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

Student-athletes SHINE and dinner with recent graduates.

Last night I got together with 6 former students - all from the Class of 2011 - at American Flatbread in Burlington and then, of course, we ended up at Ben & Jerry's for dessert. We ran into Evan Dewey and Brian Ahern on Church Street as they were on their way to dinner too. Kimmy Thevenet had contacted me earlier this week asking if we could all get together for dinner soon and I was only too happy to agree. Next to Kimmy (far left) is Jess Sanborn and then Ryan Stanley and on my left is Meaghan Cormier, Will Towne and Sarah Regan. Except for Will, all of them are living and working in the Burlington area and along with a large number of their classmates, they are enjoying Burlington, Vermont in the summer. We laughed (a lot) and talked about how they are all doing (working at a variety of places - some just for the summer and some already with full-time employment). It was great to catch up with all of them and we decided we need to do this again so the next time, it is a barbecue at my house. Chris Kenny is our Associate Athletic Director and Chris compiles data on how well our student-athletes are doing academically. He just released the latest information and it is GOOD. Overall, our student-athlete grade point average is the HIGHEST ever recorded = 3.127. These student-athletes carry a full academic load AND compete in our varsity athletic program which is also very time-consuming. For the first time, the student-athlete overall GPA of 3.127 is HIGHER than the general student body. Also, for the first time, the male student-athlete overall GPA (3.000) is HIGHER than the general male student population. The male student-athlete GPA is the HIGHEST ever. We have been attempting to convince our student-athletes, and especially our male student-athletes that they are expected to do well academically, they CAN do well, and that it is acceptable for student-athletes at SMC to do well in the classroom. Our women student-athletes GPA of 3.242 is their second HIGHEST ever. Also, we have 21 varsity teams and for the first time, 16 of those teams had a 3.0 or higher. Congratulations to the student-athletes, their faculty who work so closely with them, their coaches who support their academic achievement and to the Athletic Department for their continuing support of our initiatives to improve the academic achievement of our athletes.......

Take care, be well, and please keep all of the members of our military and our veterans in your thoughts and prayers. When President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor the other day to Army Sgt. First Class Leroy Petry it was a very moving and important occasion. HIS story is repeated over and over again by members of OUR military - his words (I did it for my brothers - to protect them) get repeated time and time again by the men and women in our Armed Forces - it is so important that we make sure that they know that they have our support - our thoughts and yes, our prayers.

Dave

New students arrive on campus for Summer Orientation

Kayaking at Indian Brook, about 5 miles from campus provides me with great shots like these two. The Great Blue Heron picture was not taken with a telephoto lens but I was that close.....New students for the fall semester arrived on campus yesterday for Summer Registration/Orientation and many of them are also now participating in one of the 4 Wilderness Program Trips or POW (pre-orientation weekend). I attended the advising session held by Associate Dean Joan Wry (a fantastic resource for students and faculty alike) and Prof. Ray Patterson, Religious Studies professor extraordinaire. They advised the new students on HOW to register for classes for the fall and then the students were off to meet with temporary advisors to select their classes. I love having students back on campus as their energy fills the place.

Seth Cole has been the College's Sports Information Director for many years - he also is an alumni of the College and was also our men's baseball coach for several years. Seth has decided to leave SMC and move with his wife to New Hampshire where they will be closer to family. Seth has done an amazing job over his many years here and he will be sorely missed - the Best of Luck to you Seth.

Lots and lots of contacts with former students as Jenny Pietroski was back in town from Maine this past week and I had the chance to have lunch with her and catch up on how she is doing. She graduated in 2010 and started graduate school in psychology in Colorado - great to catch up with her. Mary LeClair is back for a few days and her Dad, music professor Paul LeClair has just retired after a lifetime (Paul began here in 1970) of great service to the College and to all of our students - Paul is featured in the Spring/Summer 2011 Saint Michael's College Magazine. Mary and I will get together tomorrow. Barb Puls ('84), Meaghan Cormier('11), Eda LaPlaca ('11), Jason Fuchs ('10), Brett Peryer ('09), Seth Brown ('09), Craig Farnum ('99) have all been in touch lately - just one of the many, many things I love about being at SMC is the relationships that will last a lifetime.

Off to Indian Brook for some kayaking again - I continue with my writing and preparing for fall classes and enjoying life in the beautiful State of Vermont. Take care, and, as always, please keep the members of our military and all of our veterans and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave