Incredibly busy weeks......

These are very busy times for all of us. Students are completing major projects, speakers have been here on campus challenging us and "dinner at Dave's" continues to be fun. The top picture and the one on the right above are of the last two of five "dinner at Dave's" which I have been hosting at my home for the past five or six years. Students love getting off campus AND getting a home cooked meal. Even with some who are gluten intolerant or lactose intolerant or vegetarians :) we manage to feed everyone and have a relaxing and comfortable time. I usually have to ask them to leave around 11:00 OR those who know me well already know that they HAVE to leave by 11:00 so I can catch the Daily Show........

We also had an amazing speaker on campus last week. LZ Granderson is a well-known reporter for both CNN and ESPN - an openly gay sportscaster, he has been seen a LOT lately, especially on CNN as the coverage of the Trayvon Martin tragedy unfolds. He did two Skype interviews while he was here on campus. Some of us had dinner with him before his 7:00 presentation where he spoke to a packed house for an hour and forty minutes. I have been here for 30 years and while I love our students, their attention span usually is relatively short and they begin to leave after an hour - not this time. He held their attention, answered excellent questions from the students and at the end, the place was STILL packed. What a great opportunity for our students and this community to host someone who is so thoughtful and who has amazing insight into our world. His advice - "it is not always easier to love than to hate but LOVE is better" - his call, both to us and in one of his most recent columns on CNN.com for JUSTICE and NOT revenge was so powerful and the students listened...... he is pictured with Mark Litchfield, advisor to Common Ground and me after a group of us had breakfast with him at Sneakers in Winooski. He met with Journalsim classes, individuals within the Journalsim program, students in Alliot at lunch and anyone else who wanted a chance to talk with him. Thanks LZ - we all learned a LOT. We also may have hooked him on Vermont Maple Syrup too :)

Classes are excellent, registration for the fall semester is well underway (NO seniors, you cannot register for classes for the fall - you ARE graduating) - the long Easter weekend is coming up and the school year is almost over with. Please take care, be well and PLEASE keep all of the members of our military and their families and our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Dinner at Dave's - AND, it IS Vermont and it IS March -

On Monday night I had the first of five dinners at my home after my Men & Masculinities class. A couple of years ago I began having the class over to the house for what they called "dinner at Dave's" and which became quite popular and fun for my students. After class on Monday nights, beginning right after Spring Break, five or six students at a time come over for some OFF CAMPUS home cooked food and conversation. We always have great conversations and I usually have to "throw them out" around 11:00. The first group consisted of Kate, Sarah, Sunny, Tim, Kaitlin and Brian. What a good group. Tim and Kaitlin are also in my Practicum class so I get to see them a LOT on Mondays as both classes are Monday only classes. I also will have Practicum over for lunch before the end of the semester. They always enjoy getting off campus and having time just to sit and relax and have good conversations with their friends and with me. They always seem to marvel that I actually can cook which cracks me up as I DO cook, a lot and enjoy cooking for them because they are so appreciative. I always tell them that I will provide the food and they bring what they want to drink - NON-ALCOHOLIC only. I end up serving them dessert of cheesecake with Vermont Maple Cream which most people have never had but it is amazing - the folks at the Vermont Maple Syrup Outlet on Rte. 15 near Jeffersonville make the BEST......

Our weather is incredible with records being broken every day for the past several days. Of course, the students are all clamoring "can't we have class outside?" - I did take Practicum outside at the end of class Monday to visit the College's Word Garden which is an amazing community space filled with rocks with various words cut into them - there always seems to be someone out there appreciating the quiet and peacefulness of that Garden. Of course, I keep reminding them all that this IS Vermont and it IS March and while today the temperature is 82, we could get a couple of feet of snow next week - needless to say, they don't want to hear that. The other issue is that as the temperatures rise, grade point averages FALL -

I went skiing a week ago on Monday and it was great at Smuggs - two days later, after a rainy 67 degree day the conditions were not as good - on my way home I stopped off at my favorite kayaking spot just in case - I thought it would be fun to ski in the morning and kayak in the afternoon but Indian Brook was still frozen solid - a good thing. Todd Wright from our Wilderness Program sent out an email warning all of us that while the temperatures ARE great, the water temperature is NOT and people can easily endanger their lives going into water this cold - a good warning Todd - thanks.

Take care, be well and please keep all of our soldiers in your thoughts and prayers. The horrific and tragic story out of Afghanistan highlights just what we are asking of our military personnel when we send them back for multiple deployments - no one can deny the tragic loss of life of those civilians - women and children BUT while I condemn what happened, I can't condemn the man who allegedly did it - we need to know what happened before we judge him. Condemn the behavior but struggle to understand WHY if happened is perhaps more important. At the same time that the world was focused on what that man (1 of 2.3 million soldiers who have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan) did, another young man who had had multiple deployments and was only 23 years old (a very close friend to MY friend and veteran Alan of whom I have written in the past) took his own life - 1st LT Daniel Weiss (Danny) from Chicago. He was just 23........ The President of Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans of America spoke the other evening about the civilian deaths in Afghanistan and commented that there are more casualties in our Armed Forces from suicide right now that from the War..... A frightening statistic and a challenge to all of us for dialogue about how WE ARE managing a War in which too many men and women are being sent back, time and time again and time and time again to fight FOR US. I promised Alan that I would talk about his friend Danny to my classes and in this blog - we must pay attention AND again, please keep all of the members of our military and our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Presidents' Weekend break

I am sitting up in my office on the second floor of Saint Edmund's Hall grading papers from my Men & Masculinity class and looking out onto the campus - OK, so no snow - which has really impacted our state economy as tourism has been hit hard by our LACK of snow - students grumble and I do too as I have NOT been snowshoeing once this "winter." Our students have a long weekend with no classes today - there are still a lot of students around as we have a number of sporting events this weekend and some just stayed to work on projects. Classes are going very well and it is hard to believe that we have already completed 5 weeks. The papers I am grading are in response to my question: How Has Your Father Influenced Your View of What a Man Is? - they continue to fascinate me as most have never been asked this question before. I have compiled a large number of these essays over the past several years and (with permission) they are part of a book I am in the process of writing on FATHERS.

Our Mental Health Task Force met this past week as we finalize some of our work on how to effectively acknowledge and deal with the mental health of our campus. There are so many pressures on our entire community and while our "safety net" is always there, we are hoping that the Task Force deliberations will enable us to report to the Board of Trustees and perhaps expand on some of our current policies and procedures.

I am also on the Admission Office's Task Force on Military Recruitment/Retention and am so glad that we are working on ways that SMC can create a supportive and accepting community that welcomes our returning veterans and their families as students here.

Our It Gets Better video (YouTube - Saint Michael's College It Gets Better) continues to receive a number of "hits" and so far, on just two sites, we have had over 8,500 hits. The collaboration between our student-athletes (Student Athletic Advisory Council - SAAC) and Common Ground - our GSA is unique and we have received such positive responses to the collaboration between these two student groups - I continue being so proud of our students who spearheaded this effort.

Dr. Leo Shea III, an alum of SMC is coming to campus on Monday and he will be speaking to my Practicum class and also doing an open presentation for the whole campus sponsored by the Psychology Club and Psi Chi (the international honor society for psychology) - Leo is a neuropsychologist and he will be speaking about the future of psychology and exactly what neuropsychology is - he will also be explaining the work he is doing with PTSD and TBI (traumatic brain injury) and our veterans - I am looking forward to meeting him and to his presentations - we always appreciate our alumnae returning to campus to share their areas of expertise with the campus. My own doctor, Frank Landry, also an alum of SMC was in my Men & Masculinities class a couple of weeks ago speaking about men's health issues and, of course, women's health issues - another example of our alums giving back to the place where they received their undergraduate education - much appreciated.

Back to grading - take good care, be well and, as always, please keep all of the members of our military and our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

The new semester is well underway - great new beginnings.

As I look out the window from my office down onto campus, there is sadly, little snow but that hasn't stopped our students from taking full advantage of the slopes where temperatures have allowed the various resorts to MAKE lots and lots of snow and reports are that conditions there have been pretty good.

I was in Indianapolis, Indiana from the 10th - 14th to attend the NCAA Convention and had the chance to re-connect with colleagues not only from our NE-10 Conference, but from across the country - it is always a challenging time and this year the Scholarly Colloquium was excellent as we looked at the academic challenges to all three Divisions of the NCAA. I was fortunate to be chosen to present a poster which displayed the research that my colleague from here at SMC, Dr. Carolyn Whitney and I did on the academic mentoring program we use with our student-athletes. The poster was well received with a steady stream of interested folks from other colleges/universities stopping by with great questions. It was nice to be able to BRAG about how well our faculty work with our student-athletes and that Saint Mike's has the highest ASR (academic success rate - 99%) of all Division II's 100,000 student-athletes and 300+ institutions.

My three classes all met for the first time this past week and it looks like a great semester already. Practicum continues together from first semester and I have 16 senior psychology majors out in the community for 8 - 10 hours a week and they are with me in class 2.5 hours each week. Tomorrow I will be meeting individually with each of them to go over their site supervisors' evaluations of THEM and their evaluations of me and the class. I always look forward to this dialogue. Sports Psychology continues to be a fascinating class as we explore the application of all they have learned from previous classes to the areas of sports and athletics. The Penn State scandal and today's announcement of Joe Paterno's death will no doubt result in a LOT of discussion and provide the class with an opportunity for some great CRITICAL THOUGHT AND ANALYSIS of that whole sad situation. Men & Masculinities, because we meet for three hours only once a week, has already come together as a group and their journal entries already have shown me that they are actively engaged in the course.

On Tuesday afternoon at our MLK Convocation, we celebrate the life and good works of Fr. Maurice Ouellet, SSE, who died this past summer. He hired me at SMC and I am honored to be a part of our celebration Tuesday where Fr. Richard Mihalyk will speak of Fr. Ouellet's amazing work in the South during very troubled times. That evening Dr. Karen Talentino, VP for Academics will be coming to the Student Association to talk with our students about the new Curriculum which was implemented in September. I continue to be so proud that I work at a college where the VP for Academic Affairs will not only show up for a Student Association meeting, but who invites comments and discussion on the part of our students. What a great opportunity for her to hear from the students about their reaction to the new curriculum and for students to have an honest and open dialogue with a top administrator. Somehow, I doubt that happens at larger institutions.

Back to work - please take good care, be well and as usual, I ask that you keep all of the members of our military and all of our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years - It Gets Better

As we did last year, a group of us who have worked at SMC for almost the past 30 years gathered at Jennie and Art Cernosia's home to "construct: Gingerbread Houses. We have been good friends and all have SMC as our common connection. Last night was particularly great as Mark and Alicia Cernosia, pictures above with Fr. Mike joined us. I haven't seen them since their wedding and as they are both alums of SMC, it was appropriate for them to join us. You can see the "houses" that we did construct in the picture on the right - we spent almost 4 hours together and I posted pictures on Facebook and have already received dozens of responses from folks who recognized all of us and who have great memories with Jennie, Fr. Mike, Sue Kuntz, Ann Giombetti or me. A great time.

Classes are over with, the semester has ended, grades have been completed and posted and now it is time to complete more letters of recommendation for my students, construct my syllabi for second semester and reflect on the past semester. Fr. Mike asked me last night how my semester had gone and I simply responded that I had not had one bad class the entire semester. A tribute to our students. I am blessed to work here with the people I work with and thoroughly enjoy engaging with my students at so many levels. They continue to amaze me with their level of interest, their critical thinking and their willingness to actively engage in their learning.

Back in September, after attending an NCAA Diversity workshop in Providence, RI, I challenged our SAAC _ Student Athletic Advisory Council - to collaborate with Common Ground, our Gay/Straight Alliance on campus to create an It Gets Better video in response to last fall's rash of young people taking their own lives across this country because they were or were perceived to be gay. Their ages ranged from 11 - yes, 11 years of age to 18 and many of them had been bullied in their schools. Sadly, many of the bullies were later identified to have been athletes. I KNOW our athletes and have worked with them for almost 30 years and KNOW that our athletes can be ALLIES and not ADVERSARIES for anyone who is "different." That challenge was taken up by Brady Earle (men's ice hockey) and Samantha Steinmetz (women's basketball) and they immediately contacted Common Ground and wrote a script, engaged with Common Ground folks and the final product of this collaboration hit the internet last week. They did an amazing, amazing job and with the help of people like Brian Healey, Rachel Stone, Samantha Hooper and our men's and women's basketball teams PLUS many students from Common Ground, their video has not gone onto the internet and is posted on the Student Association's website, the Athletic Department's website, the NE-10 website and the NCAA website. I couldn't be more proud of our students - they took a difficult challenge and made something wonderful happen. Please check out the video when you have a chance and let us know your reaction. These young people didn't do this for credit - they did it because it was the right thing to do - to be supportive of anyone who struggles because of a difference, either perceived or actual - just one of the many, many reasons why I love this place I call home.

Take care, be well, have a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends and as our troops have now left Iraq, please keep all of them, our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers. Remember that while we lost 4,500 American soldiers and had 35,000+ wounded, the toll on the Iraqi people was also devastating as they had over 100,000 of their people killed and countless others wounded. With our still having troops in Afghanistan, please remember them all at this time of year. We are able to celebrate here while our soldiers stand guard for our freedoms over there. The Psychology Club sent over 200 Christmas cards and 150 "nips" of Vermont Maple Syrup to Jesse Holland to distribute to his company over in Afghanistan - please take care.....

Merry Christmas

Dave

Finals begin tomorrow - New York City is amazing...

I flew to New York City on Friday to celebrate the retirement of Jim Wall, our former Board Chair (4 years) and member of the Trustees of the College (12 years) . Jim is also married to my sister..... Jim's contributions to the Human Resource field has been amazing and he often attributes his success to the foundation he received right here at SMC as an undergraduate. His firm, Deloitte Touche, Tomatsu is the largest accounting field in the world and they honored Jim with a wonderful celebration of his 27 years with the firm. They also gave a gift to the College and specifically to SMC Fire and Rescue as Jim was a member of that group when he was an undergraduate and he has remained a loyal supporter of that organization here. Well done Jim..... There were 4 former CEOs who spoke but for me, the highlight was when his son Mike and his daughter Maggie took to the stage to "talk about their DAD."

In one of those small world stories, as I settled into my seat on the plane from Burlington to NYC the seat next to me was taken by Connor Stewart a Class of 2011 graduate. Connor is working in Burlington for Democracy for America and seems to be thriving. I knew Connor because he was actively involved in many, many students activities here, including the Student Association. He and one of his SMC roommates were heading to Chicago for a concert - it was great to catch up with him.

Classes ended on Friday and while many of us were shaking our heads about how fast this semester has gone, students were preparing for their finals which begin tomorrow. It has been a "different" semester with our new 4 x 4 curriculum but for the most part, students seem to have survived the changes. We held a "December Graduation" this morning as we always have a number of students who graduate now - it is always nice to meet families of students and to watch how proud they are of their "kids" at they finish up their undergraduate careers here. I just finished some grading and am now heading out to Grace Kelly's home for an afternoon with the Student Association's Executive Board - these students have worked so hard this semester, bringing their own strengths and personalities to the Student Association. The advisors have been invited to gather with them so I am looking forward to a good afternoon.

Take care, be well and, please keep all of the members of our military - our veterans and all of their families, especially at this time of year, in your thoughts and prayers. The Psychology Club just sent 150 Vermont Maple Syrup "nibs" and 250 Christmas cards to Jesse Holland who recently spent his "leave" from Afghanistan back here on campus talking with our current students - there are 150 men and women in Jesse's company stationed on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border and so the officers of the Psychology Club got in contact with Jesse once he returned to Afghanistan and asked what they wanted for Christmas and Jesse, being a true Vermonter, suggested Vermont Maple Syrup - good call my friend.

Peace
Dave

A veteran gets married and an active duty soldier talks on campus

Any of you who have followed my blog for any time over the past few years I have been blogging have read of my friend and former student Alan Punsky. Alan graduated from SMC in 2001 with a major in Psychology and then went on to serve in the U.S. Army for his four years - tours in Iraq and Afghanistan impacted him greatly and as he was to get out, he was then Stop-Lossed and returned to Afghanistan for an additional 18 months. I have commented on his service on a number of occasions in this blog. Well, this past weekend in Portland, ME Alan and Katie were married in a wonderful ceremony at St. Joseph's Church. It was an honor for me to be able to attend and I sat with his Mom and Step-Dad (his best man) at the reception. Alan now works in MA putting his degree in Clinical Psychology (earned here at SMC and finished in August 2011) to good work in a social service agency there. I thought it was significant that the wedding took place on November 12th, the day after Veterans Day. We all are grateful to him for his service so it was nice to see him so happy with his bride. Katie is a wonderful young woman and I have come to know her also over the past many months. Congratulations to you both.

Jesse Holland '07 was a Journalism major here and he is currently serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. He is a photographer and has some amazing pictures. He was back in the States on a 15 day leave and decided to return here to Saint Michael's to "give back" to a place he feels great affection for. He spoke with our Journalism students on Thursday afternoon and then did a public presentation that evening on DO TELL where he related his experiences with the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell before and after it was recently rescinded. There were over 100 people in attendance at his evening presentation which was co-sponsored by the Psychology Club and Common Ground which is the College's Gay/Straight Alliance. It was a powerful and very personal talk with his family and friends from Irasburg, VT also in attendance. On Monday he returned to campus and spoke for 1.5 hours with my Practicum class. My students are out in the community for the entire academic year on internship sites - they spend 8-10 hours a week on site and 2.5 hours back in class with me. Jesse spoke of how the men and women he is deployed with in Afghanistan AND who are parents are coping with having to leave their spouses and children back home. Since many of my Practicum students work at sites with young children whose parents could be deployed AND since everyone in the helping profession WILL someday work with veterans who have PTSD, it was a fascinating opportunity for my students to interact with Jesse and he was open to their asking him anything. Perhaps the most STARK REALITY is that here he was, sitting in our classroom, talking with us and on Thursday (today) he would be flying to Washington and then directly back to Afghanistan - he is stationed at a site which sits on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan...................

As busy as things are here with registration completed, Thanksgiving just a week away and finals looming in the immediate future my students still were completely engaged in Jesse's talks. We all need a break and fortunately next Tuesday begins Thanksgiving break :)

I hope everyone has a peaceful and restful Thanksgiving and that as part of that Thanksgiving, we do, as I always ask, take a minute to keep all of the members of our military, veterans and active service men/women AND their families in our thoughts and prayers.

Take good care
Dave