Green Mountain College is “a college on the move:” A modest reply to the perennial sect of pessimists

Although it is only natural for human beings to complain about their current set of circumstances—despite how favorable they may be when compared to less fortunate folks—GMC students, as it seems to me, have taken this luxury to the point of excess more times than I care to count or remember. Perhaps it is because there is an odd pseudo-understanding among undergraduate types that expressing discontent with something is equated with understanding it fully or deeply. Alas, this is a whole separate issue (perhaps a future article). As I said, the GMC student body is full of willing complainers, which—although not always—is fairly undue.
That being said, I do support and understand my fellow classmates; I’m sure many of the students are attempting to get the most out of their academic careers and give useful insight to the collegiate powers that be. However, there are undoubtedly some whiners—who I think are convincing themselves (subconsciously perhaps) that things at GMC are worse than they really are.
In many ways, this article will echo the statements of President Fonteyn which he sent campus-wide in an e-mail around mid-January, as it directly addressed many of the issues I am speaking about. But before I press on, let me make clear that I am not a secretly employed spy who has been influenced by the corrupting forces of private colleges or the Federal government in a propagandistic, covert operation to garner student support—despite what you may have heard. In fact, these are my honest reflections on GMC’s recent initiatives and goals. It is, after all, possible to have a genuinely positive outlook on one’s college experience.
I guess I will start with one of the most irritating issues I’ve encountered: that the college isn’t true to or honest about its environmental mission. Maybe some will be surprised by this, but I can assure you that I have heard it many times, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Now, my first instinct is to look around and say, “Really? Not ‘environmental’ enough for you?”. My second instinct is to look at some facts. As President Fonteyn explained, the campus greening projects for this year are pretty impressive; they include “creating an outdoor classroom, building a permanent bicycle shelter for the campus free bike program, constructing a mobile solar-powered workshop, and conducting a thermal efficiency audit of campus buildings.”
Granted, the college may not excel in every area of sustainability, but not without reason—primarily financial limitations. In other words, GMC does have the burden of heating dorms for several hundred people (among other services); couple that with a gross income significantly less than Harvard University (which easily “outcompetes” GMC in the quantity of sustainable missions and projects), and it’s much clearer as to why GMC has to prioritize its efforts to improve the “eco-standing” of the school. Instead of comparing GMC’s efforts to different institutions with different circumstances and capabilities, I think we should be happy to see our school doing the best it can with what it has available.
Another big issue is the difficulty/legitimacy of the classes. I have heard many students express—mostly new ones—that the classes at GMC are not challenging enough or that they seemed unimportant or pointless altogether. As for the “pointless” argument, it is pointless. The school offers an entire week of add/drop to reconfigure your schedule, and if none of the classes tickle your fancy, then you may want to spend your tuition money somewhere else; that seems simple enough. I would keep in mind the Liberal Arts Education curriculum our college uses—remember that, at its core, it aims to give a well-rounded education about many subjects, not necessarily make you a complete expert on one in particular (even though we do have majors, I understand).
The challenge, then, of one class could seem pretty low, but that is because one is looking for the challenge in the wrong place. The challenge should come in trying to balance this knowledge alongside of one’s other classes and maintaining it for future studies and such. While each class can be individually challenging in its own right, I think that the classes here are meant to blend and overlap, signposting key concepts along the way. In essence, it may serve useful to think of your education in terms of a semester, of a department, or (as we will all do at some point, I hope) as a degree, as opposed to one class on top of another class—take the “big picture” approach, I guess. This may not satisfy everyone, but I can only speak for myself to some degree.
Also—for what it’s worth—the “National Survey of Student Engagement data in the New York Times database revealed that GMC does better than most of our peers in offering deeply engaging and challenging courses to our students.  This has resulted in more and more applications to GMC.  To date, we have already received over 1000 applications for Fall semester, a 10% increase over last year at this time,” says Fonteyn.
Lastly, I want to address the issue of, as President Fonteyn explained it, “getting the runaround”, not only in the business office but elsewhere. There has also been recent concern about transparency and approachability. While I haven’t been to another college and experienced this, I think it’s a safe assumption that a small liberal arts institution is much more accessible than a larger university. I guess I’m wondering how much better it could be; after all, going to the business office does not imply an exciting or convenient situation. Even still, President Fonteyn has listened to these concerns and made efforts to meet students’ needs, which I suspect is a rare phenomenon at certain, larger colleges and universities.
Part of me wonders whether or not we are spoiled by some of GMC’s benefits, such as expecting its signature level of student-faculty accessibility to extend to every aspect of the college. As a recently-returned transfer student Alexandra Hilliard explained, “A lot of people take this place for granted. I missed it almost immediately after going to a state school.” It’s something to consider when we feel like the school is lacking in internet bandwidth, functioning washers and dryers, or excessive drugs and alcohol—all of which, by the way, the college is addressing as the President’s e-mail explains.
Some might imply that this is a simple matter of “glass half-full” versus “glass half-empty” mentality, but I think there is more to it. As I said earlier, some of the common criticisms of the school reflect on some strange inner desire to wallow in despair, whether or not its actually there to be wallowed in. Keeping that in mind, I think it would be a refreshing change of pace to think about some of the arguments raised in this article and President Fonteyn’s e-mail and, in turn, see a little more optimism—a little more willingness—permeate our student body, not only because whiners are annoying, but also because there is actually good reason for it.

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Posted by Chad Skiles on Feb 4, 2010 Filed under Voices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry