This commentary is by Lynn Stewart Rozental, a former Burlington resident who is an alumna of the Historic Preservation Program. She is proud of her family’s history of involvement in efforts to preserve Vermont’s built and natural environment. In 1974 her mother, Caryl Stewart, restored the Wells Richardson building in Burlington, adapting it to house Bennington Potters North. In 1966, her uncle Scott Rowden, a Vermont Fish and Wildlife warden, helped to found the Green Mountain Conservation Camp for middle-school-aged children.
The University of Vermont’s current restructuring of its College of Arts and Sciences has led to proposals to cut more than two dozen academic programs. In considering which programs should be cut and which should be expanded, university leaders seem to be weighing each academic program as a stand-alone entity whose line-item budget is the only metric and means for its justification.
Meanwhile, one group of programs has been singled out for expansion. In a recently published document titled Amplifying Our Impact: Strategic Vision for UVM, President Garimella promised: “The University of Vermont is poised and ready to build upon our reputation as a premier research institution focused on sustainable solutions with local, national, and global applications and impact.”
Given this emphasis on sustainability it makes absolutely no sense to eliminate UVM’s 46-year-old Historic Preservation Program. Doing so means that UVM’s sustainability programs would address only half of the environment. It also puts the state’s university at odds with Vermont’s landmark Act 250, which uses 10 criteria to guide its public process for “managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of development in Vermont, assuring that they complement Vermont’s unique landscape, economy and community needs.”
In fact, Criteria 8 specifically addresses the built environment, requiring that new development projects consider aesthetics, scenic and natural beauty, historic and archeological sites.
In “Amplifying Our Impact,” President Garrimella expresses great pride that “UVM’s partnership with the state includes more than 200 programs designed to help Vermont and Vermonters.” In an article published here earlier this month, Ben Doyle, president of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, described some of those partnerships. As he explained, UVM’s historic preservation efforts statewide have helped to maintain the economic and cultural vitality of the state’s downtowns and villages. Terminating the Historic Preservation Program will block longstanding collaborations between the program and communities, just when help is needed most by small businesses.
It makes no sense to boast about the university’s leadership in sustainability and partnerships and then eliminate a program that has consistently made significant contributions to both efforts. Cutting the Historic Preservation Program would mean forgoing the opportunity to continue to strengthen global interrelationships among existing university programs.
Neglecting to view them within the greater context of their shared contribution to the state will weaken the hybrid vigor they impart.
In addition to contributing to the strength of UVM’s sustainability and partnership efforts, the Historic Preservation Program plays a broader and very practical role for the university. UVM’s administrators surely recognize that a significant contributor to UVM’s past and future success relies on the backdrop of Vermont, with its natural beauty and well preserved small towns, cities and main streets. Students have long been and will continue to be attracted to UVM because of its built environment, and while here, many will choose to participate in studying and preserving it for the future.
For all of these reasons, a much stronger choice — one that will strengthen rather than weaken its work in both sustainability and partnerships — would be to continue to reap the benefits of over 45 years of investment in the Historic Preservation Program.
A UVM whose environmental programs embrace both the natural and built environments will position the university for greater future enrolments, partnerships and service. Such a holistic approach, located in a state with an outstanding historic built AND natural environment, would truly make Vermont a leader in “sustainable solutions with local, national, and global applications and impact.”
