Kids Go to These Schools

Because They Want To!

By Chris Costanzo

This past year saw the 25th anniversary of the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont (GIV), a program that offers high school students an exposure to various academic disciplines at a level of intensity normally not available in their respective schools.

So far, about 7500 Vermont students have availed themselves of the Governor’s Institutes, which are conducted in a "retreat" atmosphere at various colleges in the state. They take place during one or two-week periods, usually in the summer, although the GIV offers an occasional winter weekend event as well.

It is not accurate to refer to the Governor’s Institutes as a single program, because every year there are numerous offerings, currently divided into six categories—Arts, Asian Cultures, Current Issues & Youth Activism, Engineering, Information Technology, Mathematics, and Science & Technology. The abbreviated winter weekend was held at Goddard College this year, and its topic was "Focus on Global Climate Change."

As an example of the breadth of the Institutes, the Governor’s Arts Institute expects to enroll about 100 students this year for two weeks at Castleton State College where they will be brought together with outstanding artists to share the experience of creativity.

Students will participate in seminars and workshops in areas of their particular interest, such as dance, choreography, music, performance, composition, painting, drawing, graphics, sculpture, writing, and theater. A Fourth of July parade is one of the highlights of this Institute, and interested students will be given an opportunity to build giant puppets featured in it.

At the other end of the academic spectrum, 36 students will participate for a week in the Governor’s Science & Technology Institute at the University of Vermont getting a taste of what it’s like to work and think like a real scientist, and using the state environment itself as a laboratory.

They will conduct outdoor field research using computers and the latest technology to record field observations, prepare maps and images, and narrative brochures on their findings, all of which will help them better understand the procedures of scientific study. The Science and Technology Institute covers a wide range of student interests in such areas as soils, geology, botany, landscape analysis, hydrology, and water chemistry.

Other Institutes are equally fertile. In 2007 the Asian Cultures Institute studied the history of China and Japan, including familiarization in the languages, arts and cultures of those countries, and had an opportunity to learn such things as Taiko drumming, oriental calligraphy and painting.

The Current Issues and Youth Activism Institute engages the participants in such topics as world politics, child labor, gender issues, civil liberties, land mines, global leadership, social justice, cross-cultural dialogue, and paths to social change. They participate in mock congresses, United Nations sessions, and other forums.  The Mathematical Sciences Institute focuses on probability and statistics, mathematical problem solving, and the application of mathematics to other disciplines, offering short courses and seminars in such things as mathematics in the courtroom and in medicine.

The GIV was co-founded in 1983 by Christine Graham, a consultant on non-profit organizations, and Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, currently president of Marlboro College. Each had a separate yet overlapping vision for the Governor’s Institutes.

Graham has written that she "wanted to develop a program where Vermont high school students could have worlds opened to them, where they could think, dream, and try their hands at the tempting areas of learning and personal expression that called out to them."

Enthusiastic Response

The response to the Institutes has been uniformly positive. Maggie Hughes, a graduate of Bethel’s Whitcomb High School, participated in the Governor’s Arts Institute in 2004, and her reaction is typical.

"It brought me together with other students who were also interested in the visual arts, and I made lifelong friends there," she said. Hughes went on to become an art major at UVM, and is off this year to Florence, Italy, for a four-month program in studio art.

Attendance at the Institutes is not limited to students at a formal high school. Bethel’s Ben Anderson, who was home-schooled, attended three of the Institutes. He was twice at the Institute of Informational Technology where he used computer techniques to edit movies and design electronic games and once at the Institute of Engineering, where he focused on robotics. Anderson went on in technology, and is currently a sophomore in computer sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

The Institutes don’t always lead to careers, but they still seem to enrich the lives of their participants.  Bethel’s Mira Stanchak, an environmental biologist and currently a graduate student in oriental medicine at Berkeley, participated in the Arts Institute in 1997.

"The Governor's Institute was an eye opener; it taught me that the arts, music and performance are important … It did not have an impact on my choice of career but it certainly had an impact on my hobbies such as painting and playing music," she said.

Parents are no less enthusiastic. Bethel’s Victoria Williams noted that in the case of her daughter Gretchen, who enjoyed choral singing at Whitcomb High School, the Arts Institute in 2001 "brought her together with other well-motivated kids with similar interests in a superb social and educational environment." The same theme was echoed by Randolph’s Robert Eddy who described the Arts Institute as "phenomenal" after his son Isaac participated and focused on sculpture.  

"Vermont has small schools, so a student who is good in a particular area often doesn’t know like-minded peers. The Governor’s Arts Institute brings them together."

Exposure Is the Key

It is clear that the key to the success of the Governor’s Institutes lies in the concept of exposure—exposure to new disciplines and exposure to other people with a similar interest.

A key element of the Institutes is that multilateral partnerships make the Institutes work. Coming together in the project are Vermont’s high schools, which identify potential participants and help fund the Institutes. Then there are the Vermont colleges that provide the GIV’s academic resources. And of course the state’s legislative and executive arms provide additional support and encouragement.

There is a Governor’s Institutes contact person in each Vermont high school, available to provide application forms and further information to students and local home-schoolers interested in any of the GIV offerings. The application deadline at the Institutes is April 1, but since the input of each school district is part of the process, most schools have their own earlier deadline, typically in mid-March.

Vermont school districts contribute a fee for each student who is accepted for participation at one of the Institutes. The tuition to attend the Institutes is separate, and is paid by the student, although some schools—like Rochester and Whitcomb High Schools in our area—have in the past contributed to the tuition for those of its students who attend the GIV. There is also statewide scholarship money available for those who may need it.

Governor Douglas, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Institutes, put a global perspective on the Institutes. "In today’s increasingly globalized world," the governor wrote, "the GIV experience offers Vermont students a competitive edge in the 21st century marketplace."