A"teachable moment" and our hearts go out to Norwich University

Last evening, during our Student Association meeting, I spoke with all of our student leaders about the tragedy over the weekend at Norwich University. On Saturday night, after leaving an off-campus party, a first year Norwich University student was killed when the car she was riding in went off the road and crashed into some trees. This 18 year old from Michigan lost her very young life while riding in a car with 7 others, none of whom reportedly were wearing seat belts and the car was designed for 5, not 8. The 22 year old driver of the car was arrested and has been charged with driving under the influence with death resulting AND the 20 year old who "hosted" the off-campus party also was arrested. Three others in the car were reported to be in critical condition.

One life lost - seven lives which will be full of horrific memories of that night - two young men who have been arrested and whose lives will NEVER be the same. They had been celebrating - having fun - enjoying Norwich's football team victory and Norwich's Homecoming Weekend festivities. None of them went out that Saturday night ever thinking that what happened WOULD happen. Vermont has something called a Dram Shop Law which holds responsible, those who host gatherings where tragic events result from the consumption of alcohol. That can be in a residence hall room, a Townhouse, an off-campus home OR even my own home. MOST students have no idea that they can be held liable for the actions of someone who leaves their "party" if that person is intoxicated. My attempt last night was to remind students that they ARE vulnerable - that they CAN make bad decisions (getting in a car when the driver has had too much to drink) - that there ARE consequences to their decisions and that YES, it CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. It was a sobering talk but one that I felt I had to deliver to our students.

Earlier on Saturday, SMC had hosted the Vermont Colleges' Women's and Men's Cross Country Championships. It was a very cold and very windy day and many of us who volunteered to help were cold and soaked right through BUT we did it to help out. Norwich University, along with many, many other colleges/universities sent their students to compete and when I heard the sad news on Sunday morning of the tragic death of the young woman, I couldn't help but wonder if any of the cross country runners from Norwich, whom we had all cheered on as they completed either a 5K (women) or an 8K (men) race that afternoon had been in that car OR at that party. The reality is that this tragedy could happen at any of our colleges. Mike Samara is our Vice President for Student Affairs and our Dean of Students - Mike is a very, very good man and he has always talked about "teachable moments" - our hearts and prayers go out to all of the members of the Norwich University community and their tragedy will hopefully be one of OUR "teachable moments."

We want students to have a good time - that is just ONE of the things that being young is all about. We also, as I told our students last night, want them to PROTECT YOURSELF BY MAKING WISE DECISIONS.

Take care, be well and, as always, keep the members of our military, our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers AND please keep the members of the Norwich University community in your thoughts and prayers too.

Dave

A call for INDEPENDENT journalists.

It has been a VERY busy couple of weeks with classes all going well and so much going around campus that it doesn't seem possible that we have already completed five weeks of classes. Yesterday afternoon there was a program presented by the campus Peace and Justice Club which, in honor of Gandhi's birthday they presented their Annual Peace Pledge Ceremony. Ten of us from across campus who had been nominated were then selected by the Club to read the Peace Pledge prior to a keynote speech by Amy Goodman. I was honored to be one of those chosen by the students to read one section of the pledge!.

Amy Goodman is the producer and host of "Democracy Now" and she spoke eloquently about having just returned from the funeral of Troy Davis - she spoke of his case in Georgia, how our Supreme Court had refused him a stay of execution (despite 7 of the 8 witnesses recanting their own testimony, calls from the Pope and from former President Jimmy Carter, pleas from several law enforcement officials across the country and countless other pleas for a stay) and of her coverage, as an INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST of his last hours AND of his funeral. She held the entire audience (it was a full house with a good mix of our students and many folks from the Burlington community) with her quiet but determined explanation of WHY this country desperately needs INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS. She spoke of her (and her colleagues') beating and arrest in Minneapolis during the Republican Convention and told us that today there will be a press conference from Wall Street talking about the settlement of that lawsuit. She spoke of how she covered the conflict in Timor and how she and her cameraman were attacked and almost killed UNTIL they showed their American passports (the guns the soldiers were holding on her were paid for by the USA) - it was one of the most powerful and riveting talks I have seen in many, many years and we should all be grateful to her for her courage, her passion to keep making a difference and for her message about the importance of INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS. I also want to thank Prof. Laurie Gagne and the students from the Peace and Justice Club for bringing her here.

A student is waiting to see me so I have to close, but, as always, please keep the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers.
Take care
Dave

Another beautiful Vermont weekend - classes are GREAT.

I often tell my classes that it doesn't get much better for a college professor than to have a student say "I never thought about that before." For me at least, that brings joy to my heart. In my Sports Psychology course, an applied psychology course, students MUST make a connection between all of their other psychology courses and various issues or aspects of sports and athletics. I am in the office this fine morning (already been kayaking) grading more of their first papers - so far, they have related their paper topics to Child Development, Adolescent Development, Abnormal Psychology, Behavioral Neuroscience, Research Methods, Cognitive Psychology, History of Psychology and Drugs and Behaviors and oh yes, Personality Theories too. Watching their faces in class the other day when we were discussing extreme sports and I showed them a YouTube video of "base jumping with a wing suit" (check it out on YouTube) was amazing as MOST had NEVER seen anything like that before. As we discussed possible reasons why someone is very happy to be a green circle skier/boarder (that would be me) and someone else is only excited when they ski/board a double black diamond they were intrigued with looking at a possible physiological connection. What a great class and what fun to be teaching these young people..............

I meet later this afternoon with the Student Athletic Advisory Council which is made up of representatives of all of our 21 varsity sports and is advised by our WONDERFUL head women's basketball coach - Jen Niebling. She is not only an excellent coach, but she is just a really nice person I get to call a friend and colleague. As part of my role here as the NCAA FAR (Faculty Athletics Representative) I get to meet with our student group and always look forward to our discussions. Tonight is also the beginning (for student-athletes) of our Athletic Department's new initiative which is a LEADERSHIP opportunity where several representatives of each team will have the chance to get trained in leadership over the course of the academic year. A great new program - congratulations to our Athletic Department and the coaches who have worked so hard on organizing this effort.

Our Student Association holds their Open Forum this week followed by SA elections and next weekend is the SA-Day Away (which is actually ON campus) and then they begin their weekly meetings. I get to serve as the faculty advisor for this group along with other colleagues - Rob Robninson, Marilyn Cormier, Allison Sherman and of course, our wonderful Director of Student Activities - Grace Kelly. I have enjoyed working with this organization for the past 29 years and they always amaze me with their maturity, their dedication to this College and their respect for each other - I am looking forward to another good year with this group.

Enjoy your day, take care and be well and please keep all of the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers. Also a request that you all come to visit Vermont this fall as even though there HAS been much devastation from Hurricane Irene, we ARE open for business and because of so much loss and devastation, we really need people to know that WE ARE OPEN and love tourists :)

Dave

Two weeks completed - time IS flying....

It doesn't seem possible but two weeks of classes have already flown by. With so much attention being paid to the impact of Hurricane Irene to many areas of the State of Vermont, much national press has been given, almost nightly to Vermont and what has happened to so many towns and so many people. I was interviewed live on WCAX television, our local CBS station Thursday afternoon on a five minute segment where I discussed the psychological impact of the flooding on Vermont and Vermonters - so many people have so many emotions hitting them all at the same time and many don't know how to deal with all of that. I hope that my words (be as good at ASKING for help as Vermonters are in offering help - it is alright to turn OFF your TV, especially now with the anniversary of 9/11 upon us - all of that can become overwhelming so it is OK to turn your TV off) I have to admit it struck me as funny to be advising people to turn OFF their TV's while sitting in a TV studio being interviewed :)

My classes are great - students are all actively engaged in what we are doing, asking GREAT questions and allowing me to confuse and challenge them. I am using the Tegrity technology for each of my classes this year which means that each class is recorded and everything we do in class is then available to my students to review later on. FANTASTIC technology and the folks in IT have been wonderful - Jim Millard, Sue Breeyear, Kelli Campbell and Erik Lightbody all help keep me somewhat sane as I challenge myself to utilize ALL of the technology available to the faculty and to our students - thanks to you all.

I was downtown at the Farmer's Market this morning (a normal Saturday morning) and saw the LONG lines outside of the Flynn Theater where people had started lining up yesterday to purchase tickets to a Phish Concert scheduled for this coming Wednesday. Phish began in Vermont as many of their members were UVM students BUT the first stop on their first big tour WAS at SMC :) They are doing a benefit concert to aid Vermont in its flood recovery - so typical of Phish and of OUR citizens to give back. There are 12,000 tickets available at $75 a ticket so even with my own math challenges, that comes out to almost one million dollars that Phish is donating for flood relief - what a great group - thanks....

Take care, be well, and as the anniversary of September 11th approaches tomorrow, please take time to remember the members of our military and their families AND please keep all of them and ALL of the emergency responders that day ten years ago, in your thoughts and prayers - it is the least we can do. Please remember...............

Dave

I had my first class of the new year yesterday - Practicum is a yearlong experience for senior psychology majors - each student (16) will be located at a local service agency and will spend 8 - 10 hours each week on site under the supervision of a master's level professional. They spend 2.5 hours back in class processing their experiences. I am always nervous the first day of classes yesterday was also the beginning of my complete use of our new technology on campus called Tegrity - this captures the video from class as well as anything that we use from the class computer. I will be using this in all classes and students seemed excited (albeit a bit nervous) about it - they can go back and review class anytime they want. A couple of Practicum students were in Sports Psychology and I used it there so they were very comfortable. I did an interesting exercise where I sent the students out of class for half an hour in pairs - each student was to "interview" the other for 15 minutes and then when they returned to class they had to introduce their partner to the rest of class - since interviewing, listening and responding are such an important part of this class, it turned out to be a great exercise. The most common comment: "I have known him/her for a couple of years now but never knew all of this about them" - good job everyone.

Sports Psychology and Theories of Counseling this afternoon and yup, still nervous........

take care and be well and, as always please keep the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers AND additionally, please keep all those here in the beautiful State of Vermont in your thoughts and prayers as well as SO many areas have been devastated by the flooding from Hurricane Irene - the pictures from all over the State are incredible. I am a huge lover of covered bridges and watching one just be swept away by the raging waters was heart-wrenching.

Dave

First day -

Here are our wonderful Orientation Leaders and their "leader" - Grace Kelly A great group.

Classes begin in a few minutes for our new academic year. Yesterday's Hurricane Irene did devastating damage in many areas around Vermont but SMC was lucky not to sustain damage other than a few branches blown down and a LOT of rain. We finished up the formal Orientation Program in the morning and then the new student-athletes had their Orientation in the afternoon. The Orientation Leaders were amazing with so much genuine enthusiasm and since they had worked since January to prepare for our new students, they did a GREAT job. Congratulations once again to Grace Kelly, Director of Student Activities and all of the Orientation Board for your hard work - it clearly paid off.

Our new curriculum begins today too and we have all been challenged by Dr. Karen Talentino, our VP for Academics to make sure that students realize that taking fewer classes also means that they are getting a more intense educational experience in EACH class. As I told our student-athletes yesterday, OUR expectation is that students will put in 10 hours per week for each class - that includes in and out of class experience. I know that for my classes, there is a great deal of work to be done and this should be a very exciting semester. I will be using one of our new technologies again this year BUT will now be using it for every class. Tegrity is a software package which allows me to "tape" each class period which is then available to my students at anytime to review. Some worried that this would mean that students wouldn't come to class IF they could just view class on their computers but that is definitely NOT the case at SMC - this technology is just another resource which faculty get to use in order to assist our students in their learning.

Take care, be well and, as always, please keep all of the members of our military and all of our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers. It should be a great semester and I am heading to campus to begin again.................

Three more weeks.....

As amazing as it seems, in just three weeks we will be completely immersed in welcoming the Class of 2015 to SMC and also welcoming all of our returning students back to campus. It is a busy time with my continuing to get requests for recommendations for my students who have recently graduated and saying "later" to some who have been around Burlington all summer but who now head off to graduate school. This is also the time for THAT discussion between parents and students - talking about realistic expectations, hopes, fears, etc. CAN take place anytime now as too soon you will no longer be just down the hall from your "kids" or from your parents.

Some of our recent graduates - not to mention any names Matt Falcone and Meaghan Cormier - seem to have forgotten that you may NOT return to live in the Townhouses this year as you DID graduate this past May. It is not unusual at this time of year, as the stores and the internet advertise "back to school" specials, for recent graduates to suddenly (although we DO try to warn them) realize that for the first time since they were 4 or 5, they will NOT be returning to school - this is just different, it doesn't have to be bad, just different. :)

I fully intend to make the most of these remaining weeks with a lot of kayaking, some hiking, lots of "fun" reading and time with friends before the new year begins. I hope that you will also make the most of this time and spend quality time with family and friends.

Take care and be well, and given the incredibly sad news out of Afghanistan today (30 of our soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash) PLEASE keep all of the members of our military - active and veterans, AND their families, in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave