Student music, talking with parents, a sad goodbye to a colleague

Yesterday was a sad day for our College (more on that later) so I decided to head to downtown Burlington last night to Parima to take in the music of two of our students. Matt Wolfe ('11) had invited me to his show and told me that Adam Reczek ('11) would be joining him on stage for some guitar and some vocals. I am glad that I did. They are both talented young people and their music was excellent. My colleagues Paul Olson and Karen Popovich also joined us as we not only supported our students, but enjoyed some good music.

On April 2nd I will be traveling to Castleton College for the second of three presentations I do for VSAC - the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. I did one a week ago yesterday at SMC and spoke to 600 parents of high school juniors/sophomores about the transition from high school to college. College Pathways is just one of the many services that VSAC provides to students and families in Vermont and they are an amazing organization. The week after the that I will do the final one at Lyndon State. I present the reality about the transition that most parents are unaware of. This is the third year that I have presented these workshops and I hope that parents are better informed AND that they have more educated conversations with their son/daughter prior to the actual time that the leave for school. The feedback I get is very valuable so this year I provided the parents with Conversation Starters which are merely suggestions on how they can broach difficult topics with their sons/daughters.

Yesterday afternoon the College came together in our chapel to celebrate the life of Doug Green. Doug and his wife Prof. Donna Bozzone have taught at SMC since 1987 and they have both been an integral part of this community and their home community in Huntington, VT. Doug has been battling cancer for some time and he died a week ago leaving all of us saddened and at the same time, grateful - grateful that he WAS a part of our lives for so long and grateful that Doug and Donna understood that life is simply too short so we HAVE to make the most of every day. Donna's eulogy, delivered in her usual manner, had us all laughing as she recounted their friendship and their abiding love for each other AND their two wonderful daughters. Donna reminded us that we best remember people when they are gone through stories so she told of THEIR first date and then of their conversations leading up to his death as they knew that his time was short. She reminded us that "there are no guarantees of 70 or 80 years of life" and let us know that she and Doug fully understood that. Doug's impact on all of us is still palpable but his impact on his students is something that we can all take pride in. Declan McCabe, one of Doug's colleagues in the biology department set up a FaceBook page and the tributes that flooded that site speak of Doug's constant willingness to take HIS time for his students - it didn't matter what Doug was dealing with, if a student needed a minute or an hour of his time, he gave it.

A brilliant yet very unassuming man with a heart so big is gone BUT he will be remembered forever in the lives of those he leaves behind. Rest in Peace Doug............... Our thoughts and prayers, of course go out to Donna and their two daughters Samantha and Allison........

Take care, be well, and as always please keep this community AND all of the members of our armed forces and their families in YOUR thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Prayers for Japan - Spring Break for our students

As the news continues to come in about the devastation caused by the earthquake and resulting Tsunami in Japan our thoughts and prayers continue for the people of Japan. Ryan Layman graduated from SMC a couple of years ago and he has been living in Japan for a number of years. He visited campus two weeks ago and was excited to return to Japan and a new job. Thankfully, he is alright and let his friends know through Facebook that while he is alright, he cannot get to his home there. We have many students from Japan studying at SMC and their friends have been so supportive as their fears for families back in Japan prevented them from being able to do much more than watch the unfolding tragedy in their home country - again, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of them.

Our students began their Spring Break after the last class yesterday afternoon. Many will travel to warmer climates and some will remain here working on senior projects or continuing to spend time on their academic internships. Several of our students have traveled to Boston with Ari and Molly for the Eastern Psychological Association's annual conference - a number of our students are doing poster presentations either by themselves, or with their faculty.

I will be on campus grading papers most of this week and then next Saturday I will once again be speaking to over 500 parents of high school sophomores and juniors on the transition from high school to college. This is part of the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation's annual College Pathways. While the students learn about a variety of topics they need to know, I have the opportunity to address the parents on issues that THEY need to understand. I will be presenting what we are calling "Conversation Starters" for the parents with what will hopefully be helpful suggestions on how to deal with topics that "scare" most parents. This is the third year I have done this presentation and I also will be doing it at Lyndon State and Castleton over the next few weeks. VSAC is an amazing organization which provides valuable assistance to families and students as they weave their way through the oftentimes confusing and complicated process of college selection and college finance.

Please take care and as always please keep all of the members of our military and their families and all of our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Incline Village, Nevada is located high above Lake Tahoe and is a place I visit twice a year. I have former students who live there and while Davis is the IT person for the Hyatt Regency, his wife Ann is an art teacher in their local high school. It is truly a beautiful place and a complement to my love for Vermont and the area around Saint Michael's College. Yesterday completed my 29th year here so today begins my 30th - I doubt that I ever suspected back then that I would come to love this area so much nor that Saint Michael's College would become my home. I have met so many wonderful people over the years and my colleagues at the College have become MY family. All of my students over the years have taught me perhaps more than I have taught them and staying in touch with so many people I have worked with over the years is one of those great joys of working somewhere that you love - Thank you Saint Michael's College for 29 amazing years and I hope for many, many more.

Take care, be well and as always, please keep all of the members of our military and their families (including our veterans) in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

More great skiing and student papers ARE good so far this semester.

I got up early this morning and headed to Smuggler's Notch Ski Resort for a few runs down the mountain before returning to campus to grade more papers. The skiing was great, as usual and we are so lucky to have Smuggs as part of SMC. Since I had graded most of the newly submitted papers Saturday, I only had a few more to do. I have been impressed with the quality of my students' writing so far and if this is any indication of the rest of the semester, it is going to be an excellent one. Sports Psychology and Men & Masculinities are both writing intensive courses and I have high expectations for student writing and hold my students accountable for such things as spelling, grammar and punctuation. Since society holds them accountable once they leave our campuses, I think it is part of our responsibility to make sure that they DO learn now so that they don't make common mistakes later on.

This past Thursday my friend/colleague Pat Standen (adjunct professor of Philosophy) came into my Sports Psychology class to talk with my students. Pat was in an automobile accident when he was just 16 and has been in a wheel chair ever since. I have been inviting him in for some time and when his schedule works with mine, it is an eye-opener for my students. Pat kayaks, sails a sailboat, handcycles, participates in sled hockey, water skis, downhill and XC skis and probably engages in several other athletic endeavors that I don't even know about. He is the founder and President of NDAA - Northeast Disabled Athletes Association and we brought up their website disabledathletes.org in class and my students were amazed at the variety of options open to "differently abled" athletes. Pat and I have a great banter back and forth and students quickly become comfortable with his presence in my class. Many of my students have already had Pat for one of his Philosophy classes so they already know what a great teacher he is. Because we examine the psychological implications of sport injuries, it was really important for my students to see what the newest options are - wheelchair soccer and wheelchair lacrosse and even rugby are just some of the new things that people who have been injured and who may have thought finished with athletic competition can participate in. My gratitude to Pat for his willingness to give of his time to educate my students. Pat also serves at the faculty mentor for our men's ice hockey team and they have come to admire and respect him as much as I do.

Yesterday afternoon we had our final home women's and men's basketball games. Our women won and our men lost a great and close battle. We have been working on getting more and more people to appreciate all of the hard work that our student-athletes put into their sports so it was nice to see a good sized crowd at the women's game and an even larger crowd there for the men's game. President Jack Neuhauser, VP for Enrollment Management Jerry Flanagan, VP for Academics Karen Talentino, VP for Student Affairs Mike Samara, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Edmunds, Fr. Mike Cronogue, Academic Dean Jeff Trumbower, Assistant Academic Dean Joan Wry along with three business/accounting faculty, an Economist, three psychology professors, a science professor, a religion professor (Ray Patterson attends most of our athletic contests and is faculty mentor for two of our teams) and Fr. Brian(Director of Campus Ministry) plus a couple of folks from Institutional Advancement, personal counseling and many alumni all cheered out student-athletes on. It was great to see such a strong showing of support. Each semester I give an update on the academic achievement of our student-athletes to the faculty. A week ago Friday I addressed the Faculty Assembly and provided them with the NCAA Academic Success Rate and announced that SMC was number 1 in the NE-10 (our conference) and number 2 in all of Division II (made up of almost 300 schools and with over 100,000 student-athletes). I also gave them the standings of all of our teams and was happy to share that OUR student-athletes have an overall grade point average of 3.12 which gives them a higher overall grade point average than the rest of the student body. The faculty appreciated this and applauded this information. The collaboration between our student-athletes and the rest of our educational community makes for a very strong bond which is reflected in how well our student-athletes perform in our classrooms. Go KNIGHTS.....

I showed my Men & Masculinities class the Academy Award nominated documentary Restrepo last Monday to accompany their reading of the book War by Sebastian Junger. It was a very powerful class and their response papers after viewing the documentary will be the subject of our class tomorrow evening. Their papers aren't due until tomorrow but several of them have already submitted them to me and their reactions are very powerful. I continue to feel that it is important that those of us who are NOT in the military need to better understand those who ARE and the impact that war can and does have on so many of our men and women. As our soldiers return home and transition from the military to civilian life, it is imperative that we all better understand what they have gone through.

Take care, be well, and, as always, please keep all of the members of our military and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Snowshoeing, new classes and a local high school student death.

I just returned to my house after some snowshoeing this morning. It is, as usual in wintertime, beautiful here and all I have to do is strap the snowshoes on and walk around my neighborhood to enjoy all of our new snow. Any of you in NY, CT or MA who don't like YOUR snow can feel free to send it our way as we LOVE it here. Classes began on Monday for the semester and already many of our students have been to the mountains for skiing or snowboarding and I hope to be at Smuggs this week too. I was just in San Antonio, Texas last week for the NCAA National Convention and their temperatures were in the low 40's which dismayed not only the convention organizers but also the residents. As they were all complaining about their weather, I just laughed and many of them asked HOW I can possibly live in Vermont where it REALLY is cold and where we get so much snow - my response was to simply say that I just add another layer on and get outside and enjoy all of the amazing seasons we have here in Vermont. It was a good convention and as always, I enjoy talking with friends and colleagues from across the country about what we are doing at Saint Mike's. Geri Knortz is our Athletic Director and I also enjoy having the chance to talk with her at these conventions as we have an excellent working relationship and enjoy working with our student-athletes. On a very good note, Chris Kenny, Assistant Athletic Director compiles data on the academic performance of our student-athletes and he informed us right before we left for Texas that for the first time, our student-athletes overall grade point average was higher than the non student-athletes grade point average. Fifteen of our twenty one varsity teams had a grade point average for first semester of over a 3.0. Given all that the students have to deal with, between a full load of academic classes and a rigorous athletic schedule, I am very, very proud of not only our athletes, but also our faculty and staff who work so hard to accommodate game schedules, practices and who continue to push our student-athletes to perform at the highest level academically and athletically. It was also good to be able to "brag" about our student-athletes in Texas when others mentioned the ASR (academic success rate) which is such an important component of Division II athletics. Saint Mike's ASR was the highest in our conference (Northeast 10) and the second highest in the nation - not bad when we are talking about approximately 100,000 student athletes in D-II.

My classes so far are great - my first impressions are often pretty accurate and if the first few classes are any indication, it is going to be another great semester. I continue to work with my seniors on their post-graduation plans and will once again be utilizing the fine staff in Career Services to help students update resumes and finalize plans for graduate school or employment. In Sports Psychology yesterday we discussed whether or not Tom Brady's no pass interceptions record being broken early on in their game against the Jets played a role in the Patriots losing the playoff game - we also looked at something called "base jumping with wingsuits" on YouTube - check it out - it is pretty amazing and for me, pretty frightening but for some of my students, it was a rush - I enjoy this particular class the most when students tell me that they have NEVER thought about some of the connections between sports and psychology.

Yesterday morning Mount Mansfield Union High School, located just up Rte. 15 from the College in Jericho, VT had a young man die from what is described as self-inflicted gunshot wounds. What a horrible experience for his family, his friends, everyone in the school and that community. When a 15 year old dies we all want answers to the question WHY? I was interviewed on TV by our local Fox channel and asked what parents and others can do to try to understand and/or prevent something like this and all I could say is that we ALL have to become better LISTENERS to and for our young people - their lives are very difficult today with incredible pressures and we also have to become better OBSERVERS so that we all notice changes in mood, attitude, dress, academic/athletic performance/interest and IF/WHEN we see something that makes us nervous we HAVE to TALK about it with them - we cannot be afraid of the S word which today is not sex, but which is SUICIDE. I suggested that parents and everyone use this tragedy at MMU and the Tucson shootings as what our Dean of Students Mike Samara likes to refer to as "teachable moments" where we ask the young people in our lives how THEY felt when they heard that a 22 year old shoot those people in Arizona and how THEY felt when they heard yesterday during the day that a 15 year old had died at a local high school. Somehow WE have to get the message across that no matter what the problem is today, IT GETS BETTER and that there isn't anything that you can't learn to deal with - young people need to hear that they are loved, that they are valued and that WE are here for them, no matter what they are experiencing. If parents don't know how to help, then ask others who do. At St. Mike's we have four very wonderful counselors who are easy to talk with. We have faculty, staff, nurses, residence life folks, priests, security, administrators, coaches and people who are committed to making this a safe place for students to learn - LISTEN, OBSERVE and TALK with an not AT young people - a good formula.

As Fr. Mike and Mike Samara are fond of saying "God Bless" and as I say, please take good care and as always, please keep all of the members of our military and our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers - I do.....

Dave

The end of the semester and looking forward to a new year.

The semester ended well and everyone headed home for the break before beginning a new year. I went up to Smuggs this afternoon to join old friend and former students Deanne and Jamie Taylor and their son CJ who has certainly grown a LOT since I last saw him. As you can see, the scenery at Smuggs was great and it was packed. Nice to walk into the lodge and see an SMC banner hanging over the balcony. It was great to see Deanne and Jamie again and we laughed a lot over lunch as they both tried to NOT have me share any of the stories of their time at SMC with their 15 year old son - he has certainly grown up well and he has a great personality - I, of course, encouraged him to look at SMC next year when he begins the hunt for a college - fortunately his folks have had a condo at Smuggs for a long time so he is familiar with the area and I think he even might be interested in going to the college his folks attended...

As the semester came to an end a couple of weeks ago, final exams and papers and final projects took up most everyone's time. I have been on campus a lot since the semester did end doing letters of recommendation for graduate school for a lot of my current and former students. I do enjoy writing the letters and even more, hearing when they get accepted - another step in the careers of so many students. I am looking forward to a new semester and have most of the work done on updating all of my syllabi so things will begin smoothly once students return on the 17th of January. Before that I head to San Antonio, Texas for the NCAA National Convention along with our AD Geri Knortz - this is always a good time to learn more, to see what others are doing and to share ideas with other Faculty Athletic Representatives from across the country. I will most likely update this blog from there as I will be in Texas from the 11th - 15th of January.

On a personal note - a week ago my "big" brother Jack passed away after a battle with lung cancer. He did battle for almost 9 months and it was a difficult time for all of us, and especially for him. I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues and especially my current and former students for their kind words of compassion and support. I appreciate it more than you know and once again was reminded of the very special nature of this amazing community we have established up here in the wonderful State of Vermont. Such good people - thank you all so much. I also posted a message to everyone that if you smoke - please STOP and if you never started - please DON'T..... He was a good man, gone too soon.

Take care, be well and, as always, please keep all of the members of our military and their families in your thoughts and prayers. I watched the documentary RESTREPO yesterday - based on the book WAR by Sebastian Junger; this is a powerful documentation of the daily life of a group of OUR young men fighting in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan - very powerful and I will be showing this to my Men & Masculinities class in a few weeks - we all need to better understand what the members of our military are actually experiencing and this documentary helps.

Dave

Getting ready for the end of the semester.

The snow is beginning to cover the ground outside of my office window here on second floor St. Ed's and that is fine with me. I pick up my skiis this afternoon after getting them tuned at my favorite local "outdoors" place, the Alpine Shop on Williston Road. While I won't have time to head to the slopes just yet, it is always nice to be prepared. I am not sure that any of us were "prepared" for the wicked wind a couple of days ago which ripped the copper covering off one section of Ross Sports Center and that still has some of my friends/colleagues without electricity - that wind was wicked..... Wicked is also one of the words that some of my students in Theories of Counseling class use about my exams. I just completed the creation of their final and posted a review sheet for them on eCollege. We will complete two more chapters in our textbook this week and then they take their final on the 16th. I expect that they will do well but they always complain (they ARE students after all...) that their hands hurt after writing so much on my exams - ah, music to my ears :)

As we do prepare for the end of another semester I have been reflecting on what a great semester it has been - Students are all registered for their second semester courses and seniors are completing their graduate school applications and so I have a LOT of recommendations to complete - while some find this a chore, I enjoy it. I enjoy being able to put into writing (or as is the case today, online) just how I have been able to watch my students grow and mature over their years here - I get to see progress in their maturity, their writing (most of the time) and their ability to think critically and analyze effectively. Putting all of that into a recommendation is something that I do enjoy and as many of them are getting accepted into graduate schools and they let me know that they have either received an acceptance OR they have been able to obtain employment after commencement the reality that they ARE leaving here hits home. I fully understand that this is the cycle we are all a part of but they sometimes don't understand that we will miss them. One student in particular, has been an effective leader on campus, has impacted all of us who have come to know him and who will be missed sorely by all of us is Dave Vorozilchak. Dave is from Pennsylvania and leaves here in two weeks to return home to a job and a "life after SMC" but he certainly has left his mark not only on our athletic program (he was captain of our men's hockey team last year - and a student member of the Athletic Advisory Council which I chair) but also on his professors in the math/science department as he is an Engineering major. I know that we will stay in touch but I wish him well as he leaves this place he has called home for 4.5 years.

Women's basketball plays at home this afternoon so I had better get back to work before heading over there - Caitlin Quinn is in my Sports Psychology class (she hit 5 - 3 pointers the other day) and Mandy Scott is in Practicum and they are both strong members of our women's basketball team which is headed by the "fabulous" Jen Niebling - Jen is such a positive role model for not only all of the women on her team, but for all of us - good luck ladies....

Once again, and especially as this holiday season comes upon us, I wish you well, please take good care and be good to each other AND please, as always, remember all of the members of our military and their families - those who are NOT home and who are serving all of us in Iraq or Afghanistan need our thoughts and prayers - be safe.....

Dave