprofessor on a regular basis andonly having online communica-tion can definitely influence thegrade,� said graphic design majorBrandon Heanssler.

Visual arts department chairPhil Parisi, who has taught Introto New Media in the past, dis-agrees that having the class as ahybrid should impact the stu-dents negatively. He says thereare plenty of resources the stu-dents can use if they need helpand does not see having an ad-junct teach the course as a nega-tive because he says all adjunctsare fully qualified.

�There�s four ways that astudent could get help: online, inthe classroom with the faculty

member, with a tutor, or withme,� Parisi said. �There�s alwaysa subject content expert avail-able on campus as a full-timefaculty member.�

He said that no studentcame to him for help last semes-ter and thinks freshmen need totake more responsibility.

�Freshmen who are comingin here are not used to takingcontrol of their learning,� Parisisaid. �We expect our students,from the day they walk in, to

start taking control of what theylearn.�

Intro to New Media will beoffered for the final time thissummer online and will betaught by Parisi. The visual artsdepartment has gone through anoverhaul with its majors. Incom-ing freshmen will take basiccourses their first year and willnot learn the material presentedby Intro to New Media untiltheir sophomore year which willlend itself to having more re-sponsible students in the classes.

The second class on theDWFI list was Intro to PoliticalScience with 63 percent of firstsemester freshmen not succeed-ing. Out of the eight that tookthe course, three were success-ful. Freshmen currently takingthat class say the problem is somuch information.

�There is a lot of subjectmatter,� said graphic designmajor Tyler Powell who says heis currently getting around a B inthe class, if not higher. �Youneed to have a base knowledgebefore you go into the class toknow simple laws and constitu-tions. �Students� go into theclass not sure what to expectand they get overloaded andthey just can�t deal with it.�

Freshman computer scienceand math major Alec Vando,who is also currently taking theclass, agrees that there is plentyto memorize, but sees a differ-ent reason to why students havea hard time with Intro to Politi-cal Science.

�If they are not interested inthe material they are going toforget it,� he said. �I am the ex-ception to the rule. I find thiscompletely fascinating. I�ve beeninterested in politics for years. Alot of people don�t have that �in-terest�.�

Professor David Plazek,who is currently teaching theclass and taught it last semester,says that intro classes by naturehave plenty of rote memoriza-tion. They are the buildingblocks to the higher levelcourses.

�You need to learn the basicconcepts and terms and goalsand so forth because these arethe concepts and terms we useto discuss the subject,� he said.

Plazek says that many in-coming freshmen are not readyfor college. He acknowledgesthat it is a tough transition fromhigh school.

�Especially when you have alot of students that are comingfrom high school where theydidn�t have to do homework andthey got good grades,� Plazeksaid. �You have to do the home-work in my classes to succeed.�

NEWSApril 27, 2012 The Critic, Page 4

Course Title DWFI RateNMS-1015 Intro to New Media 70% POS-1010 Intro to Political Science 63%MAT-1060 Problem Solving With Math 46%MAT-1020 Intermediate Algebra 44%HIS-1211 American History I 36%INT-1710 ST: Gateway to College 32%SSC-1030 Exploring the Social Sciences 31%PSY-1010 Intro to Psychology 31%MUS-1030 Music Fundamentals 30%ENG-0030 Basic Reading and Writing 27%BIO-1210 Intro to Biology 27%EDU-2210 Found of Ed: Elem and Special Ed 26%XSC-1090 Intro to Exercise Science 26%MAT-0010 Basic Math Review 26%ART-1010 Experiencing Arts 25%ENG-1051 College Writing 24%MRM-1080 Theory and Practice 24%BUS-1010 Intro to Business 23%XSC-1255 Fitness for Health and Perform 20%MAT-0221 Basic Algebra 20%ENG-1052 Expo and Analysis 19%BUS-1210 Intro Business Software 17%ATM-1211 Survey of Meteorology I 17%PSY-1050 Human Growth and Development 13%INT-1020 Academic Community 12%

Top 25 DWFI Class Rates Last Fall forFirst Semester Freshmen

(D, Withdraw, Fail, Incomplete)

Overloaded or Unprepared?Students and Professors Disagree on Why Freshmen Struggle Their First Semester

Photo by Sierra WillenburgFreshman Cody Brackett says thata lack of prior knowledge of soft-ware puts his classmates at a dis-advantage in Intro to New Media,the top DWFI class

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Friday, April 20, 2012 Lyndon State College Volume 58.20

A Quote to Note

“I don't like to think for more than 15 minutesat a stretch actually; I am a fragile flower.”

- Hugh Laurie

Campus CalendarSat. 4/21: Men’s LAX vs. Thomas College, 1p.m.

Sun. 4/22: Twilight Players in ‘Pippin’, 2 p.m.

Tue. 4/24: Men’s Tennis vs. MCLA, 3:30 p.m.

IN THIS ISSUE...

Day of Silence Page 6

No Sports Seating Page 8

Stand-out Style Page 13

Pippin Review Page 16

Minor Trouble Page 7Softball Page 8Q & A with Pres. Gold Page 4

Saturday > Sunday > MondayCourtesy of Jeremy Goldberg and

The National Weather Service

64O 47O 43O


She walked into IT expectingto fix a problem she had with hercourse management software.

What music professor Eliza-beth Norris found were threepeople waiting for her and someman’s voice coming out of aspeakerphone claiming to befrom the Vermont State Collegesystem. Those waiting wereChief Technology Officer MikeDente, Dean of AdministrationWayne Hamilton, Chief Infor-mation Officer for the VermontState Colleges Linda Hilton andthe man on the speakerphonewas Chief Technology Officerfor the VSC Rick Blood.

A combination of ignoranceand confusion has caused someissues with the IT department atLyndon State College. Chancel-lor of the Vermont State Col-leges Tim Donovan will becoming to LSC on April 26 totalk with the faculty about theVSC policy regarding data stor-age and how faculty should beusing college-owned computers.

These issues are coming inconflict with how teachers wantto teach.

One of those teachers, pro-fessor Norris, was recently foundto be violating the VSC policyregarding how faculty shouldstore students’ information suchas their grades, student ID num-bers and if they have a disability.

The VSC policy, which canbe found at tinyurl.com/vscdata,lays out what is private data andhow it should be stored.

Norris had a problem usingMoodle, the school’s softwarefor grading and other onlineclass features.

“I have a doctorate inMusic,” she said. “I am not a stu-pid woman. I can’t use Moodleand nobody’s hearing it. No-body’s hearing those of us whoaren’t using Moodle say ‘it is notuser friendly.’”

See “Grading Issues” page 5

Photo by Sierra Willenburg

Senior LSC mountain recreation management student Allison Poulin participates in a women’s self defensecourse taught by Master Black Belt, Rick Dunlavey, yesterday in the Burke Mountain Room.

WARRIORWOMEN

SELF DEFENSE CLASS AT LSCHELPS WOMEN STAY SAFE

“THENORRIS

SITUATION”

THREE YEARS STRONG

Katelyn ZenieEric BlaisdellCritic Staff

She was crying in the hall-way after she found out.

Lyndon State College’s Stu-dent Government Associationfinancial controller Julie Austinwas the only executive boardmember not given compensa-tion for her work this year. Thethree other members of theSGA executive board were given$500, half of the compensationthey asked for.

President Nick Russo, VicePresident Sean Siciliano, andAdministrative Vice PresidentMeghan Dolyak received com-pensation for their work withthe student government. Origi-nally all four executive boardmembers requested one thou-sand dollar stipends, and threeelective representatives re-quested fifty-dollar stipends.

See ‘Stipend’ page 4

DENIED

Photos by Samantha VanSchoick

Outgoing Lyndon Student Government Association president Nicholas Russo

reacts with a smile after hearing that he was elected to replace graduating

senior John Kleinhans as the student member of the Vermont State College

Board of Trustees. In an 8-3 vote yesterday afternoon, members of the Vermont

State Colleges Student Association chose Russo, a junior electronic journalism

arts major, to represent the five state colleges. This is the third year in a row an

LSC student has been elected to this position. Russo thanked everyone for

their support and said he was excited to get to work. Russo ran against Dylan

Giambatista, a junior at Johnson State, who was offered the position of vice-

chair. “I think students, their role in this particular instance was to vote, and

they voted, and the results speak.” Giambatista has not accepted the position

as vice-chair, but plans to consider it. Russo will assume the position July 1.

BOSTON RAPPER TOROCK LSCExclusive Interview

Page 12

NEWSApril 20, 2012 The Critic, Page 5

Norris had a problem withthe interface of Moodle. She at-tended all the workshops pro-vided to the faculty on how touse Moodle.

There is a faculty member,electronic journalism arts pro-fessor Meghan Meachem, whoknows how to use Moodle andhas been assisting those with is-sues with it. Norris said she didnot go to her because Meachemhad her own work to do and wasoverloaded as it was.

The problem seemed to bespecific to Norris because sheshowed her Moodle to other fac-ulty and staff members who usedit and she says her versionlooked much different thantheirs.

“The grade book didn’t tallyup and I couldn’t even read it be-cause it was blue lettering on ablue background. I couldn’t readany of the grades,” she said. “Ifthey want us to use a system itbetter work and it better workeasily. I’m here to teach. I’mhere to be with the students. Iam here as an advisor. I don’thave six hours a day, literally, tosit and try to figure this out. Ijust don’t.”

Norris went online andfound an easier program, En-grade, to use for her classes. En-grade is a free coursemanagement program that al-lows teachers to post grades andassignments for students to use.Engrade says it is FERPA, Fam-ily Educational Rights and Pri-vacy Act, compliant so Norrisfelt that it was safe to use. Norrisalso told LSC President SteveGold and Dean of Academic andStudent Affairs Donna Daltonthat she was using it, so she feltshe had covered her bases.

Dalton says that Norris hadtalked to her about how happyshe was that she found a sitethat worked for her, but did notask her permission to use it.

“Don’t go to me,” said Dal-ton. “I know nothing about thisstuff.”

Dalton admits that it didnot occur to her that when Nor-ris talked about Engrade it couldhave been violating the VSC pol-icy. She also admits that sheshould have known the policybetter herself.

“This is like many thingswhere you know it in the ab-stract and then it is not until asituation comes up that you go‘Oh my gosh.’”

A situation did come up lastsemester where two of professorNorris’ students had submittedassignments that appeared thesame, so she suspected plagia-rism. There was no plagiarism,but Engrade had made a mistakeusing one of its applications. Itwas later discovered that En-grade sent data to a third-partysite, which could not be moni-tored by LSC.

“I didn’t know, honest toGod I didn’t know, that therewas a VSC policy that said ‘all

third-party sites must be ap-proved by whatever office ofIT,’” Norris said.

Faculty and staff not know-ing the policy has been one ofthe main issues IT has beendealing with.

“I’ve found that more peo-ple don’t realize they’re violatingthe policies than know what thepolicy is,” said Dente, LSC’schief technology officer. “We aretrying to educate the people. Weare trying to explain to them(what the policy is).”

Dente says that simplicityand ease of use do not trump se-curity, so those faculty memberswho have been violating theVSC policy, even if it makestheir job easier, will have to stop.

Dente would not commenton what happened with Norris,but he did talk about a generalscenario that was similar.

“If a faculty member wentout on their own and startedusing a third-party course man-agement system, invited the stu-dents on their own, made themcreate user names and passwordsand started storing personal pri-vate privileged data on that sitethey would be violating the VSCpolicy,” he said.

After Norris discovered theproblem with the suspected pla-giarism she emailed Donna Dal-ton to ask her what to do.

“Instead of responding tome, she sent it to everybody elsein the world,” Norris said. “MikeDente, Wayne Hamilton, LindaHilton, I can’t even rememberhow many other people. Sud-denly, late at night, I’ve got thisridiculous fiasco on my hands.”

Norris says she was told togo see Dente to figure out whathappened and to try to fix it. Shewas not told that there weregoing to be three other people atthat meeting.

“I sat down and said, ‘I did-n’t realize that this was going tobe the Spanish Inquisition. Ithought it was Mike and I one-on-one.’ The answer was ‘no,this is standard operating proce-dure,’” she said.

Another LSC reaction thatangered Norris was that therewere emails going around abouther that she was not aware of.President Gold sent out anemail addressing her situation.He included in that messageemails between himself andDente, however. Gold referredto what was happening as “theNorris incident” and Dente saidthe situation for the school was“scary” because Norris removedthe data from Engrade herselfand Dente could not know ex-actly what data was exposed.

“A copy of those emails wassent to me, inadvertently, that Iwas being uncooperative,” shesaid.

Norris disagrees that shewas uncooperative.

“Every email I receivedfrom anybody I responded toand I told them exactly what I

was going to do, how I wascleaning out the sites, before Idid anything I told (Dente) and Itold Wayne Hamilton,” she said.“I told everybody what I wasdoing.”

The one thing she wouldnot do is hand over her username and password to Dente sothat he could go through andmake sure all the protected datawas removed.

“I was concerned,” she said.“This was my online course. Iwas concerned that somebodyelse would clean it out and notpreserve the student’s work, be-cause I hadn’t had a chance tograde it all.”

Norris still uses Engrade,after removing all the sensitivedata. She admits that she stillmay be in violation of the VSCpolicy.

“I don’t know,” Norris said.“I’m planning on going to thechancellor when he’s here, be-cause I want to find out. How isthis not an appropriate site?There’s no sensitive informa-tion.”

Norris still cannot use Moo-dle and says that if the schoolwants to use a central site likeMoodle or Blackboard then ithas to be user friendly.

“We faculty don’t havehours and hours that we can de-vote to learning a system that’sso clunky and so clumsy that it’sgot to have 24 hour support,”she said. “It’s stupid.”

‘Grading Issues’

Photos by Eric BlaisdellAbove: Professor Beth Norris demonstrates the free and easy to use software she used to record student gradesBelow: The Engrade software interface with the students names covered up

Norris’s students’ grades were almost impossible to read using Moodle

(cont. from page 1)

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Lyndon State College Friday, May 4, 2012 Volume 58.21

A Quote to Note

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.”

- Alfred Hitchcock

Campus CalendarFri. 5/4: Men’s Lacrosse vs. Norwich U.

5/6 - 5/9: Study Breaks in the Dining Hall all week!

Sun. 5/13: Graduation!

IN THIS ISSUE...

Hand Over The Reigns Page 3

10 Q’s with Justin

The Year in Sports Pages 13&14

Ultimate Fit Page 17

Graduation Garb Page 18

Robing Ceremony Page 4 Tough Mudder Page 8

Saturday > Sunday > MondayCourtesy of Jeremy Goldberg and The National

Weather Service

62O 66O 65O


One man’s opinion aboutoverhauling the Vermont StateCollege system, as it is currentlyconstructed, has brought bothcriticism and praise.

A Vermont Public Radiocommentary about the VSC hascaused a stir within the system.

The piece, aired Mondaynight, by Bill Schubart talkedabout the likelihood of support-ing five Vermont state colleges insuch a small state. Schubart’s so-lution to increasing educationcosts was to enfold the VSC intothe University of Vermont. Thissolution has been met by push-back from the VSC.

“It struck me that this wasnot a well-informed commentaryby a very experienced commen-tator for VPR,” said VSC Chan-cellor Tim Donovan. “It was fullof inaccuracies and assumptionsthat made no sense. How do wethink we are going to make thisless expensive by rolling the leastexpensive option (the VSC) intothe most expensive option(UVM)?”

Donovan sent a letter toSchubart addressing these con-

cerns on Tuesday after he wasbombarded by calls, emails andtext messages from those upsetby the commentary. The letterhighlighted some solutionsSchubart suggested that have al-ready been put in place.

Schubart said that any stu-dent attending a Vermont StateCollege should be able to trans-fer credits to any other school orswitch from one school to an-other easily.

Donovan said that possibilityis already in place.

“We have one course data-base for the system,” he said.“Credits taken at any state col-lege count at every state college.”

Rolling the VSC into UVMwould not make financial sense.Donovan cited the recent hiringof Lyndon State College’s presi-dent, Joe Bertolino, at $142,000.

“There are 22 vice presidentsat the University of Vermont thatmake more than $150,000,” hesaid. “If you were working withinthe (UVM) structure and had acampus dean, the Universitywould be paying more than weare paying for presidents.”

See ‘VPR’, page 6

VPR CAUSES STIR


Former Lyndon State CollegeCarol Moore will return to cam-pus May 13 to speak at com-mencement.

Moore will be joined by for-mer LSC President Janet Mur-phy, who was president from1977-83. LSC invited all formerpresidents to attend.

“I miss not seeing the stu-dents all the time,” Moore said.“I miss bringing new ideas to thecampus that will make thingsbetter for students.”

Moore has spent the last yearconsulting, mentoring and writ-ing. Moore has written aboutwomen’s perspectives on variousissues and wrote a piece on theimportance of civic learning incollege. She is currently doing aresearch project on female col-lege student perspectives.

She said that Steve Gold hasdone a great job as interim presi-dent. Moore understands that it

is difficult to come into a posi-tion of power for only a year.

“It is a real challenge to say,‘what could I do to make thingsbetter at Lyndon?’ as opposed tojust standing in place,” she said.“And yet, you don’t want to go sofar as to send the college in a di-rection that might be contrary toa permanent president comingin.”

Moore has only communi-cated with incoming presidentJoe Bertolino by email, but shesaid she can relate to where he iscoming from.

“People raised eyebrowswhen I came to Lyndon becauseI came from a school outsideNew York City,” Moore said. “Heis going to be like New Yorkersare: fast paced and wanting to getthings done and done quickly.People should expect that is howmost people from New York are.”

While both Moore andBertolino came to LSC fromNew York, how they got here isquite different.

“I came from the academicside of the house coming from afaculty position. He comes fromthe student side of the house andthat is going to be good,” she saidabout Bertolino’s background instudent affairs.

Moore says that Bertolino, at

48, is not too young to be presi-dent.

“He’s not so young that youwould call him a young whipper-snapper,” she said. “He is experi-enced and those experiences willserve him well.”

She sees some problems withretention and recruitment atLSC, but thinks in general theschool is heading in the right di-rection with things such as theLeahy Center for Rural Students.

“There is a good foundationhere for a new president. It is areal opportunity for (Bertolino)because the folks at Lyndon arejust terrific people,” she said.

A LITTLEMOORE

SPRINGDIPPhoto by Bryan Barber

Only the bravest among LSC’s students and faculty dared test the watersof the Library Pond at the annual Spring Dip. See photos on page 20.

LYNDON’S

YEAR IN REVIEWPAGE 10 & 11

What will youremember?

Take a journey through thepast year at Lyndon through

the eyes of The Critic

NEWSMay 4, 2012 The Critic,

Danielle DrownCritic Staff

One professor’s initial reac-tion was, “Oh, f**k”, while theother professor screamed, cried,and then called her son in NewYork, who automaticallythought somebody had died.

Within the year, China andIndia will play host to part of theLyndon State community asEnglish professor Dan Williamsand human services professorMargaret Sherrer have beennamed Fulbright scholars.

After applying in August,Williams just recently receivedthe news that he would beteaching in China for tenmonths and hopes to be placedat the Xi’an International Stud-ies University.

“The weird thing about thiswas I read it in an email at 7p.m., but it had been in my emailsystem since 12:30 p.m.,” saidWilliams. “I just missed it. Eversince they told us the selection

would be between March andMay, every day I was obsessivelylooking at my email. I’d do thisall the time and I’d run to thePost Office before it closed andsee if there was a letter. Andthen on the day it actually came,I just over looked it until, just byaccident, I was going throughemails at 7 p.m.”

Williams said that he gotthe idea of traveling to Chinafrom a presentation made byDean of Academic and studentaffairs, Donna Dalton, when shereturned from a trip abroad.Dalton said that the college shehad visited taught their journal-ism program in English.

“That just made a light bulbgo off in my head or something,”Williams said. At that point, theidea of an exchange betweenXi’an and Lyndon was suggestedand Williams was put in contactwith the university’s newspapereditor.

“We started emailing back

and forth, exchanging copies ofour papers, the Critic for PACE,gave each other feedback, andthat sort of blossomed. It’s justbeen a cool relationship.”

Williams’ interest in travel-ing abroad and desire to go toAsia contributed to his decisionto teach in China, but he worriesabout the language barrier.

“It (Chinese) is really differ-ent from the languages I’velearned before. That will be achallenge.”

Williams is unsure of whowill take his spot at LSC whilehe is in China, but he is not wor-ried.

“The Critic will be fine.With the editor for next year,the Critic will prosper. I thinkthe journalism program will befine too,” said Williams. “Theway you can tell if you’re suc-cessful is if you know thingswould run fine if you were runover by a truck. I think every-thing will be fine.”

Sherrer and her husband, aFulbright scholar as well, will betraveling to India in Decemberto teach and conduct researchfor four months at Rajagiri Col-lege of the Social Sciences.

“My interest in India goesway back to when I was a kid re-ally. It just seemed like the rightcountry,” said Sherrer. “India hasso many facets that I find inter-esting. They have an evolving in-frastructure in terms of mentalhealth services, and also a muchmore open attitude towarddeath and dying.”

Having never been to India,Sherrer has anxieties about trav-eling to another country. Englishis widely spoken, but Malayalamis the language in Kerala, wherethey will be staying. She alsoworries about the amount ofpreparation for the trip ahead ofher.

Like Williams, Sherrer in-tends to return to LSC afterworking overseas.

“I do intend to come backfor fall 2013 semester. I imaginecoming back into the day to dayLyndon State world is going tobe a little tough, but I’m lookingforward to coming back andsharing what I’ve learned,” shesaid.

LSC Professors Honored with Opportunity

Photos by Danielle DrownProfessors Margaret Sherrer (top)

and Dan Williams (bottom)

There had already been astudy done by Governor JimDouglas in 2009 that looked intothe possibility of consolidatingthe VSC schools. The study saidit found that a merger would im-pact the cultural differences ofthe VSC and UVM in a negativeway. The study also said that amerger would not save muchmoney and could “result in nega-tive impacts on students if aca-demic programs and facilitieswere terminated, consolidated, orrelocated.”

Schubart says that his piecewas meant to be an opinion andto ask a question to open up dis-cussion.

“I did expect that this wouldelicit a pretty strong response,”he said, adding that the criticismthat he did not do his homeworkabout this topic was justified. “Idon’t always, because it’s an opin-ion piece, call everybody in-volved. I try to be fair and I try

to be practical above all else.”Schubart said that of the re-

sponses he has received since thepiece ran, almost half have beenpositive, a third have disagreed,and the rest said it was a goodidea, but should be explored dif-ferently.

One of the inaccuracies in thecommentary was that Schubartnever brought up one of the VSCschools, the Community Collegeof Vermont. The VSC includesCastleton State College, JohnsonState College, LSC, VermontTechnical College and CCV.

“It was because I saw (CCV)as a much more regional initia-tive,” he said.

Schubart went on to say CCVshould have been included be-cause it highlights his point evenfurther. The census conducted in2010 said the population of Ver-mont stood at 625,741 and thereare six state funded schools ofhigher education with the VSC

and UVM.“That is a full blown college

system for every 100,000 peoplein Vermont,” he said. “People for-get that.”

The piece was not meant todisparage the Vermont State Col-leges. Schubart grew up in Mor-risville, Vt. next to JSC and saidall the VSC schools have a greatreputation.

“I’m grateful that we havethese schools, but there is a realquestion as to whether we can af-ford to manage all the unique in-frastructures of all six of them,”

he said.LSC President Steve Gold

said that he considers Schubart afriend and is even on the board oftrustees for Vermont Works forWomen, a nonprofit organiza-tion, with Schubart’s wife. Golddisagreed with Schubart on muchof the commentary, however.

“Anyone who knows anythingunderstands that a lot of what hesaid is completely off base,” hesaid. “It really robs the commen-tary of any real value.”

Even though the VSC hasmade it easy to transfer credits,like Schubart suggests it should,it is still not easy to move fromone school to the next.

“If you are a student at Lyn-don, you expect to stay at Lyn-don and get a complete roundededucation available to you here,”Gold said. “I think that is just astrue at Johnson and just as true atCastleton.”

Gold did see some merit in

one of the issues Schubart raised.Another way that Schubart pro-posed cutting costs was to elimi-nate tenure for faculty. That wassomething that Gold agreedshould be looked at.

“The institution of tenure forlife for faculty could become avery major burden for collegeslike Lyndon State College acrossthe country,” he said, adding thatthe idea of tenure is obsolete be-cause of unions and contract ne-gotiations. “There is thepotential for that contractual sit-uation to cover all the issues thattenure for life was invented toprotect.”

Gold says his thoughts onthis topic may not be popularwith the faculty.

“I am not suggesting that Iwould favor having it terminated,but I do think it deserves somethoughtful study about if it is thebest way to move forward,” hesaid.

‘VPR’ (cont. from page 1)

File PhotoVSC Chancellor Tim Donovan wasnot happy with a recent VPR com-mentarythat suggested merging theVSC with UVM

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