DEAR VQ READERS:
I pledge to not make a habit of a “From the Editor’s Desk” column. If we’re doing our jobs right, there is lots more interesting UVM stuff to share than my description of dappled light on the Green or some editorial profundity. But this issue marks some milestones, so I’m granting myself some license.
First, thanks to the alumni who gave the magazine a thumbs-up in recent research conducted for UVM Development and Alumni Relations. Ninety-five percent of those surveyed said they found VQ “interesting and informative.”
As for that less-impressed five percent, maybe the new design we introduce in this issue will help us turn the corner with them. Elise Whittemore-Hill, the magazine’s art director for the past seven years, has led the way through a redesign of our typefaces and section treatments, and you’ll find some new ways that we deliver information. Please let us know what you think.
There’s one more very important change we mark with this issue. It’s the first edition since 2002 without the name Kevin Foley in the senior editor slot. Kevin has been an integral part of the magazine’s growth and improvement over the past six years—contributing countless ideas, nuanced judgment, and exceptional writing on profiles of alumni such as Steven Shaw ’91, Deborah Adler ’97, and faculty including Huck Gutman, Tom Hudspeth, and Dr. Phil Ades. Kevin is stepping away from work at UVM to focus on his health and his family as he continues a two-year battle with cancer. We wish our skillful colleague and dear friend well. And we warn him that our calls for help with editorial quandaries or Mac glitches will not cease.
Thanks for reading,
Thomas Weaver
Editor
Our request for alumni thoughts on how you would use the power to magically alter the campus landscape shook out some responses that were impressive for their geographic range. (It’s been too long since we last heard from Micronesia.) Julie DiMauro ’92 wins our favorite letter prize for her proposal to ugly up Vermont.
ENOUGH WITH THE BEAUTY
I would have loved a landscape eraser so I could have blotted out the Thoreau-imbued pastoral perfection that was my dormitory window’s view.
I’m serious.
Because that picturesque vision of verdant green mountainside and snow-capped peaks inspired my parents to visit. Too frequently. Catch my drift?
I lived in Tupper, and the view from my little cinderblock haven of rice cakes and vats of peanut butter sufficient to feed a vegetarian army was breathtaking. And my Boston-based parents noticed. And they drove up a lot to take in the view… and stock up on candles and syrup. But mostly to behold the view.
So, I wish I could have temporarily blotted it out…so they never would have discovered it…so I could have kept it as my own secret. I mean, hey, get your own idyllic front yard.
Julie DiMauro ’92
Brooklyn, New York
TUNNELING TO WATERMAN…
I lived on the main campus for three of my four UVM years (Buckham, Chittenden, Converse). At that time the dining hall for main campus residents was in the basement of Waterman. I was a farm boy with a healthy appetite and never missed a meal. On a February morning when it was minus ten with a forty mile-per-hour wind off the lake, it would have been great to have Waterman on the green between Cook and the Shoeboxes with an underground tunnel connecting them.
By the way, I read with interest your article on Nate Berg ’08 and his love of lobstering, including his 3 a.m. start time. As a dairy farmer I have had a 4 a.m. start time for over thirty years, and I still love what I do. I have told all three of my children (including Caleb ’08) whatever career path they follow I want them to be able to tell me in twenty years they still love what they do. Life is too short to dread going to work every day for your whole life. So cheers to Nate for pursuing his dream job.
Leon Corse ‘76
Whitingham, Vermont
…AND ON MAIN STREET
They did it in Boston, why not Burlington? Boston had a Big Dig, why not a Little Dig in Burlington, and bury Route 2 from about where Gaynes was (yes, I am dating myself) to about where the last fraternity is. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to walk around the whole campus without dodging all the Main Street traffic?
Richard M. Roderick ’78
Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia
DON’T CHANGE A THING
Thinking about UVM, I must tell you my personal history goes back further. UVM was part of my life—it was always there. I was born at the Mary Fletcher Hospital; my father, uncles, aunts, cousins and my sisters and
brother after me all graduated from UVM. My mother played violin in a string ensemble at the music department on Williams. I lived in Coolidge Hall before getting married and moving to a small apartment on Loomis. I wouldn’t have changed anything. Today’s campus isn’t the same, but how it was then lives on in my memory!
Jessica Schildhaus Fischer ’57
Michmoret, Israel
MORE LIBRARIES, MORE QUIET
During my undergraduate days, I lived on Redstone. I enjoyed walking to main campus once a day for classes, but if you wanted to study in the library at night, that meant another long walk back and forth. I would have appreciated another moderately sized library near the Redstone campus. (I do not like the way the main library was added on to. The nice wide-open aspect of the UVM campus with big grassy lawns was compromised. This is not in keeping with the environmental idea of Vermont.)
Furthermore, another library, or even two, should have been built with absolute-quiet studying areas. Such quiet was hard to find in those days. Also, I would have had small monetary fines for talking in such areas.
Dick Johnson ’77
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
NEXT UP
There’s nothing like a plain brown envelope to get your attention. In April, our office received an anonymous package with “From Slade Hall’s kitchen, 1985!” written on the outside. Enclosed: The trophy pictured, “Wig and Buskin Junior Week Peerade: 1924.”
That delivery inspired this next assignment. Please send us a digital photo and a brief description of a prized artifact from your UVM days. A uniform, a concert poster, a pressed flower, a puck, a street sign (if you’re really secure about the statute of limitations)…you get the idea. As always, our favorite letter gets a free print of your choice from the stock of UVM Photo. Now, get up to the attic.
