Contact
Martha Trombley Oakes
Phone: 802.728.1732
Email: MTrombleyOakes@vtc.vsc.edu

Randolph, VT – Vermont Technical College is holding a Women in Engineering Technology Day one week from today on Wednesday, February 8th at the Vermont Tech Randolph Campus. The event is designed for young women interested in science and technology and will provide opportunities for attendees to meet current engineering technology students, working professionals, and engage in laboratory demonstrations.

Women in Engineering Technology Day begins at 9:00 am and concludes at 2:00 pm. The event is free and RSVPs should be made by calling 1-800-442-8821, emailing admissions@vtc.edu, or filling out the online form at http://bit.ly/wdUL7H.

Program demonstrations will include civil, architectural, computer, electrical and mechanical engineering technologies. Lunch will be provided followed by a Q&A panel of current students and professionals. Panelists include Desiree Cerrentani (BS Electromechanical graduate and current Goodrich Designer) and Rachael Oldinski, Ph.D. (UVM Assistant Professor Engineering Program). Optional tours of the Vermont Tech Randolph Campus will follow.

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CONTACT: Bob Hooker

TOWN CLERKS SPEAK FRANKLY ABOUT DEMOCRACY

WOMEN TOWN CLERKS OF VERMONT – REFLECTIONS ON DEMOCRACY will be exhibited at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury from February 1 – March 31st. This unique exhibition created by New York-based photographer, Sandra Elkin, combines portrait photography and the voices of 19 women clerks to create a fascinating glimpse of who they are and their concerns. Whether plainspoken or boldly provocative, the “Clerks” challenge us as they speak openly and frankly of democracy, town meetings, the obligations of citizenship, state government, and their towns.

Sandra Elkin began work on her “Town Clerks” project in the summer of 2008 in the midst of a historic presidential campaign that held our country and most of the world captivated. An unpopular war and an ailing economy were on people’s minds. The candidates talked of making choices between personal freedoms and national security. Questions about the health of our democracy and our political system swirled around the campaign.

To find answers, Elkin turned to the strong basic democratic tradition in small towns in Vermont and to Town Clerks, the government officials closest to the people and the neighborhood watchers of our most cherished expression of democracy – elections. “They are, I think, the first firewall of our democracy,” she says. “And I learned that we all need to broaden our definition of what’s a threat.”

“Sandra’s in-depth documentation brings forth the voices and views of these town clerks for who they are—hardworking individuals at the front gates of Vermont ’s political process,” says the Vermont Folklife Center ’s Executive Director, Brent Bjorkman . “Sharing the stories of everyday life has been our focus for over 25 years, and it is an honor to host this thought-provoking exhibit.”

Public programming for the exhibit will include sessions—organized by town clerks—on the Australian ballot and its impact on town meeting and the changes imposed on town government by state-level decisions. UVM political science professor Frank Bryan will also weigh in with a lecture titled “Town Meeting and Local Government: Focus on Women.”

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Sandra Elkin is a former television producer-turned photographer. Elkin is noted for her photography project “The Women of the Globe,” which celebrates the shared common spirit of women and the occasions when gender trumps culture. The project is based on her travels to 28 countries.

The VFC’s mission is to broaden, strengthen, and deepen our understanding of Vermont and the surrounding region; to assure a repository for our collective cultural memory; and to strengthen communities by building connections among the diverse peoples of Vermont .

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“Faith” was afraid to open her mail. She used her debit card without knowing how much money she had in the bank. The consequence? Faith racked up a large number of overdraft fees and went deeper into debt.

A 35-year-old Burlington woman, who described herself as a “hard-core, angry person,” had relied on welfare benefits her entire adult life. Her teenage son was truant.

Another woman who quickly rose through the ranks at a bakery was terrified she would make a mistake, so she purposely sabotaged her own work and lost her job. She hadn’t been employed since.

Each woman was on a downward trajectory, financially and psychologically, until three nonprofit groups stepped in and enabled them to pull themselves out of desperate situations.

Faith keeps track of her spending and no longer incurs bank fees, and the 35-year-old woman holds a GED, her son is back in school, and she is working for a youth program. The woman who feared her own success? She’s now a star employee of Burlington Airport.

Faith was enrolled in Central Vermont Community Action Council’s “Build Your Money Muscles” program; the 30-something woman was part of a new work readiness program offered by Mercy Connections; and the former baker sought help from a transitional jobs program provided by Vermont Works for Women.

The three organizations received funding for these programs through the Vermont Women’s Fund. An anonymous donor recently gave the foundation $100,000 for community-based programs, spurring the fund to spearhead a strategic partnership initiative. The Vermont Women’s Fund gave each selected nonprofit $30,000 to develop programs over a two-year period that would help women achieve economic security by giving them the support they need to find employment and to overcome entrenched, multi-generational poverty.

The Vermont Women Fund’s targeted, sustained initiative was a first for the foundation, which typically caps its grants at $10,000 a year. Since the Vermont Women’s Fund was created 12 years ago to support the well-being of women and girls, it has distributed $1 million to 127 organizations.

As Catherine Kalkstein, executive director of the foundation, put it at a forum last week: “This initiative was envisioned as a catalyst for social change for Vermont women and girls. We were hoping to create
some long-term impact.”

Each group took a different approach to helping women who lacked the resources to escape an abusive relationship or the skills to hold down a job – let alone balance a checkbook.

But several central themes emerged from the Vermont Women’s Fund forum held at Vermont College last Thursday. The advocates from the three groups, who had compared notes over the course of the grant period, said they often provided intensive psychological support for women through group sessions and mentoring. Once trust is established with women who have experienced extreme hardship they are much better prepared to take practical steps to better their lives, the advocates said.

The Barre-based Central Vermont Community Action Council, which provides emergency assistance and food aid to local residents in need, held 48 support-group style sessions on personal finance. Margaret Ferguson, a certified financial planner, helped more than 50 women cope with their fears about money by showing them how to control their expenditures.

Mercy Connections, an offshoot of the Sisters of Mercy in Burlington, created a community network for women “on the edges” of poverty and a work-readiness program that helped women with troubled histories rethink their life stories and develop the capacity to learn new skills. The program also provides mentoring for women as they look for work.

Vermont Works for Women, a Winooski-based nontraditional employment program, surveyed women in the state correctional system and asked them about their work histories. The group found that 66 percent of those arrested were unemployed at the time of their arrest, and of those who had jobs half had been employed for less than a year. A third had been working for less than three months.

Tiffany Bluemle, executive director of Vermont Works for Women, said, “Most told us they had not given much thought to employment.” For the women they surveyed, she said, the prospect of finding work, much less staying at a job, was an overwhelming prospect.

Vermont Women at Work researched transitional employment programs in urban areas and then launched its own project. In a 10-month period, the organization enrolled 33 women in work readiness programs and placed 21 in jobs with 16 area employers.

One of the Vermont Women’s Fund grant requirements was an evaluation of each program by an independent consultant. Advocates from all three groups cautioned that the overall results should be judged on anecdotal or qualitative evidence, rather than quantitative data. They said the women they serve often have intractable psychological problems made more complicated by patterns of substance abuse, long-term familial poverty and abusive family relationships that take time to resolve.

In the interest of full disclosure: Vermont Women’s Fund is a component fund of the Vermont Community Foundation. Vtdigger.org is a recipient of a $6,000 grant from VCF.

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