St. Mike's prof Sharon Lamb looks at pink culture, and sees red

If you haven't mastered the art of choosing the "tabloid-free" aisle in the supermarket, you probably heard what happened to Ashlee Simpson. Pop singer Jessica Simpson's little sister had made a lucrative career out of playing the ugly duckling to her bombshell sibling's swan. Ashlee's dyed black hair and self-styled "punk rawk" singing/songwriting were about as "hardcore" as that Doc Martens-wearing Barbie doll from the 1990s.

In Vermont, off-campus hotspots are hard to find

As college students return in droves to Vermont, many bring at least a few of the staples of college life - Nalgene bottles, value packs of ramen noodles, a laptop.

Computers are indispensable tools for today's students, and laptops are often their drug of choice. If your sleek little Dell or Mac has a wireless Internet card inside, you've got the freedom to check your email, snatch your assignment from your professor's website, or update your Facebook page from wherever.

Norwich University is growing - and enlisting more civilians

It's lunchtime at Norwich University, and the temporary campus cafeteria is bustling with lean, athletic-looking youths. Nearly all the men sport fresh crew cuts, while the women wear their hair pulled back in tight buns. Both women and men are dressed in sneakers and gray T-shirts tucked into maroon shorts. The military feel is no accident -- these are the upperclassmen in the "Corps of Cadets," Norwich's on-campus military company.

UVM's Gund Institute puts a price tag on nature

Imagine assigning a monetary value to bees pollinating a meadow. Or assessing the economic value of wetlands that provide critical habitat to endangered species and prevent coastal communities from being flooded. Right now, a logging company can put a price tag on a forest's uncut timber, and a real estate agent can assess the fair market value of undeveloped fields.

WRUV's live show rides one of college radio's longest waves

(09.14.05)

College radio is one of the last bastions of independence on the American airwaves. This is especially true in the Green Mountains, where both autonomy and community are still highly valued ideals. While much of the dial has been overtaken by corporate behemoths, the University of Vermont's 90.1 WRUV continues to deliver seat-of-the-pants, freeform radio.

Students aren't the only ones back on the job

(08.31.05)

You don't have to be a kid in school -- or have one -- to know that this is Back to School season. The students themselves are impossible to ignore. The little ones, waddling over the crosswalks with their overweight backpacks; the teenagers, peeling out of the high school parking lots in their pimped-out rides; the college kids lingering in cafes and on park benches, reading Camus and working out differential equations.

A Vermont-based e-business offers students textbook savings

(08.31.05)

buying college textbooks is a major rite of passage for incoming freshmen. This baptism by fire usually occurs in the first week of classes, while first-year students are still getting their bearings in a new city or state and their heads are swimming with the information overload of course syllabi, campus orientations and frenetic social calendars.

Of course, we all wish we'd studied more...

& Paula Routly
(08.24.05)

If George Bernard Shaw was correct in observing, "Youth is wasted on the young," then college, too, counts as a privilege the fledgling scholar may not fully appreciate at the time. A liberal arts education is an enticing buffet. But in the rush to pick a major, and get enough credits to graduate, many students fill up on quick-carb subjects.

...if only we had the time

by RUTH HOROWITZ, PALEMA POLSTON, and DAVID WARNER
(8.27.03)

It's long been our tradition here at Seven Days, near summer's end, to sigh over college catalogs and pick out classes we would take if it wasn't for those incessant newspaper deadlines. Instead, we have to content ourselves with mangling the actual descriptions of the courses.

How principal Vicki Graf turned H.O. Wheeler School around

by DEN PICARD
(8.27.03)

Vicki Graf, principal of H.O. Wheeler Elementary School, knows that a child's future is an open book. And if any of her students hasn't opened a book yet, Graf herself will find one and read it aloud.

Seven years ago, Graf walked into the red brick schoolhouse on Archibald Street in Burlington's Old North End and found a staff of committed but frustrated teachers who were struggling to educate their students.