Vermont Cynic

Issue date: 1/23/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Alex Connelly

No, not you. This was merely the state of my mind when it sunk in that I had a week and a half until break was over and I was still locked in a struggle with my parents to trade the shackles of higher education for a more "life-based" learning experience on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

On top of that, I had to write an article about the state of the same university I was looking to take a break from.

To my dismay, the "practical" parental suggestion of remaining at UVM won out - as often happens - to the to the romanticized ideas of a teenager who has read On the Road and The Alchemist too many times.

To focus on the article at hand, I brought myself back to the day I interviewed President Daniel Mark Fogel.

An unusually warm Vermont afternoon in December, and I was setting out from the newly constructed U-Heights Green dorms. Cycling through the questions I had loaded in my head, ready and waiting for President Fogel's full attention. Sliding to a halt in front of Waterman, I popped my longboard up and ran inside. President Fogel called me into his office and we ended up chatting for almost an hour before he needed to move onto another engagement.

Exiting the interview, I reviewed our talk, sorting out the thoughts swimming through my head.

Livable wages Leaving Waterman, I remembered SLAP protests staged on these very steps and at the door of the President's office.

Last year, after being pressured to provide livable wages to all UVM employees, the president created a task force to look into possible action.

The committee took up the task and suggested an increase in minimum pay to $12.28 per hour. The administration responded by setting the price floor at $10.60 - and the conflict rages on.

President Fogel, when questioned about the controversy, seemed optimistic about the progress they've made in their negotiations. "Amidst … the controversy … we have the highest wage floor for lower paid staff of any public university we've been able to find in the country," he said.

"We're right up there with the highest paying independent schools [that are] much wealthier then we are." Student Safety Moving across the green, I was struck with images of a silent crowd of flickering candles weeping wax and students standing in memoriam for a peer brutally taken from us: Michelle Gardner-Quinn.

Our campus was gripped in a fever of paranoia over safety within and without the dorms as the insulating bubble perceived to surround Burlington popped. "There are terrible things that happened," President Fogel said. "Of the worst extreme, Michelle Gardner-

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