[P]OULTNEY — In some college towns, the school sits on a hill, or on the outskirts. Not so in Poultney, where the Green Mountain College campus anchors the rural southern Vermont community’s downtown, its historic red-brick Ames Hall looking out over the eateries and shops of Main Street.
“Green Mountain’s just always been right in the middle of the town. Physically and financially and figuratively,” said Rebecca Cook, the director of the Poultney Public Library, which itself sits just a block down the street from the college.
College leaders last month suddenly announced the school would close in the spring. The news didn’t entirely surprise many in Poultney, who had noticed the steady downturn in student enrollment. But it still left them reeling.
“It’s kind of like an earthquake – and then you have the shockwaves that keep coming and doing more damage. And I think it’s going to be awhile before we realize just how far the shock waves are going to go on this one,” Cook said.
Bob Williams, the owner of the local hardware store, expressed a similar sentiment. Since the announcement, he said he’s been slowly realizing, one by one, all the ways closure could impact him. He thought about the concerts and sports events he often attended at the school. He worried about the hit his business would take in the fall, when incoming freshmen stock their dorms. And then he remembered the five apartments he rents in town – all to college students.
The college has long been an integral part of Poultney’s local economy, and many look at the empty storefronts that already dot the landscape downtown and fear the worst is yet to come. But beyond the economic repercussions, many worry about the cultural life of the town, and the community groups, art scenes, and educational programs that will go away once GMC closes its doors for good.
Many locals have gone to the college. And college students have stayed in the area, themselves becoming locals. GMC’s faculty and staff, meanwhile, have increasingly made Poultney their home, sending their children to local schools and volunteering their time for such organizations as the school board and historical society.
Cook will feel the impact of the school’s closure first-hand – she now has to plan college tours anew with her son, a freshman at Green Mountain College. He doesn’t plan to leave the state, and, luckily for him, he’s majoring in education – instead of one of Green Mountain’s more unique, environmental programs – which means he has a good chance of finding a good fit in Vermont. But at GMC, he was able to live at home, saving thousands on room and board. And he didn’t need a car, or a license.
Some in the community have simply refused to accept defeat. One group of alumni, GMC parents, and students say they want to raise enough money to take over the school and keep going into the future. The school and surrounding area “form a single entity that are synergistically linked,” said Kheya Ganguly, a leader in the effort. As of Monday, the group says it’s raised over $25,000.
At Tap’s Tavern, owner Serena Gallagher is staying positive. She thinks a mix of dedicated locals, tourism from Lake Saint Catherine, and traffic from Castleton University will keep her afloat. But half her staff are college students, and she admits that she is a little nervous.
“I think we’ll be OK. But it’s going to be time will tell,” she said.
Greg Cox, a West Rutland farmer and the president of the Vermont Farmers Food Center, said the school has been a critical piece of the area’s vibrant local food scene.
Green Mountain graduates often settled in Vermont – and in particular, Rutland County – starting organic farms, businesses and community organizations, Cox said. At a time when the state is struggling with a declining and aging population, the school brought “young, awesomely intelligent” people eager to start new projects locally.
“Losing that sort of spawning ground for these folks is absolutely devastating,” he said.
At LiHigh School in downtown Poultney, Andrew Poirier, a teacher and GMC alumni, said the college helped bring extra resources and programming to the small alternative private school. And students often walked to GMC to take dual enrollment classes, which was critical for students who lacked the transportation to get to Castleton or the Community College of Vermont.
But Green Mountain helped in unexpected ways, too.
“You’d have kids coming in that just had not ever been exposed to people of color – in our student body – and could go interact with people at the college and get this understanding of diversity,” Poirier said.
It’s unclear what will happen to the GMC campus. The college refinanced its debt using a $19.5 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture back in 2017. The Rutland Herald quoted GMC president Bob Allen saying the school was talking to brokers in an attempt to secure the sale of the property, but a spokesperson for the college declined to answer additional questions.
In town, lister and former school board chair Mary Jo Teetor said the matter has become a favorite topic of speculation.
“Everybody’s got an idea. It should become this, it should become that,” she said.
And like many in town who talk about the GMC property, Teetor tries to strike an optimistic tone. But she’s anxious.
“It’s a beautiful piece of property. If it has the right marketing, it has to be able to attract – something.”
