[F]aculty, students and alumni of Vermont College of Fine Arts celebrated the career of its new alumni center’s namesake at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday at the Montpelier campus.
“Today is not really about a building. Today is about making Louise Crowley cry,” said college President Thomas Christopher Greene at the ceremony.
The Louise Harwood Crowley Faculty and Alumni Center, or Crowley Center, is named after the woman who has served as the director of the college’s MFA in writing program for the past two decades.
Referencing her “mother of the bride” attitude during graduations, Greene pointed out that Crowley was already wearing sunglasses in preparation for the tribute Monday.
Greene presented a book written for Crowley by many of her former students, organized by Robin Oliveira, an alumna and New York Times best-selling author.
Greene said Crowley is “one of the single greatest administrators” he has ever known.
“I cannot ever adequately express what this means to me,” Crowley said.
She is retiring as program director in December but will still serve as a part-time assistant academic dean, according to a news release.
Construction on the Crowley Center was completed last spring, according to the release.
Crowley said the faculty members have been talking about building a better instructor housing facility for decades. She said the building aligns well with her role because the faculty and alumni are the reason she has been at the college for 35 years.
“I absolutely love this building and the design of it,” she said.
The campus has seen several ownership changes over the years, said Tim Simard, the college’s publications manager. When the writing program began in 1981, the campus was owned by Norwich University and later Union Institute & University, he said.
Greene said that in 2006, it was announced that Union Institute would sell the campus. Many faculty members were upset, thinking they would lose their jobs, he said.
Crowley approached him and described a dream she had where they created Vermont College of Fine Arts, said Greene, and he took the lead on making it happen. Most of the college’s programs are low-residency.
The writing program is VCFA’s oldest, which Crowley has worked with since it began, Simard said.
“It seemed natural” to name the building after Crowley “because she embodies the spirit of the college,” he said.
Due to the ownership changes over the years, this is the first new building at the college in 30 years, Simard said.
“There just wasn’t a time before to catch their breath and say, ‘How can we grow the campus?’” he said.
Money for the center’s completion came from donations by alumni and friends, including two anonymous donors who each gave the college $1 million for the project.
Vermont Rural Ventures, a U.S. Treasury-certified community development entity operated by Housing Vermont, also helped by allocating federal tax credits to finance the Crowley Center’s construction as well as other campus renovation projects such as Alumni Hall, which was completed in 2015.
Simard said those were the two projects that VCFA faculty and administrators most wanted to get done. “And now they’re both done,” he said.
The new center will be used for alumni retreats and has eight rooms to house faculty members, Simard said. Faculty members have already moved into these rooms, he said. The buildings on either side of the center, which have also undergone renovations, also house faculty now, providing a total of 25 rooms, Simard said.
Previously, faculty members were housed in dorms, Simard said.
Greene said the center would be an oasis for the faculty and alumni.
