Greetings, Parents!

Happy Spring!  We had a record cold winter this year, but the skiing was great and the snow cover some of the best in years.  Family Weekend ’04 was a blur of activities and I want to thank all of you who came up to visit.  Please check out the photos by clicking on the link to the right to relive the experience or see what you missed.

This is the second issue of Parent Talk and I want to thank all those parents who gave me feedback on our inaugural issue.  In this issue, you’ll find information on career counseling (great for junior or senior parents), a message from Dean Wilson on the challenge of providing support while encouraging autonomy in our students, an essay from an involved student on why it’s important (and fun!) to be active outside the classroom, and much more.

As always I encourage your feedback.  Happy reading!

Sincerely,

Terri Selby - tselby@smcvt.edu
Director For the Parent Fund
Office of Institutional Advancement
802-654-2462

A student's career development at Saint Michael's College takes many forms. Some students are ready to begin the process early on in college and others begin later. The Career Development Staff of the Student Resource Center is available to all students and alumni as they are ready to begin or continue the process. Our office has a library of resources that we use as a place to begin looking for answers with students. We can assist them with networking resources and resumé-building advice as they begin researching their areas of interest. From helping first and second year students with choosing a major, to assisting juniors with the search for an internship or part-time job, and seniors with full-time employment or a graduate school, the staff is ready to help. Our goal is to help students and alumni acquire the knowledge and skills essential for effective and ongoing career and life planning. 

We encourage you to refer your student to our services as an important step in the process. Here is an brief sample of what we offer:

• help identifying career goals
• assistance with resumé and business correspondence writing
• guidance with applications and essays for graduate school
• help identifying potential reference writers
• interviewing skills and practice interviews
• business etiquette
• job search strategies

Our comprehensive web site (www.smcvt.edu/src/career) lists our complete services and resources.

Parents and families also play an important role in this process. Students listen to their families and use them as a resource for information. While we offer a variety of professional services, there is much that you can do to assist them as well. Begin a dialogue with your students early in their college career. Assist them with your knowledge of career trends and encourage them to find resources to assist in their career exploration.

What else can you do to help? Provide internship, part-time and full-time opportunities to our students. While the job you may have available at your place of work isn't a great fit for your student, it may be for another. Sending the opportunity to us to be posted in a variety of ways will help all our students. We have job and internship binders in our office where we post hard copies of openings and we have a steady stream of students looking at these postings. On our web site, we have a "Hot Jobs" section, a brief list of opportunities that either employers have specifically requested be posted on our web site or we feel are particularly good entry-level opportunities for our students. A third way to let students and alumni know about opportunities is to email them. We receive requests to fill positions that are more urgent in nature and we will send an email out with the posting to the appropriate group of recipients from first-year students through experienced alumni. You can play a crucial role in making this system the most effective one possible just by sending us any openings you have. It is as simple as emailing them to me at: ipeterson@smcvt.edu.

As you can see, there are a variety of things you can do to help with the career development of your students as well as all students at Saint Michael's College. We are partners in this process and look forward to meeting your students and assisting with their career development process.

by Bill Wilson
Associate Dean of the College

As a parent, faculty member, and now administrator, I have been close to the residential college experience for many years. While this is an especially American phenomenon, all societies have vehicles through which adolescents pass into adulthood. Particular to our experience is the drawing together of a primary focus on education with both social and personal development. The initial shock of this process is most apparent in the initial semester, but there are changes which occur throughout the eight semesters of study and intervening summers; the graduate strides of May are far removed from the tentative steps taken in August four years earlier. 

The first year poses enormous challenges for adjustment. Social and personal issues can easily dominate because they are more direct and immediate. The educational demands of college, which feature a more open schedule, more work, and less supervision can too easily be deferred. Thus cultivating wise choices pervades the many College orientation programs.

The second year often gives rise to the "sophomore slump," when the mastery of the requirements allows time for reflection on one's academic purpose. This is a time when the "choices" in academic life tend to narrow rather than widen; final decisions on a major are the best example. Almost without pause, junior year beckons with new opportunities for off-campus study and internships to supplement work on the major and electives. In the senior year, however reluctantly, the challenge is to prepare for yet again another transition to life beyond Saint Michael's.

For educators and parents, this entire period is characterized by both risk and reward, and the two are never too far apart. Undergraduate life is rewarding to the extent it provides intellectual and personal growth, yet that growth requires the risk of "space" within which students can make their own choices; this requires a gentle but progressive distancing over the four years to encourage autonomy. The balance of distance and support varies depending upon student needs and institutional values.

At Saint Michael's, our emphasis on community leans toward greater support, especially in the first year. First year seminars, the Extended Orientation program, and academic advising are designed to provide a supportive environment for the necessary if difficult transition. Beyond the first year, a variety of support programs are available through the Associate Dean, individual academic departments, and the Student Resource Center. Still, throughout the four years, for both parents and faculty, this is a time of watchful waiting.

Social attitudes and technology have re-shaped the boundaries of this American passage in recent years. Cell phones, email, and automobiles allow for an intensity of contact between home and school never before imagined. The barriers of space, once a "given," evaporate, and this can have an adverse impact upon the necessary distance to encourage growth. Perhaps, we now need to make conscious decisions on how much contact is appropriate given our commitment to autonomy over time. This is a tension for both faculty and parent who are allies in this process if not quite partners. We both need to work at finding the right "distance" for our students' growth, and it will vary with individuals. It is this gentle task which underlies our work. Done well, we share a discipline of restraint and support which takes us to graduations with a sense of loss but greater happiness at the gift of the autonomy of adulthood.

Dear Parents and Friends:

My name is Tyronne Walker and I am a sophomore, political science major from New Orleans, LA. As you know New Orleans is a long way from Vermont, but my connection with the college is interesting. I attended Bishop Perry Middle for two years; a school founded and run by the Society of Saint Edmund, who also founded this college. I visited Saint Michael's twice while in middle school and high school and loved the place, but wasn't really sure if I was ready to make such a huge transition from the urban south, to the rural north. After thinking long and hard and hearing from the people that matter most in my life say that this would be a great move for me, I came to Saint Mike's and am loving every minute of it. 

The decision to choose a college came down to where I could get the most out of my college experience, and where I could make the most difference. I thought choosing a college was the most difficult decision I had to make, but choosing what to do with the decision I made would prove to be harder. It is my belief that college, like anything, is only what you make it and that we all have a responsibility to get involved no matter if it's in one organization or ten organizations. 

Right now I am the Vice President of our Student Association and a part of many other clubs on campus because Saint Mike's offers just about everything that interests me. In fact, I sometimes struggle with getting too involved. If you ask any student at Saint Mike's how important it is to get involved, if they are involved they will say that it keeps them going and if they are graduating and didn't get involved, they would say that Saint Michael's is still a good place, but they regret not getting involved more. 

There are so many clubs and organizations on this campus and there are always more forming when students feel there is a need. Bruce Cockburn said, "I've got this thing in my heart I must give you today, it only lives when you give it away." This idea is what Saint Mike's is all about - getting involved, receiving a gift, and then after our education here is done, we pass it along.

Students Attend Maize Genetics Conference
Saint Michael's Gives a Ski Pass to Every Student
Dr. Patricia Siplon Selected State's Teacher of the Year
Sara Pope Named to Academic All-America Team
Robert Hoehl Re-joins Board

• April 8-13 – Easter Weekend
• May 3-7 – Final Exams
• May 13 – Commencement {visit the Commencement 2004 web site!}

2003/2004 Academic Calendar

For more information on these programs, visit our Parent Page or contact Terri Selby, Director of Parent Programs (802) 654-2462 or tselby@smcvt.edu.

Local Hotel Information
Burlington Area Weather
Vermont Ski Areas

Parent Fund Update

As of April 1, 2004:

Total new business dollars raised for FY04 - $151,840 – Thank you so much!

Participation:

Current Parents		Parents of Alumni (active within the last 2 years)
Goal – 30% participation		Goal – 55% participation
FY04 – 25%		FY04 – 43%
FY03 – total – 29%		FY03 – total – 59%

Support the parent fund today!