Environmental Mission
Touring GMC.
BY JENNY MONTAGNE
I started at Green Mountain College in August of 2006. After a tiresome spring of writing essays, filling out applications, and touring schools, I decided on Green Mountain because of the community feeling I got when I walked around the campus during my tour. The classes and the people seemed accessible and open, and I liked the idea of an environmentally-based curriculum. Early on during my first semester, I began to feel that something just wasn’t right. I loved my classes and I was meeting great people, but I felt like I was missing out on some larger college “experience”, so I decided to apply for transfer to two bigger schools.
Finally, based on no academic consideration, I chose UVM. A huge percentage of my freshmen class also made the choice to transfer or do other things and did not return to Green Mountain for their sophomore years. I knew right away that UVM was completely wrong for me; the classes and the campus were overwhelmingly huge, I lived in a forced triple in a residence hall fifteen minutes from all of my classes and I missed the community feeling that I had gotten used to at GMC.
The choice to transfer back was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made because, above all else, it felt crazy. I had only heard legends of a friend’s boyfriend’s cousin who had done the transfer-transfer back and I wanted to be absolutely positive I was making the right choice.
And now, after a year away, I couldn’t be happier to be back here. Freshmen observations and frustrations make a lot of sense to me because I’ve shared the same ones. I think it is important for those concerns to be voiced and evaluated so that students at Green Mountain feel that this is truly their campus and know that what they make of their time here is completely up to them.
The college began making major changes meant to enhance the learning and physical environments of our campus. The school is ramping up the number of incoming first-year students and enforcing more stringent academic requirements for its new class. Among all of these changes, are the incoming students satisfied with their school and campus? Do they feel that they were given an accurate representation of the school before they arrived on campus? Are these changes really an improvement to the campus and were the students presented an accurate idea of what campus life was really like before they arrived?
Freshman Clare Abercrombie feels that her idea of Green Mountain has always remained the same. “I knew what this school was about. That’s why I chose it,” said Abercrombie. She suggested that the surge of new students is tied to the school’s focus. “Maybe more people want to help the environment,” she noted. “That’s why the class is growing.”
Other students believe that their experience at Green Mountain is different than they had anticipated, “I feel like the Environmental Studies focus came on a little strong,” explains freshman Chad Skiles, “ I feel like it [the school] was a bit different. But it’s turned out to be a positive thing. I can see how it could come off as a shock.”
Skiles had anticipated a “cult”-like environmental structure, but was pleasantly surprised to find a less “in your face” environmental mission at work. Skiles believes that the school should sell the education part first and the environmental focus second which he believes contributed to his initial confusion. Freshman Jake Robinson echoed Skiles sentiments. “The environmental focus is definitely presented as stronger than it is,” stated Robinson.
Sandy Bartholomew, Dean of Enrollment Management said that the environmental push is relatively new, “A few years ago, the admissions philosophy was to play down the environmental mission for fear of narrowing our pool of interested students,” remarked Bartholomew. “That maybe gave us a larger pool to choose from, but those students didn’t have a clear understanding of the type of community that we are… The new suite of the admission materials that we’ve been using for two years is very open about our environmental liberal arts focus.”
Green Mountain makes an effort to stay current with the latest environmental initiatives. Is it coincidence that the new admissions marketing plan aimed at students with an environmental interest was pressed just as the green movement hit big? Is it the school’s responsibility to represent academic and campus life at Green Mountain fairly and living their mission or is the student responsible for making sure their education needs and wants are being met?
[Ed. Note: Additional Reporting by Melissa Markstrom.]
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=228
Posted by Ronnie Black
on Nov 23, 2008 Filed under College.
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