E-newsletter
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June 2009
News and views from Southern Vermont College...
Alumni Reunion Photos
Thanks to all of the alumni who attended Reunion Weekend. Click here to view a few photos, including the presentation of the Distinguished Alumni Award to Chief Richard Gauthier ’91, recognition of three “golden” alumnae, a tour of Hunter Hall and dinner at Carmody’s West.
Campus Store Now Offers Alumni Items
Reunion Weekend also marked the introduction of the Campus Store’s new line of alumni items, including t-shirts, golf shirts and mugs. For more information, please contact Mary Ryan at 802-447-6318 or mryan@svc.edu.
Support the SVC Annual Fund
The quality of an SVC education is growing, and you can help us keep students on course. Seventy-four graduates received their diplomas on Sunday, May 17, and none of them would have been able to reach this milestone without the generous contributions of alumni and friends.
Please keep this momentum going by making your fully tax-deductible gift at www.svc.edu/support/online_giving.html before the close of our fiscal year on Tuesday, June 30.
If you have already given, thank you. Please know that your support is already improving the quality of the friendly and personalized education for which SVC is known.
Professor Redden Blogs from China
History and Politics Professor Tom Redden is a part of a group of Vermont educators and Chamber of Commerce representatives visiting Beijing and Shanghai. You can follow along on this journey as Professor Redden takes in the sights and sounds of China and meets with college-bound students from another part of the world. He will be posting comments and photos on his blog at http://svc2china.blogspot.com/.
“The Kindle Factor”
Charles Crowell, associate professor and director of the Build The Enterprise program, wrote an article for InsideHigherEd.com entitled “The Kindle Factor.” Recent announcements regarding Amazon’s Kindle reader have prompted many discussions about how it can be used to help students learn and possibly save money at the same time. You can read the article here.
SVC Welcomes New Business Division Chair
Professor Eric Drouart has accepted the position of Chair of Southern Vermont College’s McCormick Division of Business. Drouart, a native of France, was most recently Associate Professor of Business in the Business Administration Division at Rivier College in Nashua, N.H., where he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in management, marketing, advertising, international business, market research and strategic management since 2000. He was the Chair of the Rivier College Business Administration Department from 2002 through 2005.
Before joining Rivier, Drouart had extensive international marketing and general management experience, including 15 years with New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb in international business development. In that role, he led the company’s successful introduction of ‘over-the-counter’ medicines into Eastern Europe, oversaw the creation of new operations in Switzerland and Greece, and directed marketing and business development strategies in Europe and Asia. Drouart also worked in international marketing research for General Foods Corporation and Burke International Research Corporation.
Drouart is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing Management and a Master of Science degree in Business Administration. He also received a Business Administration diploma in 1973 from the Institut de Préparation à l’Administration et à la Gestion (IPAG) in Paris, France.
Drouart is a member of the American Marketing Association; the Academy of International Business; the Greater Nashua Human Resources Association; the American French Canadian Cultural Commission of N.H.; and the past President of the Nashua Richelieu Club, a French-speaking service club. Drouart currently resides in Nashua with his wife, Antoinette. He is an avid skier and has a first-degree black belt in Kendo (Japanese fencing).
Robert Consalvo, associate professor and Acting Chair, will continue to teach within the division.
SVC Names New Director of Athletics
SVC has named Christina Cruz of Williamstown, Mass., as its new Director of Athletics. Cruz has worked at Williams College for the past 25 years, beginning as Head Coach of the women’s crew team. Before her time at Williams, she was a member of the U.S. Olympic and National rowing teams and coached at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1994, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Physical Education at Williams while continuing to coach women’s rowing. Later, Cruz served as a Project Manager in the facilities department, where she collaborated with faculty, staff, architects, engineers, contractors and town officials on several building projects. Most recently, she spent two years as the principal investigator on a strategic planning and diversity initiative seeking to understand and address the needs of minority and first generation students at Williams.
Cruz received a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, an M.Ed. in Educational Administration from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and a Ph.D. in Educational Research and Evaluation in Curriculum and Instruction from SUNY–Albany. She is also a published author, having recently completed her book, Gender Games: Why Women Coaches are Losing the Field.
Speaking on Cruz’s hire, President Karen Gross said, “I am delighted, truly delighted, to welcome Chris Cruz to the SVC community. She will enable our athletic program to grow and flourish, and her experiences as an athlete, coach, administrator and author will enrich our community. I look forward to introducing her to current and prospective students, faculty and staff.”
Don Schaffer, who served as interim Director of Athletics this spring, will continue as Head Baseball Coach and will also assume the newly created position of Assistant Athletic Director.
President Gross Quoted on VPR and InsideHigherEd.com
On May 19, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a credit card reform bill. Vermont’s delegation has been very vocal in pushing for credit card reform, and Senator Bernie Sanders and SVC President Karen Gross recently spoke about the issue on Vermont Public Radio. Click here to read more and listen to the podcast. President Gross also spoke to InsideHigherEd.com about the bill.
President Gross recently completed a three-part series for InsideHigherEd.com chronicling her experience teaching a course on leadership and gender while simultaneously serving as president. The final article, “Lessons Learned, Now That It’s Over…” is available here and explores the co-learning that took place between her and her students.
President Interviewed by Vermont Business Magazine
President Karen Gross was interviewed for the June issue of Vermont Business Magazine. She discussed a variety of topics, including the history of the College, how to increase the number of students who progress from high school to college, SVC’s new simulation lab, which will enable healthcare students to engage with computerized patients, and how her experience in the legal profession, particularly her study of indebtedness in the consumer financial market, has prepared her for leading a college in today’s economy. “If there is a silver lining to this economy, it’s that it is creating opportunities for people to partner together, who would never have partnered before.”
You can read the entire interview here.
Provost Delivers Keynote on Power of Education
Provost Albert DeCiccio was invited by the Nashua Exchange Club to deliver the keynote address at a celebration honoring the top 14 scholars at five greater Nashua, N.H., high schools. DeCiccio’s address focused on the transformative power of education and achievement. Serving the greater Nashua region since 1947, The Exchange Club is comprised of men and women working together to make communities better places in which to live through sponsored programs and projects in community service and youth activities as well as through its national project, on the prevention of child abuse.
Divisional Chairs Attend Creative Leadership Workshops
From May 27-29, Provost Albert DeCiccio and SVC’s Divisional Chairpersons participated in the “Creative Leadership with Limited Resources” Workshop for Department and Division Chairs, sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges, in Cambridge, Mass. Along with nearly 100 other participants representing 50 colleges throughout the nation, SVC’s contingent worked through such topics as conflict management, using data to understand departmental need in a time of economic constraint, low-cost professional development and attracting entry-level students to majors. Professor Scott Stein, Chair of The Donald Everett Axinn Division of Social Sciences, was invited to host a well-attended discussion group, entitled “Flexible Degree Programs for Small Institutions.”
Rad. Tech. Students Achieve 100 Percent Pass-rate on State Exam
The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT), the nationally recognized certification agency for state licensing, has confirmed that the SVC Rad. Tech. Class of 2009 achieved a 100 percent pass-rate on the final registry exam. Additionally, the average score for SVC students was an 86; a score of 75 is needed for passing. “This is a remarkable achievement and an affirming testament for SVC and our Rad. Tech. program,” said SVC President Karen Gross. “I am very proud of the leadership in this program and of the students who will proudly represent us out in the field.”
The mission of the ARRT is to “promote high standards of patient care by recognizing qualified individuals in medical imaging, interventional procedures and radiation therapy.” For more information about the ARRT, visit www.arrt.org.
Looking Back
When Edward Everett’s second wife, Grace, sold the Estate in 1952, she held a public auction in which more than 2,000 items were put up for bid, including a Spanish walnut fall-front desk; a French provincial tall case clock (c. 1700); a Flemish tapestry panel depicting “The Game of Archery”; a Japanese Satsuma tea set; a presentation silver pitcher crafted in London in 1879, featuring a trumpet and lion head handle; a tortoise shell and brass inkwell; a carved Italian walnut game table with backgammon inlay; a rosewood miniature organ built in 1855; a Steinway grand piano; an early Bible printed in 1566; and Dutch, French and Spanish paintings, some dating back to the 16th Century.
