What Would an Ideal College Look Like? A Lot Like This

[cali]

3. this series focusing on Vermont that Jim Fallows and other Atlantic

writers have been doing, embodies and explains so much about what I love and admire about my state. It's focused largely on Burlington and has been a virtual hymn of praise. Can people in other places emulate what's going on here? I think so. Deborah Fallows wrote this piece:

Shaping the Soul of a School: A Sustainability-themed public school
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/vermont-report-shaping-the-soul-of-a-school/280455/

Tierney wrote this, and here are a couple of paragraphs:

How Did a 'Public Ivy' Take Root in Vermont?

<snip>

Part of the difference is that, somewhat unusually for a small town, there’s not just one dominant institution here. The immediate Burlington area has several colleges (the University of Vermont, St. Michael’s College, and Champlain College), each of them significant in the character of the city, and each offering glimpses into the disparate challenges facing American colleges and universities. I’ll save Champlain for a future post and focus here on UVM and St. Mike’s.

<snip>

As Jim Fallows has noted earlier, Burlington is unusual in supporting a profitable print newspaper, a non-harassing airport, and a software-company culture you might expect to find in Palo Alto or Seattle rather than Vermont. UVM’s presence among the public Ivies raises a similar question. How can a state with a population of some 600,000, and with no natural-resources revenue base, support an institution that competes with schools in much bigger, richer states?

<snip>

There’s an intriguing chicken-or-egg kind of question that emerges when you look closely at Burlington and its colleges: is the distinctive character of this small city a consequence of the college’s presence and contributions, or is there something intrinsic and native to the city and its residents (an earthy, Bohemian temperament?) that imparts to the colleges their special flavor? People smarter than I might be able to answer that. I can’t. But even I can see that there is a remarkable symbiosis that enriches the city and its colleges and infuses both with a strong sense of community (about which Jim will be writing more soon). The dominant values of the townsfolk give the colleges a special vibe that gets magnified on campus and then shot back out through the larger community in various ways.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/how-did-a-public-ivy-take-root-in-vermont/280544/

so many things that are happening in this small state are extraordinary and forward thinking as well as people first.