When Aidan Finnegan arrived at Saint Michael’s College as a first-year student three years ago, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study and didn’t have a lot of confidence in his academic abilities.
One thing he did know: He wanted to play rugby. He’d grown up in the Boston area and had been playing the sport since seventh grade, so he joined Saint Michael’s club rugby team.
A few months in, Finnegan took a tough hit. “I caught a couple knees to the head and ended up with a traumatic brain injury,” he said. He started having seizures — eight to 10 a day — that sometimes required hospitalization. His schoolwork suffered. The injury almost derailed his college career.
What saved him was his professors. They worked closely with him to keep him on track. “They didn’t let me off the hook,” Finnegan explained, “but they encouraged me to know myself and work within my limits.”
With continuing faculty support, Finnegan improved his grades and found a major — political science. He took classes in French and philosophy because the college required it, but he liked those subjects so much he added them as minors. He got involved in student government.
Finnegan suffered a serious setback last year and was hospitalized again. It was his most vulnerable point, he said. Yet his Saint Michael’s network was there for him. “I’ve never felt more supported,” he said of that time in his life.
He managed to end his second semester with a 4.0 GPA and made the dean’s list. “That’s something I never thought I would be capable of,” he said. Next year, he sees law school in his future.
Transformative educational experiences such as Finnegan’s are not unusual at the small liberal arts school in Colchester. Founded in 1904 by the Catholic Society of Saint Edmund, Saint Michael’s has always been guided by the principles of education, justice and service. But equally valuable to its 1,100 students are the opportunities to be seen and known by professors and peers — 90 percent of classes have fewer than 30 students — and to give back to that supportive community.
“At Saint Michael’s College, the student experience is our priority,” said Richard Plumb, PhD, who was inaugurated as the 18thpresident of the college on October 26. “Our vision is to provide students with the skills, professionalism and empathy to navigatethe complexities of the modern world.”
Offering Uncommon Opportunities
Saint Michael’s delivers on that promise in multiple ways. In addition to choosing among 40 majors, students can benefit from three interdisciplinary institutes focused on global engagement, environmental stewardship, and advancing equity and justice. These “personalized learning environments” foster close relationships with faculty, staff and coaches and encourage undergraduate research, internships, advocacy work and leadership opportunities, according to president Plumb.
“The institutes provide our liberal arts majors with a learning laboratory to apply what they have learned in class to the real world, similar to the chemistry or biology lab,” Plumb said. “For example, a business major can participate in the Leahy Institute for the Environment and work with a local sustainable business partner to develop an energy-efficiency plan for the college.”
Plumb also cites opportunities such as the school’s Fire and Rescue squad, a volunteer program operated primarily by students who respond to calls in Colchester, Winooski and surrounding towns. Saint Michael’s Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts (MOVE) program has connections with more than 25 local nonprofits where students can advocate, intern and volunteer.
Said Plumb: “At Saint Michael’s College, the student learning experience does not end when class ends; it’s the real-world engagement that makes us stand out.”
Embodying the Edmundite Mission
In keeping with its focus on advancing equity and justice, Saint Michael’s created the Edmundite African American fellowship program, which continues the order’s legacy of supporting African American civil rights. Jolivette Anderson-Douoning was the inaugural fellow, serving from 2021 to 2023 while she finished her doctoral program in American studies at Purdue University.
Anderson-Douoning is not Catholic, but she was familiar with the Edmundite order through its work in New Orleans; she grew up in Shreveport, La., and lived for 10 years in Mississippi, not far from south Louisiana history and culture.
Accepting the fellowship at Saint Michael’s allowed her to move with her teenage daughter from Indiana to Vermont and gave her time and space to finish her dissertation. In it, she used a unique primary source — her grandmother’s handwritten ledger, which she discovered at her parents’ house after they died — as a window into African American life in Louisiana during the Jim Crow era.
The book shows that “we had our own thoughts about the world,” she said. “But sometimes sharing those thoughts could cause us harm, could bring harm to yourself or your family. So those things stayed quiet and inside of our own communities and our own spaces.”
Bringing attention to those thoughts and actions is part of her life’s work. After earning her PhD, Anderson-Douoning accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Saint Michael’s. Now professor Anderson-Douoning teaches “The African-American Experience, 1619 to the Present” and a first-year seminar called “Black Voices of Democracy.” She also coteaches a dual-enrollment course at Winooski High School — part of Vermont’s most racially diverse school district — and helps her students develop a nuanced understanding of the history of segregation and “how Black people were actually living inside segregated spaces,” she said.
Anderson-Douoning recently traveled to Montgomery, Ala., where she delivered a talk to lawyers with the Southern Poverty Law Center. She and her daughter combined the trip with a college and civil rights tour, stopping in Selma and Tuskegee. One of her former students, a senior, is writing a thesis on Jim Crow laws in Alabama, so Anderson-Douoning texted with him during her travels, sending photos of historical markers and other information that might be helpful to him.
“That’s the Saint Mike’s spirit,” she said. “When you’re at a small institution like this, you can build those kinds of relationships with your students.”
Engaging With the World
Saint Michael’s helps its current and former students seek meaningful experiences off campus, too. It’s one of approximately 30 institutions in the U.S. to offer grants through the Freeman Foundation for international internships, and it has a medical school matriculation rate more than double the national average.
It also has a reputation for producing Fulbright fellows. Last year, the U.S. State Department recognized the college as a “Top Producing Institution” for Fulbright awards. In the past two years, the school’s Fulbright scholars have served in or been selected for Mexico, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Costa Rica and Kenya.
Patricia Siplon, professor of political science and international relations — and director of Saint Michael’s public health program — leads the effort to help students win Fulbright fellowships. She’s a two-time “Fulbrighter” who went to Tanzania in 2005 and Jordan from 2011 to 2012. “Both experiences were wonderful and transformative,” she said. “They opened up new connections, gave me new skills and, perhaps most of all, new ways of viewing our world. Now I am dedicated to opening the path to those opportunities to as many students as possible.”
She said even the act of applying is valuable, as it helps students assess their own strengths and aspirations. “Those who win a fellowship often mention learning they had skills and abilities they didn’t know they had,” Siplon said.
Preparing Students for Meaningful Lives
All of these experiences add up to a college education that prepares students not just for a job but for a wide variety of careers. For example, Vermont’s Commerce Secretary, Lindsay Kurrle, graduated in 1993.
“Saint Michael’s College set me on a path toward personal and professional success, which I reflect on often,” she wrote in a testimonial. “Choosing a faith-based, liberal arts education in a close-knit community was one of my life’s best decisions. Not only did I earn an accounting degree, but I also made lifelong friendships and acquired tools that have proven invaluable as I navigated life and career.”
Jared Peick ’13 currently works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a biomedical engineer and crew health integrator at the Johnson Space Center.
“As a Biology major, my studies were amplified by courses like philosophy, communications, and religious studies,” he wrote. “Faculty always encouraged critical thinking, taking action to solve problems, and to search for answers utilizing the interdisciplinary mindset taught in the liberal arts curriculum.”
Peick’s hands-on learning experiences at Saint Michael’s made an impression on him. “I often think about the lessons I learned while managing my senior research study, which sought to understand the health of Vermont streams through the macroinvertebrate communities,” he wrote.
Filled With People Who Care
The college’s campus community mattered to Peick, too. “I can’t speak highly enough of the community of people that make up Saint Michael’s. Faculty, staff, and students all seem to share the same appreciation that Saint Michael’s is a special place,” he said.
That same spirit is what drew president Plumb to the school. In his inaugural address on October 26, he shared a story about his arrival as a freshman at Syracuse University, when he had a chance encounter with the associate dean of the College of Engineering.
“He asked if I was a first-year student and what I hoped to achieve in college. I shared my story — that I liked math and science, loved rowing, and wanted to study engineering but had been told I was not smart enough.” At the end of their conversation, Plumb said, the dean “asked me to walk with him to his office … and he transferred me into the engineering program that morning.” Plumb wound up graduating at the top of his class.
He said he came to Saint Michael’s because he was profoundly impacted by the people he met through the interview process. “They reminded me of Dr. Gildersleeve — the man who saw potential in me when others did not. It was his belief in me, his willingness to take a chance, that changed the course of my life.”
At Saint Michael’s, he said, “I feel that same spirit — a belief not only in me but in the limitless potential of this institution and its people. The passion, dedication and shared values I witnessed reaffirmed this is where I belong.”
Want to learn more about Saint Michael’s College? Visit the school’s website at smcvt.edu/explore.
This article was commissioned and paid for by Pomerleau Real Estate.
This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2024.
