GC Moretown Spring Update

Global Campus Moretown has recently completed an extremely successful and exciting academic year. The Fall Conference in Burlington was a tremendous highlight of the fall term for many participants as we all shared our campus with several hundred people. Neil, Dave, Curtis and Rhonda all presented successful classes at the event. It was amazing and wonderful to experience how proud we are of our campus and folks really responded to that!

We traveled all over the world for our Winter Interim experience this year. We began with an experiential flight simulation and tour of the planet using Google Earth. For the first few weeks we immersed ourselves in a study of Thailand, learning about architecture by building a Thai Spirit House, exploring Thai Buddhism by becoming monks for an afternoon, and experiencing different aspects of Thai food and culture. In honor of the Haiti earthquake that happened in the midst of our travels, we spent an afternoon learning about Haiti and talking about the effects of the earthquake. We participated in a ceremony together, sending our prayers and intentions to all those affected by the earthquake and simulated what it might be like to live under a tarp by performing our ceremony under one.

This event spurred further interest in helping the people of Haiti so Global Campus participants put together a benefit to raise money for the devastated country. Hearts for Haiti T-Shirts were printed and sold, CD’s of Haitian music were created and decorated and sold, there was a benefit dance, Phil even sold some of his famous canned goods as a benefit! Upper Valley Services, our partnering agency, matched our contributions and we raised just over $2000. The money was sent down directly with a local Moretown woman who runs the ambulance in town and is part of a spiritual relief organization that has been involved in Haiti for several decades.

Our spring term has been a flurry of really fun and interesting classes. Neil taught everyone how to build birdhouses, Mary Jane and Dennis presented a slideshow of their travels in Guatemala this past fall, Roy taught us all how to go bowling, Matt taught a spring break workshop in the hot tub at The Bridges resort, and Dave hosted us at his apartment for a class on his Dynotalk Augmentative Communication Devise, as well as a new program he has for his computer to assist him in communicating. Matt got us all together for a Green Up Walk, picking up trash in our community, Curtis shared how he takes apart, fixes, and reassembles his matchbox cars (he’s quite the mechanic), and along the way we planted some seedlings for our summer garden and had a grand time making ice cream in a zip lock bag!

We celebrated our successes at the end of May with a barbecue and picnic at Waterbury Reservoir. Neil felt it was important for everyone to receive a trophy in honor of their hard work, I believe that was a first for a Global Campus! It was the perfect way to celebrate, smelling the grill, tossing a Frisbee, and wiping watermelon juice off our faces.