Southern Vermont College/
St. Joseph College E-Newsletter

April 2008

News and views from Southern Vermont College…

Alumni Reunion

Alumni Reunion will take place in conjunction with Commencement Weekend, May 16-18. Visit www.svcalumni.org for the schedule of events, including dinner at Mt. Anthony Country Club and a tour of the site where later this year, the College anticipates beginning construction on a new 120-bed residence hall.

To register, contact Alumni Relations at 802-447-6357 or alumni@svc.edu.

Award-winning Journalist to Deliver Commencement Address

Veteran personal finance journalist Christine Dugas, who currently writes for USA Today, will deliver the 81st Southern Vermont College commencement address during graduation ceremonies on Sunday, May 18.

Dugas has covered personal finance issues for USA Today since 1995 and is the author of “Fiscal Fitness: A Guide to Shaping up your Finances for the Rest of your Life,” published in 1995 by Andrews and McMeel. Prior to her stint at USA Today, she covered the business beat for New York Newsday for eight years. From 1985 to 1987, she worked for Business Week magazine.

Visit http://www.svc.edu/pr/index.html?release_id=367 for the complete story.

Summer Classes

SVC is adding a series of intensive three-week courses to its lineup of summer courses for professional development and personal enrichment.

The first intensive schedule, from May 12-30, includes courses on Painting Landscapes, Topics in Journalism, Introduction to American Politics, Statistical Methods, Animal Behavior and Conversational Spanish. The Spanish course will also be offered from June 2-20, and Topics in Humanities will be offered from June 2-27.

A second intensive, four-day course on Introduction to Digital Photography will be offered May 26-29 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Additional courses throughout the summer months include: Management Information Systems (May 12-July 3), Management Ethics (May 12-July 4), Global Issues (May 12-July 15), Practicum and Seminar I and II requirements for Criminal Justice and Psychology programs (May 12-Aug. 8), Macro-Economics (May 13-July 3), Clinical Radiography II (May 19-Aug. 8), Anatomy and Physiology II (June 2-Aug. 8) and Microbiology (June 16-Aug. 8). Contemporary Topics in Business will also be offered (dates to be determined).

A complete listing of summer classes is available at www.svc.edu/academics/schedules. The cost is $1,200 for a three-credit course. Most of the courses may be audited for $100 per non-credit (on a space-available basis).

Alumni with a bachelor’s degree from SVC and alumni from St. Joseph College are eligible to take classes for $250 per credit. For more information or to register for classes, contact the Admissions Office at 802-447-6304 or e-mail admis@svc.edu.

SVC Business Students Visit Chicago Commodities Exchanges

With prices of basic commodities like oil, wheat and corn at record high levels, four business majors from Southern Vermont College were given the opportunity to witness first-hand how these costs are determined when they visited the Chicago commodities exchanges.

Under the aegis of SVC’s Student Ambassador Program, funded by the Alice Shaver Foundation, the students spent a day on the floor of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. They were hosted by Mark Feldberg, co-chairman and partner of TradeLink Securities. The students were accompanied by SVC Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer James Beckwith who organized the expedition to the heart of the nation’s commodities trading center. In addition to visiting the commodity exchanges, students also toured Chicago museums.

Environmental Visionary Kicks Off FirstFourCollege Issues Forum

Amory Lovins, author of “Winning the Oil Endgame” and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, will speak at the first annual Four College Issues Forum on Wednesday, April 30, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams.

In “Winning the Oil Endgame,” Lovins, trained as a physicist, proposes a national strategy for eliminating U.S. oil usage, driven by economic incentives and business profits.

One of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Institute of Snowmass, Colo., Lovins has dedicated his career towards promoting efficient energy usage and innovative, economically motivated energy policy solutions. He was one of the developers of the Hypercar, a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle designed to get hundreds of miles to the gallon.

The Four College Issues Forum was founded by Bennington College, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Southern Vermont College, and Williams College “to bring significant discussion of national and global issues to the region and to their campuses.” It is the first time that these institutions have participated in a shared educational initiative. The location of the symposium will rotate between the four campuses, alternating between a Massachusetts and a Vermont college annually.

New Coaches Join Athletic Department

Bill Bird has joined SVC as the head softball coach. He has coached youth softball for several years, and his under-14 squad has gone 28-4 over the past two seasons. This year, they will attempt to become the Berkshire County ( Mass.) champions for the third straight year.

Joe Catania has been named as the head men’s & women’s cross country coach and the Director of Compliance. He brings over 30 years of coaching experience and comes to SVC from East Carolina University (ECU), where his men’s cross country team had the highest Conference USA finish in school history. His women’s program reached Academic All-American status for two seasons. Catania has coached eight National Football League players and 10 NCAA National qualifiers, four United States of America Track and Field (USATF) Junior National qualifiers and three All-Americans.

Shawn Holcombe has been hired as the head women’s soccer coach. He was most recently the head coach at Parish Hill High School in Chaplin, Connecticut, where he turned a team that had one victory the year prior to his arrival to a squad that went undefeated in conference play the following season, allowing only one goal over that span. Holcombe has seven years of collegiate experience as an assistant coach at Teikyo Post University and Wesleyan University.

Looking Back

In 1963, St. Joseph College moved to West Main Street and the present site of Monument Elementary School. More than 300 people filled the auditorium of the new building to witness Commencement exercises for the school’s 16 graduates. Many remained after the ceremony for an open house held by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The combined events marked the first official function at the new school.

The Commencement speaker was attorney Eugene V. Clark, a former Bennington municipal judge and, at the time, one of Bennington County’s state senators. Clark advised the graduates that breaking into the working world was no more difficult than encountering new studies.