There are words for the Vermont State University plan to shift to all-digital libraries: ignorant, misguided, shortsighted, stupid.
It begs the question: Who is Parwinder Grewal and why was he hired to run our state university system? He is (was) an “internationally renowned entomologist and administrator” whom Vermont hired away from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Two facts that woud have disqualified him immediately, in my opinion.
And who hired him? The trustees turned to a national headhunter outfit, Storbeck Search/Diversified Search Group — and this is what they came up with?
The gutting out of Vermont proceeds apace. Not only are we becoming little more than a theme park, but to gut our university system as a meaningful education resource for our next generations completes the picture.
It appears that the professional class relocating to Vermont has a deep contempt for what they find here, whether it is environmental, social or historical. Why waste the beautiful landscapes, open farmlands, lovely lakes and world-class recreation opportunities on a bunch of country bumpkins who don’t appreciate the monetary value of such amenities? Who live in energy-guzzling houses and can’t even get drugs and crime off their streets, who “let” pollutants into Lake Champlain, who wantonly cut down forests and murder the wildlife?
This is not what is coming to Vermont; it is already here and developing policy to suit its own goals, the rest of us be damned.
Julia Purdy
Rutland
