 |
 |
|
|
New Student Orientation, August 28 - 30
Classes Begin, August 31
Convocation, September 3
Family & Friends Weekend, Sept. 25 - 27
Welsh Harvest Festival, October 17 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
| |
 We have many good reasons to be proud of Green Mountain College: The quality of its programs, our school’s longevity, and the achievements of its numerous graduates. Additionally, we now have external confirmation that our pride is well founded—for the first time in Green Mountain’s history, we have been included in the Princeton Review’s guide to Best 371 Colleges (2010 edition). As the guide states, colleges featured in the review “…comprise only the top percentage of all colleges in the nation.”
Although we are very pleased to be ranked, our continued focus will be to consistently increase our academic quality, infrastructure, and fiscal strength. We are very pleased to be attracting top-notch faculty members from across the United States and the quality of applicants for our incoming freshman class is even higher than last year, with more than twice as many incoming freshmen eligible for our honors program. We are also in the midst of several changes to our physical plant that will help us reach a significant environmental milestone: carbon neutrality by 2011. Our research indicates that we will be one of the first two colleges in the country to achieve this goal through actually reducing carbon emissions by more than 50%. Our pursuit of neutrality has already inspired one new academic program, the Renewable Energy and Ecological Design certificate program, which will prepare students for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the North American Board of Certified Energy Professionals exams.
The most significant action we have taken to reduce our carbon footprint is the construction of our new biomass plant. We anticipate saving GMC over $250,000 per year in heating coats as well as being able to produce approximately 20% of our electricity needs (400,000 kWh). This next year, the process of creating this facility will also be the focus of several academic activities, whereby students will learn to evaluate biomass technology, using a cross-disciplinary, systems approach.
We hope that you share our firm belief that Green Mountain is on the verge of achieving national prominence as an exceptional liberal arts college where hands-on learning and cutting-edge social and environmental responsiveness are paving the way for a promising future for the college and, most importantly, its graduates.
Warm regards,
Paul J. Fonteyn
|
|
 |
|
Lou & Bill: Oxen in Action
"The Running of the Bulls event is our commentary on the environment, with the ‘bulls’ representing inefficient fossil-fueled vehicles and the ‘runners’ representing the human casualties of global warming,” said student organizer Ben Atkinson regarding GMC's first annual Festival of San Farmin', held during Earth Week. 