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IndexWomen's Rape Crisis Center expands, looks for new space
Published: Thursday, August 9, 2007
By Lauren Ober, Burlington Free Press Staff Writer
The cramped basement office that houses the Women's Rape Crisis Center just will not do anymore.
Staffers sit so close they can hear each other breathe. Shelves are jammed in corners and stacked high with books and binders. Cords for computers and other appliances snake through the space, which is smaller than many student apartments.
The subterranean location in Burlington's South End is less than ideal, both practically and psychologically, said the executive director of the center, Cathleen Wilson. The center should make survivors of sexual assault feel respected, and a basement office doesn't exactly convey that, Wilson said.
Not only does the space not match the message, but it can no longer accommodate the center's growing staff. In the past five years, the Women's Rape Crisis Center has doubled in size and will employ 15 people. That growth has been necessary. During the past two years, the center has seen a 40 percent increase in the number of clients it serves. In fiscal year 2006, the center provided direct service to 602 people.
"In terms of clients served, that's a huge jump. It's pretty overwhelming keeping up with all the direct service needs," Wilson said.
The increase in the number of clients served by the center, plus the center's expanding advocacy work, mean the center needs to move to a bigger location, one that is welcoming to sexual assault survivors.
Recently, the center struck a deal with a local property owner to buy the old Vermont Women's Health Center building on North Avenue at a drastically reduced price. But because of zoning constraints -- the building is zoned for residential use -- the sale might not happen, and the center will have to look elsewhere for a new space as it continues to expand.
Significant growth
The Women's Rape Crisis Center was established in 1973 to provide crisis counseling and advocacy for people affected by sexual violence. Its education outreach has grown substantially through the years, as have the other support services they provide, such as medical and housing advocacy, transportation, victim compensation and emergency assistance. They also have provided legal support to survivors -- more than 100 in the last fiscal year -- as they wade through the often lengthy court process.
The recent surge of clients over the past few years can be attributed in part to an expansion of the center's 24-hour hot line service. The increase in clients also stems from the center's expanded education work, Wilson said. Survivors are often more likely to come forward and seek help if they know they have a designated support system, Wilson said.
"A significant portion of the increase comes from more awareness," Wilson said.
Since the Burlington slayings of Laura Winterbottom and Michelle Gardner-Quinn, who were sexually assaulted before they were killed, there was been a heightened sense of awareness in the area regarding sexual violence, Wilson said. But Wilson wonders if, along with the heightened awareness, the numbers also reflect more sexual violence in the community.
Detective Sgt. Kris Carlson of the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations, a multi-agency task force that deals with sexual assault, said he hasn't seen a significant increase in the number of sexual assaults that are reported, but, he says, some people are beginning to feel more comfortable going to the authorities. Still, Carlson says, sexual assaults are one of the most underreported crimes and only about 10 to 15 percent are actually reported.
The center seeks to address the issue of sexual assault going unreported, or ignored, by expanding. If the Women's Rape Crisis Center found a bigger building, it would allow them to do more in the community, Wilson said.
"Practically speaking, it's cramped. We have no space for survivors and advocates to meet. We have no space for a lending library. We have no separate space for our support group," Wilson said. "Symbolically, it's time for us to get out of the basement. Survivors need beautiful, welcoming space to come into."
A stranger's generosity
Local resident Bernie Beaudoin seemed to have come to the center's rescue. The North Avenue property that Beaudoin bought in 2003 had always been classified as a "non-conforming use" residential space, meaning that over the years, the building had historically been used for commercial purposes. After Beaudoin bought the property, he claimed it as his primary residence.
Because of that, said Kathy Parrott, a clerk in the city's zoning office, the property lost its non-conforming use status. The zoning hitch is the last hurdle for the center, which was recently the recipient of an anonymous $100,000 donation to help fund a new building. Beaudoin offered to sell the 3,200-square-foot property to the Women's Rape Crisis Center for about $40,000 less than the market value of the building -- about $340,000 -- and he offered to finance it.
"He had other offers, but he wanted to sell to us," Wilson said.
Yves Bradley, a vice president with Pomerleau Real Estate, who has been working on this deal pro bono for the center, says the site would be perfect for the center and that it would be unlikely to find another deal this good.
"Here's this nice little old man who's doing this super generous thing and he doesn't even have health insurance," Bradley said of Beaudoin.
On Monday, the Women's Rape Crisis Center and its supporters petitioned the City Council to pass a resolution designating the North Avenue property as a "neighborhood activity center" that would allow the Women's Rape Crisis Center to operate there. The resolution has some support on the council. Wilson said the special designation would go a long way toward helping survivors of sexual assault.
"There's got to be a way to make this happen. This is not about the Women's Rape Crisis Center," Wilson said. "This would show the city's commitment to this issue."
Contact Lauren Ober at 660-1868 or lober@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
BY THE NUMBERS
In fiscal year 2006, the Women's Rape Crisis Center answered nearly 4,000 crisis calls on its 24-hour hot line. 602 survivors of sexual assault made use of the Women's Rape Crisis Center's services in fiscal year 2006. Of those survivors:
26 percent were assaulted by their partner or spouse.
42 percent were assaulted by an acquaintance.
23 percent were assaulted by a family member.
3 percent were assaulted by a stranger.
ON THE WEB Women's Rape Crisis Center: www.stoprapevermont.org
The Pen Is Mightier
The words of a slain Arlingtonian live on after her death.
By David Schultz
Arlington Connection
August 7, 2007
In October of last year, the body of 21-year-old Michelle Gardner-Quinn was found on the side of a road outside of Burlington, Vt. The Arlington native and H-B Woodlawn alumna had been kidnapped, raped and murdered only six weeks after transferring to the University of Vermont.
This gruesome discovery marked the end of a six-day search and it also marked the end of Gardner-Quinn’s all-too-short life.
But, thanks to her friends, family and several powerful celebrities, her legacy has only just begun.
Just two days before her kidnapping, Gardner-Quinn wrote an essay titled "This I Believe" for her environmental studies class. In it, she discussed her love for nature and her fears that humans are destroying the environment by bringing about catastrophic climate change.
"I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe," she wrote. "In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis."
The essay was read by the instructor of the class, Professor Cecilia Danks, at a memorial service and was later reprinted by Vermont Quarterly magazine.
IT WAS THERE that Kevin Wall and his wife Susan Smalley discovered Gardner-Quinn’s impassioned and eloquent words.
Wall is a film producer and, along with former Vice President Al Gore, was the organizer of the recent Live Earth concerts, which sought to bring attention to the problem of global warming.
Wall and Smalley’s son attends the University of Vermont and they were in Burlington for parent’s weekend when the kidnapping occurred.
When Wall and Smalley read the essay, they decided to feature it in their upcoming global concert event. According to Gardner-Quinn’s mother, Diane Gardner-Quinn, Tipper Gore was the one who suggested that it be turned into a film.
Filmmaker Damon Cason was approached by Smalley to produce the minute-long clip. He said that, after reading the essay, he realized that "It’s a woman’s story. The piece needed to be read by women."
After a frantic search, Cason was able to contact several prominent female celebrities who could give a voice to Gardner-Quinn’s words.
The film features Goldie Hawn, her daughter Kate Hudson, Sheryl Crow, and Tipper Gore, herself, reading passages from the essay.
Diane Gardner-Quinn is featured at the end of the film. Holding a portrait of her slain daughter, she says to the camera "And I believe that my daughter can still change the world."
THE FILM was shown at the Live Earth concerts, which were held in eight cities around the world. The essay was also read this past weekend by Danks on NPR’s weekly program Weekend Edition.
For the friends and family of Gardner-Quinn, the essay serves as a reminder of all the things she stood for.
"She really did have a vision and purpose when it came to the environment," said Rachele Huennekens, a close friend of Gardner-Quinn’s who has helped to start the environmental activist group Michelle’s Earth Foundation in her honor. "It was an important message and she would have wanted it to get out there."
Diane Gardner-Quinn agreed and said that she believes that her daughter would have been pleased with the journey her words and thoughts have taken.
"To have this essay be a part of the Live Earth extravaganza was very special," she said, "Because I thought it was something she would have wanted to be a part of."
In the end, the essay’s true legacy is that it has posthumously added another chapter to a life that ended on a truly horrific note. Danks said that she hopes Gardner-Quinn’s essay will overshadow her untimely death.
"It’s great that she’s being remembered for her beliefs and commitments rather than the tragic way she died," Danks said.
A Reverence for All Life
Written by Michelle Gardner-Quinn; Read by Cecilia Danks
NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, August 5, 2007
Listen to the full commentary
(MP3 / 2.5 mb / 5:23)I believe in upholding reverence for all life. I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the Earth and to the life that we share our experience with.
As a child, I found joy digging in the dirt, examining the miracle of life. Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me, and I spent countless hours in my backyard exploring what wonders lay beneath. Although some people might be repulsed by this notion, these creatures did not represent slimy pests to me. Rather, such experiences in the natural world taught me about the diversity of life that could be found in any microcosm. I felt attuned with the cycles of life, my favorite being the spring.
During these budding months, I could watch the egg sacks of praying mantises as they opened or collect robin-blue egg shells that had fallen from the nests. This was where I felt a strong connection to the natural cycles of creation. This connection has inspired awe in me that I feel strongly to this day. It is a feeling deep within me that has inspired my passions and pursuits as an environmentalist.
As I grew older, I discovered that this reverence for life was not shared by all of humanity. Rather than respecting the natural world as a community of life, the environment has been valued in terms of the resources that could be exploited. Industrialization has turned life into an industry, and systematically destroys the essential diversity that provides richness to the human experience. Our self-inflicted ecological crisis has reached such a point that we no longer endanger isolated bioregions. So many toxins have been spewed into the atmosphere as a result of our industrial greed that the climate of our planet is changing at an alarming rate. Climate change threatens all life forms by altering fundamental natural cycles, giving little time for evolutionary responses.
These detrimental impacts are visible today as polar bears lose their habitat of sea ice, the sex of sea turtle eggs is skewed, whales have less krill to feed on, and coral reefs are bleached, to cite just a few examples. Climate change also has a detrimental impact on cultures and humanity's well-being as more people are becoming environmental refugees. Little is being done to curb this crisis and, within our lifetime the ecological functioning of planet Earth will be forever altered.
I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe. I believe that we should understand our place in our regional ecosystems and communities, as well as pledge our allegiance to the Earth as a whole. I believe that all creatures, whether they are found in my backyard or halfway around the globe, should not suffer as a result of human greed. The reality of climate change is here and now; it is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come. In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis.
Independently produced for Weekend Edition Sunday by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
VPR to feature slain student's essay
August 4, 2007
Barre Montpelier Times Argus
COLCHESTER — An essay written by slain UVM student Michelle Gardner-Quinn will be featured Sunday morning as part of "This I Believe" during Weekend Edition on Vermont Public Radio. It will be read by one of her professors, Cecilia Danks.
Danks is an assistant professor of environmental policy at the University of Vermont. Weekend Edition airs 8 to 10 a.m. Sunday on VPR.
Gardner-Quinn was a student at UVM when she wrote her "This I Believe" essay about protecting the environment for one of her classes. Two days after turning in her assignment, Gardner-Quinn was abducted and killed. Her story and her essay have become popular — a video featuring a number of Hollywood celebrities reading the essay was shown at the Live Earth concert.
"This I Believe" is described as a national media project that invites people from all walks of life to write and speak aloud brief essays describing the core values that guide their lives.
Emily featured in Live Earth short film "This I Believe”
Live Earth "This I Believe": Michelle Gardner-Quinn’s Essay “This I Believe” Broadcast on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Live Earth Concerts, YouTube
Emily Procter (emilyprocter.com)
8/2/2007
WASHINGTON, July 30 -- The elegant and forceful essay in which Michelle Gardner-Quinn dedicated herself to “preventing the worldwide ecological crisis” of climate change is to be aired on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition program on August 5. The essay, titled “This I Believe,” was written last year by Gardner-Quinn when she was a student at the University of Vermont.
The essay is to be read by Cecilia Danks, Professor of Environmental Studies at the Rubenstein School of the Environment at the University of Vermont. It was Professor Danks’ class assignment that prompted Michelle’s essay. Professor Danks also read Michelle’s essay at the Memorial Service at the University of Vermont.
The broadcast comes follows the airing of excerpts of the essay in a short film at the July 7 Live Earth concerts at Giant Stadium, London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney and Hamburg. The film features celebrities Goldie Hawn, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, Sheryl Crowe, Kate Hudson, Meg Ryan, Emily Procter and Tipper Gore reading the essay, followed by the words of Michelle’s mother, Diane Gardner Quinn. Currently, the segment continues to circulate on the Internet via YouTube, where it has generated an enormous response: more than 19,000 people have visited the YouTube sites.
Kevin Wall, organizer of the Live 8 and Live Earth campaigns, and his wife Susan Smalley were the driving forces behind the “This I Believe” short film. Wall and Smalley were visiting their son, Tom, at the University of Vermont’s October 2006 Parents Weekend when Gardner-Quinn disappeared. On October 13, 2006, hikers found her body in a rural area. Her accused killer, Brian L. Rooney, is currently awaiting trial on charges of aggravated murder.
When Gardner-Quinn’s essay was first published in the Vermont Quarterly magazine earlier this year, Smalley and Wall were so affected by it that they decided to make a short film for the Live Earth Concert based on the essay.
It was a decision that pleased Michelle’s mother, saying “Michelle was very dedicated to being concerned about climate change and taking action…This is what Michelle would have wanted. She would want to get the message out about the importance of being concerned.”
Writer, director and producer Damon Cason made Michelle’s words the focus of the film. Cason says of the essay, “I found Michelle's words so incredibly poignant, direct, and personal. It wasn't: 'we need to do this, we need to do that.’ It was really much more what she thought she needed to do as a human being.”
After many emails, Cason first spoke with Diane Gardner Quinn and Michelle’s father, John Charles Quinn, by phone on the Friday before Mother’s Day. During the conversation, Cason suddenly realized that he was talking to a mother whose daughter would never be there for another Mother’s Day. He asked her to read the final paragraph of the script for the film. After a long and painful silence, John Charles answered, “You’ve just given Michelle’s mother the best Mother’s Day present possible… we will consider your request.” Eventually, the answer was yes.
Michelle’s vision of creating a sustainable environment and fighting climate change was shaped by a childhood exploring the wonders in her backyard. As a college student, she traveled to Costa Rica, Brazil and South Africa, always on missions to understand the environment more fully. “This I Believe” was informed by the joy of a child who loved exploring the miracle of life and the expanded awareness of a young adult who saw many parts of the world firsthand.
Yasmine Rassam, Michelle’s sister and one of the founders of Michelle’s Earth Foundation states that, “Michelle’s essay speaks for itself. She had direction, vision and a purpose in life. This film and the women who read her words brought the essay alive to countless numbers of people at Live Earth and now on YouTube. I hope the film inspires people to translate their credos into concrete action.”
“As a child, I found joy digging in the dirt, examining the miracle of life. Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me, and I spent countless hours in my backyard exploring what wonders lay beneath…such experiences in the natural world taught me about the diversity of life that could be found in any microcosm…within our lifetime, the ecological functioning of planet Earth will be forever altered. The reality of climate change is here and now; it is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come. In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis.” - Michelle Gardner-Quinn
For the complete “This I Believe” essay please see: http://www.michellesearthfound.org/
Potential Home for Women’s Rape Crisis Center Hits Legal Snag
BURLINGTON ZONING (08.01.07)
Seven Days Vermont - Vermont's Alternative Webweekly
BURLINGTON — For more than 20 years, the Women’s Rape Crisis Center has operated as an underground operation of sorts, literally and figuratively. As its name suggests, the WRCC primarily serves female survivors of sexual violence out of a tiny, rented basement in Burlington’s South End. The nonprofit, which operates a 24-hour rape crisis hotline and holds individual and group meetings with survivors, doesn’t advertise its location, partly to protect clients’ privacy and safety.
But the high-profile rapes and murders of Burlington residents Laura Winterbottom and Michelle Gardner-Quinn in the last two years suggest it’s time Vermont’s biggest city brought the issue of sexual violence into the open.
Last spring, it looked as though the stars were all aligning for the WRCC to move into a more visible location. The group received a sizable donation from a generous benefactor. Then Bernie Beaudoin, a 76-year-old lifelong Burlingtonian, approached the group with an almost unheard-of offer: He agreed to sell them his house at 336 North Avenue at its assessed value rather than market value — a $40,000 discount — and finance the deal at no interest for two years. In effect, the WRCC would have lower monthly mortgage payments than its current rent. As Executive Director Cathleen Wilson puts it, “Bernie kind of fell from the heavens for us.”
Moreover, the 3200-square-foot Victorian offers nearly three times the space of the WRCC’s current quarters, and in a more desirable location — midway between the Burlington Police Department and Burlington High School. As the former home of the Vermont Women’s Health Center, which vacated four years ago, the 108-year-old building retains all the old clinic fixtures and has its own parking lot.
Several local businesspeople have donated their services to make this deal happen, including Yves Bradley at Pomerleau Real Estate and Burlington attorneys Jack Bergeron, Jeff Wick and Scott McAllister.
But here’s the rub: When Beaudoin declared the house as a “homestead” on his tax returns, the zoning automatically reverted from its previous status as a “non-conforming commercial” use to “residential low-density.” According to Wick, that designation all but precludes the WRCC from occupying the building.
At first glance, the problem seems to have an easy fix: Ask the city to re-zone the land or issue a zoning variance. After all, the lot immediately adjacent to the south is already zoned for commercial use: A new Shell station and convenience store are under construction there. Moreover, according to Wilson, none of the neighbors, including the Catholic Diocese of Vermont directly across the street, has expressed objections to having the rape crisis center as a neighbor.
All that’s needed now is some city official who’s willing to pounce on this political football and run with it. However, with city council and the mayor’s office preoccupied with bigger zoning woes — namely, the budget-issue-plagued zoning rewrite — no one has stepped forward to champion this cause. In the meantime, the clock is ticking for the WRCC.
Bernie Beaudoin, a retired barber, antiques dealer and property manager, was born just seven doors down from the house he is selling at a drastic discount. His only reservation about his offer is that he might need the money for medical care — Beaudoin doesn’t have health insurance.
Over the years, Beaudoin has owned several properties in Burlington, including the two on Bank Street that later became A Single Pebble restaurant. None, however, has a history to rival the one at 336 North Avenue. On a recent Thursday morning, Beaudoin gave Seven Days a tour of the house, which for decades housed the Vermont Women’s Health Center. “They called it that,” Beaudoin says, “but really it was an abortion clinic.”
As Beaudoin opens the back door, it’s immediately obvious the building hasn’t been a home for more than 30 years. It lacks a kitchen and a full bathroom. Most of the rooms still retain a clinical, examination-room décor, with small sinks and sterile-looking, overhead fluorescent lights. Beaudoin rarely slept there, staying instead at the home of an elderly aunt who suffered from frequent panic attacks.
One closet-size room looks like it was once a drug dispensary; another, a supply closet. Only the west-facing rooms, with their large bay windows, wood molding and wainscoting, look anything like bedrooms. “I only slept here a dozen times in four years,” Beaudoin says. “I didn’t do nothing to this place.”
I ask Beaudoin if it bothers him what the house was once used for. “Well, it ain’t the building’s fault. It’s the fault of the people,” he says. “It ain’t the building that’s going to hell.”
Back in the 1970s, the Vermont Women’s Health Center was a national focal point for anti-abortion protests. The clinic first opened its doors in Colchester in 1972, a year before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. In 1977, following a fire at the health center’s downtown location, the clinic moved into 336 North Avenue. According to Nancy Sabin, the previous owner, “The realtor was so against abortion that she wouldn’t dare call us.” Sabin not only sold to the organization, she told the realtor on the day of the closing she’d write a check to the center for $3000. “It blew her mind,” Sabin recalls.
Rachel Atkins, who until last week worked at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, joined the Women’s Health Center in the mid-1970s; the two organizations merged in 2000. She recalls protesters from Operation Rescue and Vermont Save-A-Baby “invading” the clinic and chaining themselves together in the hallway. One Easter weekend, she remembers, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the front window.
When we left, we were always hoping that the health center would continue to be a nonprofit,” Atkins says. “A nonprofit serving women would be a lovely extension of our time there.”
Whether that will happen remains to be seen. Jeff Wick, one of the attorneys who’s handling this case pro bono, says it’s “highly unlikely” the house will qualify for a variance. However, the WRCC could also apply to the Development Review Board for conditional use of the house as a community center. “That seems to be the only avenue of hope under the current ordinance,” Wick surmises.
Bradley at Pomerleau Real Estate suggests that the success of this deal may hinge on a political rather than a legal solution — that is, someone in City Hall needs to take up this cause on behalf of the WRCC. “Legally, this goes against the grain,” Bradley admits. “But let’s figure out a way to do it, because we can all agree that there’s a need in the community.”
For his part, Mayor Bob Kiss sounds sympathetic but noncommittal. “The issue is pretty clear,” he says. “It’s just whether or not there’s an acceptable way to pursue this . . . From my own perspective, not being a neighbor, it’s a perfect place.”
Likewise, City Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) admits that the issue is “on our radar screen,” though he can’t offer specifics about what, if anything, the council will do.
For her part, Wilson at the WRCC is surprised city officials aren’t taking a more active interest in this relocation. Last year, the WRCC served 602 sexual assault survivors, a 40 percent increase over the last two years alone. Moreover, the Center provided more than 40 free prevention workshops to students at Burlington High, which is within walking distance of the proposed location.
Meanwhile, the WRCC struggles with limited space — four offices for 12 employees, with no private consultation rooms for survivors or group sessions. The basement location also has serious mold issues. “It’s frustrating that people are missing the big picture in all this,” Wilson adds. “This isn’t about me getting a nicer-looking office with a window. It’s about the needs of this community.”
A city council hearing on the issue is tentatively scheduled for Monday, August 6.
Hawn, Hudson, Crow & Ryan Among Female Celebs to Recite “This I Believe”
Rebecca, Ecorazzi
July 24, 2007
A touching film showed at Live Earth New York, and somehow all of Ecorazzi missed it. Ecorazzi reader Reid has been kind enough to send us a note, telling us about this story that really touched our hearts and will certainly touch yours. Reid writes:
Last October a UVM student, Michelle Gardner Quinn, was brutally raped and murdered after a night out in Burlington, Vermont. Michelle was my neighbor and former co-worker.
Michelle was an amazing young woman who deeply cared about the environment. Two days before her death she wrote an essay for an environment class she had. At Live Earth a video was shown that had celebrities such as Goldie Hawn, The Duchess of York, Kate Hudson, Sheryl Crow, Meg Ryan and Tipper Gore, along with Michelle’s mother, holding Michelle’s picture and reciting lines from this essay.
Watch the video below, or read her essay, “This I Believe”, on the Michelle’s Earth Foundation website.
Extraordinary Experiences in Ordinary Life
Susan Smalley, The Huffington Post
Posted July 22, 2007 | 10:39 AM (EST)
James Carse revealed in Breakfast at the Victory: the Mysticism of Ordinary Experience (1994), how the very simple acts of everyday life are extraordinary moments that reflect the deep connection, compassion, and kindness of human nature. On October 5, 2007, Michelle Gardner-Quinn finished an ordinary task of any college student -- completing a paper for a class assignment, in this case, her Environmental Studies 151 class. A senior at the University of Vermont, she likely had all the same ordinary thoughts when assigned this task -- a wish to do well in the course, a wish to get the paper done so she could hang out with friends, a sense of knowing that this 'paper' was part of the building blocks toward her dreams, her life, her career. Two days later, Michelle was randomly targeted, raped, and murdered. Nine months later, the words she wrote for her ordinary Environmental Studies class are being heard by the world.
Michelle's essay was brought to the ears of the world through the voices of many famous women for Live Earth to help create awareness of the Climate Crisis and what we can do to fix it. In this experience, we see that every moment in our lives is both ordinary and extraordinary, it just takes our attention to see it. In Michelle's horrific death, attention turned toward her life. When we hurry through the moments of daily living, thinking of the future or worrying about the past, we miss the extraordinary nature of each and every moment. In Michelle's words, I find the extraordinary voice of the environmental movement of the present. It is a voice of connection -- awareness that we are all part of a single vibrant universe. It is a voice of commitment -- a passion to believe in humanity and act upon those beliefs. It is a voice of love -- that we all are in this together and that we all must make a difference. Michelle's is the voice of a new generation, a voice of unity. We need care and love one another without distinction of our differences. The loss of Michelle's life is a suffering and pain we all must share, and the beauty and truth in Michelle's words, a light we must follow.
This I believe
By Michelle Gardner-Quinn, Vermont Quarterly | July 20, 2007
Published in The Boston Globe
EDITORS NOTE: Two days before her disappearance, Michelle Gardner-Quinn submitted this essay for an assignment in Environmental Studies 151, a University of Vermont course taught by Professor Cecilia Danks. It is reprinted in Vermont Quarterly with the permission of Michelle’s parents.
I believe in upholding reverence for all life. I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experience with.
As a child, I found joy digging in the dirt, examining the miracle of life. Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me, and I spent countless hours in my backyard exploring what wonders lay beneath. Although some people might be repulsed by this notion, these creatures did not represent slimy pests to me. Rather, such experiences in the natural world taught me about the diversity of life that could be found in any microcosm. I felt attuned with the cycles of life, my favorite being the spring. During these budding months, I could watch the egg sacks of praying mantises as they opened or collect robin-blue egg shells that had fallen from the nests. This was where I felt a strong connection to the natural cycles of creation. This connection has inspired awe in me that I feel strongly to this day. It is a feeling deep within me that has inspired my passions and pursuits as an environmentalist.
As I grew older, I discovered that this reverence for life was not shared by all of humanity. Rather than respecting the natural world as a community of life, the environment has been valued in terms of the resources that could be exploited. Industrialization has turned life into an industry, and systematically destroys the essential diversity that provides richness to the human experience. Our self-inflicted ecological crisis has reached such a point that we no longer endanger isolated bioregions. So many toxins have been spewed into the atmosphere as a result of our industrial greed that the climate of our planet is changing at an alarming rate. Climate change threatens all life forms by altering fundamental natural cycles, giving little time for evolutionary responses. These detrimental impacts are visible today as polar bears lose their habitat of sea ice, the sex of sea turtle eggs is skewed, whales have less krill to feed on, and coral reefs are bleached, to cite just a few examples. Climate change also has a detrimental impact on cultures and humanity’s well-being as more people are becoming environmental refugees. Little is being done to curb this crisis, and, within our lifetime, the ecological functioning of planet earth will be forever altered.
I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe. I believe that we should understand our place in our regional ecosystems and communities, as well as pledge our allegiance to the earth as a whole. I believe that all creatures, whether they are found in my backyard or halfway around the globe, should not suffer as a result of human greed. The reality of climate change is here and now; it is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come. In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis.
Famous women give voice to slain student's legacy
By Megan Tench, Boston Globe Staff | July 20, 2007
Michelle Gardner-Quinn wanted to make protecting the environment her life's work. As a young college student, she traveled to Costa Rica, Brazil, and South Africa to study nature in its purest forms. She was an avid supporter of Al Gore and his warnings about global warming. And last October, as a senior at the University of Vermont, she wrote a class essay expressing the joys of "digging in the earth," and her "strong connection to the natural cycles of creation."
Two days after she submitted her paper, the 21-year-old was kidnapped, brutally raped, and strangled to death.
But now her words live on, and they come from the mouths of celebrities, famous political activists, even British royalty.
Gardner-Quinn's essay, first read as part of her eulogy and later published in her college's quarterly magazine, can be found in a short film featuring famous women, such as actresses Meg Ryan and Kate Hudson and activist Tipper Gore. Each wears white, standing against a black backdrop, and reads Gardner-Quinn's words while holding a framed photograph of her.
The video was presented at the July 7 Live Earth concert at Giants Stadium outside New York and is now circulating on the Internet via YouTube, with more than 2,600 hits so far. Gardner-Quinn's mother, Diane, who also appears in the video, said she is touched that her child's lifelong goals have survived her tragic end.
"I am feeling very pleased," she said yesterday. "This is something Michelle would have wanted very, very badly."
It was family weekend at the university when Gardner-Quinn disappeared. The campus was shaken, Gardner-Quinn's fam ily from Arlington, Va., kept vigil, and students, volunteers, and local police, the FBI, and National Guard scoured the Burlington area.
One student's parents who happened to be visiting that weekend were Susan Smalley and Kevin Wall, a producer of Live 8 and Live Earth, said Damon Cason, a Live Earth Films producer who directed the video.
"The Walls were there visiting," Cason said. ". . . They had known about the disappearance."
A week later, hikers found Gardner-Quinn's body near a rural gorge. Brian L. Rooney , 37, of Richmond, Vt., has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and is awaiting trial.
Through her son Tom, Susan Smalley kept on top of the developments, Cason said, and when Gardner-Quinn's essay was published in the magazine earlier this year , she and her husband starting thinking.
"I read it," Cason said. "Quite frankly I found Michelle's words so incredibly poignant, direct, and personal. It wasn't: 'We need to do this. We need to do that.' It was really much more what she thought she needed to do as a human being."
Cason bounced around ideas with colleagues, and one thing became clear. "This is a woman's story and it needs to be a woman's story, and it should be read by different professional women from all over the world," he said.
He traveled from Los Angeles to New York, Washington, D.C., and London to film the women who agreed on short notice to read excerpts for the film.
"I believe in upholding reverence for all life," reads actress Goldie Hawn .
"I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experiences with," follows Sarah Ferguson , the duchess of York.
The video ends with Gardner-Quinn's mother saying, "And I believe that my daughter can still change the world."
To Diane Gardner-Quinn, the video ensures that her daughter's legacy will live on.
"Michelle is a very humble person and didn't go for splashy things," she said. "She was pretty mature about who she was and where she was going . . . she never would have imagined this."
Megan Tench can be reached at mtench@globe.com
Slain student's essay becomes video
Lewiston Sun-Journal
Friday, July 20, 2007
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - An environmentalist credo written by a University of Vermont student two days before she was abducted and killed has blossomed into a video presented at this month's "Live Earth" concert and a hit on YouTube.
Singer Sheryl Crow, actress Meg Ryan, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and other celebrity women, each dressed in white against a black backdrop, are pictured holding a portrait of Michele Gardner-Quinn and reciting parts of her essay.
Gardner-Quinn, 21, an environmental studies major from Arlington, Va., wrote the one-page essay for a class two days before she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed. Brian Rooney, 37, formerly of Richmond, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges and is awaiting trial.
After Gardner-Quinn's death, her essay was read as a eulogy at her funeral and published in a campus magazine. It was brought to the attention of the producers of the Live Earth concerts, a series of simultaneous events on each continent designed to raise awareness about climate change, by a UVM student who is the son of the events' producers.
The video had received more than 2,500 hits on the video Web site YouTube as of Wednesday. It begins with actress Goldie Hawn reciting Gardner-Quinn's opening words: "I believe in upholding reverence for all life."
Ferguson follows: "I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experiences with."
Actresses Kate Hudson and Emily Procter read parts of the essay in the one-minute video, as does Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore, the former vice president and organizer of the Live Earth events.
The video concludes with the only words not written by the slain student. Her mother, Diane, says, "And I believe that my daughter can still change the world."
AP-ES-07-19-07 0946EDT
Slain UVM student's essay becomes inspirational video on YouTube
July 20, 2007
Associated Press
The Barre Montpelier Times Argus
BURLINGTON — An environmentalist credo written by a University of Vermont student two days before she was abducted and killed has blossomed into a video presented at this month's "Live Earth" concert and a hit on YouTube.
Singer Sheryl Crow; actress Meg Ryan; Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York; and other celebrity women, each dressed in white against a black backdrop, are pictured holding a portrait of Michelle Gardner-Quinn and reciting parts of her essay.
Gardner-Quinn, 21, an environmental studies major from Arlington, Va., wrote the one-page essay for a class two days before she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed. Brian Rooney, 37, formerly of Richmond, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges and is awaiting trial.
After Gardner-Quinn's death, her essay was read as a eulogy at her funeral and published in a campus magazine. It was brought to the attention of the producers of the Live Earth concerts, a series of simultaneous events on each continent designed to raise awareness about climate change, by a UVM student who is the son of the events' producers.
The video had received more than 4,300 hits on the video Web site YouTube as of Thursday night. It begins with actress Goldie Hawn reciting Gardner-Quinn's opening words: "I believe in upholding reverence for all life."
Ferguson follows: "I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experiences with."
Actresses Kate Hudson and Emily Procter read parts of the essay in the one-minute video, as does Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore, the former vice president and organizer of the Live Earth events.
The video concludes with the only words not written by the slain student. Her mother, Diane, says, "And I believe that my daughter can still change the world."
Michelle's legacy
Published: Thursday, July 19, 2007
By Adam Silverman
Burlington Free Press Staff Writer
Seven women dressed in white shirts and positioned under simple lighting stand out vividly against the blackness filling the frame.
They clutch portraits of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, the University of Vermont senior abducted and slain last October. The women are actresses, musicians, royalty, and they are reciting, in Gardner-Quinn's own words, the 21-year-old student's vision of environmentalism.
"I believe in upholding reverence for all life," begins actress Goldie Hawn.
"I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experiences with," continues Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.
The essay began as a class assignment, then evolved after Gardner-Quinn's killing. It became a eulogy read at a campus memorial service, then a published work in one of the university's magazines, and finally a minute-long film that had its debut before thousands of spectators during this month's Live Earth concert in New York.
The movie is available on YouTube, the popular Internet video-sharing site. Through Wednesday, viewers had played the piece more than 2,500 times, according to data on the Web site.
Gardner-Quinn, an environmental-studies major from Arlington, Va., in her first year at UVM, wrote the single-page essay for a course Oct. 5, 2006, two days before she was killed. The man accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing Gardner-Quinn, Brian Rooney, has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder and is jailed without bail pending trial.
In the essay, Gardner-Quinn shares her fondness for the world around her -- "Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me," she wrote, recalling a childhood spent exploring life's mysteries as they unfolded in her back yard -- and her growing worries about the environment's health.
"So many toxins have been spewed into the atmosphere as a result of our industrial greed that the climate of our planet is changing at an alarming rate," Gardner-Quinn wrote, according to a copy of the essay posted on the Web site of Michelle's Earth Foundation, an environmental nonprofit.
The essay came to the attention of Live Earth, a worldwide concert July 7 aimed at raising awareness about global warming, because the son of one of the event's producers attends UVM, according to Michelle's Earth Foundation.
Filmmaker Damon Cason enlisted musician Sheryl Crow, Ferguson, Tipper Gore and actresses Hawn, Kate Hudson, Emily Procter and Meg Ryan to read excerpts of the essay for the video.
"I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe," Hudson says.
"The reality of climate change is here and now," Gore says. "It is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come."
"In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis," Ryan says, quoting the final sentence of Gardner-Quinn's work.
The only words in the video that are not the author's belong to her mother, Diane, who concludes the piece:
"And I believe that my daughter can still change the world."
Contact Adam Silverman at 660-1854 or asilverm@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Slain UVM student's essay becomes video
WCAX TV Burlington
Associated Press - July 19, 2007 7:15 AM ET
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - An environmentalist credo written by a University of Vermont student two days before she was abducted and killed has blossomed into a video presented at this month's "Live Earth" concert and a hit on YouTube.
Seven women dressed in white shirts and positioned under simple lighting stand out vividly against the blackness filling the frame.
They clutch portraits of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, the University of Vermont senior abducted and slain last October. The women are actresses, musicians, royalty, and they are reciting, in Gardner-Quinn's own words, the 21-year-old student's vision of environmentalism.
"I believe in upholding reverence for all life," begins actress Goldie Hawn.
"I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experiences with," continues Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.
The essay began as a class assignment, then evolved after Gardner-Quinn's killing. It became a eulogy read at a campus memorial service, then a published work in 1 of the university's magazines, and finally a minute-long film that had its debut before thousands of spectators during this month's Live Earth concert in New York.
The movie is available on YouTube, the popular Internet video-sharing site. Through Wednesday, viewers had played the piece more than 2,500 times, according to data on the Web site.
Gardner-Quinn, an environmental-studies major from Arlington, Va., in her first year at UVM, wrote the single-page essay for a course Oct. 5, 2006, two days before she was killed. The man accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing Gardner-Quinn, Brian Rooney, has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder and is jailed without bail pending trial.
In the essay, Gardner-Quinn shares her fondness for the world around her -- "Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me," she wrote, recalling a childhood spent exploring life's mysteries as they unfolded in her back yard -- and her growing worries about the environment's health.
"So many toxins have been spewed into the atmosphere as a result of our industrial greed that the climate of our planet is changing at an alarming rate," Gardner-Quinn wrote, according to a copy of the essay posted on the Web site of Michelle's Earth Foundation, an environmental nonprofit.
The essay came to the attention of Live Earth, a worldwide concert July 7 aimed at raising awareness about global warming, because the son of 1 of the event's producers attends UVM, according to Michelle's Earth Foundation.
Filmmaker Damon Cason enlisted musician Sheryl Crow, Ferguson, Tipper Gore and actresses Hawn, Kate Hudson, Emily Procter and Meg Ryan to read excerpts of the essay for the video.
"I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe," Hudson says.
"The reality of climate change is here and now," Gore says. "It is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come."
"In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis," Ryan says, quoting the final sentence of Gardner-Quinn's work.
The only words in the video that are not the author's belong to her mother, Diane, who concludes the piece:
"And I believe that my daughter can still change the world."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Release Date: 07-13-2007
Live Earth Features Michelle Gardner-Quinn Essay
Author: Thomas James Weaver
Email: Thomas.Weaver@uvm.edu
Phone: 000/656-7996 Fax: (802) 656-3203
The New York venue for Live Earth screened a short film inspired by an essay written by UVM student Michelle Gardner-Quinn days before her death last October. Gardner-Quinn’s personal essay was part of an assignment in Professor Cecilia Danks’ environmental studies course. It described the senior’s strong environmental ethic and desire to make a difference on issues such as climate change.
The film, directed by Live Earth’s Damon Cason, features a cast of women, each standing alone in front of a black backdrop reciting excerpts of the essay while holding a framed portrait of Gardner-Quinn. The piece includes Tipper Gore; Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson; musician Sheryl Crow; actresses Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson, Meg Ryan and Emily Procter; and closes with Diane Gardner-Quinn, Michelle’s mother.
Cason says directing the film was “truly a life-changing experience.” It can be viewed via YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zctmNe0t-wU) and will be available on MSN’s Live Earth web pages in the future. Cason is also working to place the spots on network television.
“The reality of climate change is here and now; it is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come,” Gardner-Quinn wrote. The slain student’s personal commitment to fighting that battle continues to be given voice. Professor Danks read excerpts from the piece at an Ira Allen Chapel memorial service in October. Vermont Quarterly, the University of Vermont magazine, printed the essay in the winter 2007 issue, which eventually led to the production of the film after a Live Earth staff member read the piece.
Gardner-Quinn’s essay, “This I Believe,” is posted on Vermont Quarterly’s website: http://alumni.uvm.edu/vq/winter07/extra.asp.
EXTRA CREDIT
This I believe by Michelle Gardner-Quinn
I believe in upholding reverence for all life. I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experience with.
As a child, I found joy digging in the dirt, examining the miracle of life. Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me, and I spent countless hours in my backyard exploring what wonders lay beneath. Although some people might be repulsed by this notion, these creatures did not represent slimy pests to me. Rather, such experiences in the natural world taught me about the diversity of life that could be found in any microcosm. I felt attuned with the cycles of life, my favorite being the spring. During these budding months, I could watch the egg sacks of praying mantises as they opened or collect robin-blue egg shells that had fallen from the nests. This was where I felt a strong connection to the natural cycles of creation. This connection has inspired awe in me that I feel strongly to this day. It is a feeling deep within me that has inspired my passions and pursuits as an environmentalist.
As I grew older, I discovered that this reverence for life was not shared by all of humanity. Rather than respecting the natural world as a community of life, the environment has been valued in terms of the resources that could be exploited. Industrialization has turned life into an industry, and systematically destroys the essential diversity that provides richness to the human experience. Our self-inflicted ecological crisis has reached such a point that we no longer endanger isolated bioregions. So many toxins have been spewed into the atmosphere as a result of our industrial greed that the climate of our planet is changing at an alarming rate. Climate change threatens all life forms by altering fundamental natural cycles, giving little time for evolutionary responses. These detrimental impacts are visible today as polar bears lose their habitat of sea ice, the sex of sea turtle eggs is skewed, whales have less krill to feed on, and coral reefs are bleached, to cite just a few examples. Climate change also has a detrimental impact on cultures and humanity’s well-being as more people are becoming environmental refugees. Little is being done to curb this crisis, and, within our lifetime, the ecological functioning of planet earth will be forever altered.
I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe. I believe that we should understand our place in our regional ecosystems and communities, as well as pledge our allegiance to the earth as a whole. I believe that all creatures, whether they are found in my backyard or halfway around the globe, should not suffer as a result of human greed. The reality of climate change is here and now; it is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come. In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis.
Editor’s note: Two days before her disappearance, Michelle Gardner-Quinn submitted this essay for an assignment in Environmental Studies 151, a course taught by Professor Cecilia Danks. It is reprinted in Vermont Quarterly with the permission of Michelle’s parents.
June 22nd, 2007
Looking for Sense in the Senseless: Michelle Gardner-Quinn and Carmen Tarleton
by Philip Baruth, Vermont Daily Briefing
Listen to the full commentary
(MP3 / 1.3 mb / 3:12)From my window overlooking the main green at the University of Vermont, I can see the central fountain, and beside it a small memorial to Michelle Gardner-Quinn. The memorial is a temporary thing, a posterboard with some photographs and bunches of fresh flowers, but at this point the green would seem altogether incomplete without it.
In case you’ve forgotten, Michelle Gardner-Quinn was kidnapped in Burlington, on the night of October 7. Her body was later found near Huntington Gorge, and evidence suggests that she died one of the most brutal deaths imaginable.
If I look off to the south out my office window, toward the leafy streets of the Hill section, I can almost see the spot where she vanished.
I was thinking about Gardner-Quinn the other day because another horrific attack was in the news, this one in Thetford. Carmen Tarleton, a young woman in the midst of a divorce, had been attacked by her estranged husband, Herbert Rodgers, and burned over most of her body with lye.
Doctors rate her chances of survival as exceedingly slim.
But in the article I read on the Tarleton attack there was a quote from Thetford Police Chief Jim Lanctot that stuck with me. Lanctot had apparently spoken with Carmen Tarleton before the attack, and he’d offered her help without being asked.
I was so struck by that that I decided to call Chief Lanctot and ask him about his conversation with Tarleton personally.
Lactot told me that, at first, he and Tarleton were talking about something else entirely — he no longer remembers exactly what — but when he asked Tarleton about life in general, she mentioned that she was in the middle of a divorce.
At the time, she didn’t sound worried or threatened, but Lanctot did what he routinely does: he mentioned the Women’s Information Service, a hotline network that goes by the acronym WISE and draws together many of the area’s support services for battered women.
Tarleton was a nurse at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and she already knew about the WISE hotline. And again, she gave Lanctot the impression that there was nothing to worry about in her particular case.
Still, before letting the subject drop, Lanctot quickly mentioned both 911 and the possibility of a restraining order, if either ever seemed necessary.
That was it. I thanked the Chief, and I hung up.
The call seemed to confirm some of the things I’d been thinking: that in this case, in spite of the tragic outcome, the social network itself seems to have been working. Quality services were available; and although he hadn’t been asked for the information, Chief Lanctot provided it anyway — made it clear that he was ready to help.
In that way, the system was not only prepared but proactive, in ways that other police forces might envy — even in large metropolitan areas.
Of course, none of that prevented the Thetford attack. Herbert Rodgers told police that only the actual word of God would have stopped him. And it’s unrealistic to think we could ever rid ourselves entirely of bouts of insanity, or homicidal rage.
But Lanctot’s attempt at intervention struck me as the one lone ray of hope in the entire sad story. This was not a case where no one stretched out a hand, or where people ignored a woman’s screams.
And when you work in an office that overlooks the memorial to UVM’s own Michelle Gardner-Quinn, you have to take your rays of hope where you can find them.
[This piece aired first on Vermont Public Radio. You can listen to an MP3 of the commentary here. A transcript is below.]
Quinn & Tarleton
Philip Baruth
Vermont Public Radio
BURLINGTON, VT (2007-06-21)
(HOST) Recent news of a brutal attack on a Thetford woman reminded commentator Philip Baruth of the murder last year of UVM student Michelle Gardner-Quinn, and left him trying to make sense of the senseless.
(BARUTH) From my window overlooking the main green at the University of Vermont, I can see the central fountain - and beside it a small memorial to Michelle Gardner-Quinn. The memorial is a temporary thing, a posterboard with some photographs and bunches of fresh flowers; but at this point the green would seem altogether incomplete without it.
In case you've forgotten, Michelle Gardner-Quinn was kidnapped in Burlington, on the night of October 7. Her body was later found near Huntington Gorge, and evidence suggests that she died one of the most brutal deaths imaginable. If I look off to the south out my office window, I can almost see the spot where she vanished.
I was thinking about Gardner-Quinn the other day because another horrific attack was in the news, this one in Thetford. Carmen Tarleton, a young woman in the midst of a divorce, had been attacked by her estranged husband, Herbert Rodgers, and burned over most of her body with lye.
Doctors rate her chances of survival as exceedingly slim. But in the article I read on the Tarleton attack there was a quote from Thetford Police Chief Jim Lanctot that stuck with me. Lanctot had apparently spoken with Carmen Tarleton before the attack, and he'd offered her help without being asked.
I was so struck by that that I decided to call Chief Lanctot and ask him about his conversation with Tarleton personally.
He told me that, at first, he and Tarleton were talking about something else entirely - he no longer remembers exactly what - but when he asked Tarleton about life in general, she mentioned that she was in the middle of a divorce. At the time, she didn't sound worried or threatened, but Lanctot did what he routinely does: he mentioned the Women's Information Service, a hotline network that goes by the acronym WISE and draws together many of the area's support services for battered women.
Tarleton was a nurse at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and she already knew about the WISE hotline. And, again, she gave Lanctot the impression that there was nothing to worry about in her particular case. Still, before letting the subject drop, Lanctot quickly mentioned both 911 and the possibility of a restraining order, if either ever seemed necessary.
That was it. I thanked the Chief and I hung up.
The call seemed to confirm some of the things I'd been thinking: that in this case, in spite of the tragic outcome, the social network itself seems to have been working. Quality services were available; and although he hadn't been asked for the information, Chief Lanctot provided it anyway - made it clear that he was ready to help.
In that way, the system was not only prepared but proactive, in ways that other police forces might envy - even in big cities. Of course, none of that prevented the Thetford attack. Herbert Rodgers told police that only the actual word of God would have stopped him. And it's unrealistic to think we could ever rid ourselves entirely of bouts of insanity, or homicidal rage. But Lanctot's attempt at intervention struck me as the one lone ray of hope in the entire sad story. This was not a case where no one stretched out a hand or where people ignored a woman's screams.
And, when you work in an office that overlooks the memorial to UVM's own Michelle Gardner-Quinn, you have to take your rays of hope where you can find them.
Philip Baruth is a novelist living in Burlington. He teaches at the University of Vermont.
© Copyright 2007, VPR
UVM NEWS
June 20, 2007
Give to the Michelle Gardner-Quinn Memorial Fund for Environmental Studies
This spring, the Michelle Gardner-Quinn Memorial Fund for Environmental Studies was created at the University of Vermont as a way to remember Michelle and instill the core values and passion that she carried with future generations of UVM students. Our goal is to raise $100,000 in order to endow the memorial fund and ensure that scholarships can be provided to students for generations to come. Scholarships will be awarded to students like Michelle, who have a passion for environmental studies and who will strive to apply the knowledge gained at UVM to make the world a better place. Although Michelle's life was tragically cut short, our hope is that her ambition and passion will live on through the future education of other UVM students.
[ISSUES]
Guy Wired
Why doesn’t Vermont call “youth violence” what it really is — male violence?
by Ken Picard, Seven Days Vermont
May 23, 2007
"Hello. I’m terrible at public speaking, so I may stutter,” said the tiny redhead in a tiny voice, her microphone howling in the cool evening breeze.
But the woman didn’t stutter, or even pause, as she told a crowd of some 50 strangers gathered on the Statehouse steps about the four times she’d been sexually assaulted as a child. Candles flickered in the night air, as the mostly female crowd huddled shoulder to shoulder, not so much to share bodily warmth as to show solidarity at this solemn event. “Take Back the Night” vigils like this one don’t all happen on the same night everywhere — more than 100 people attended a similar rally last month in Burlington. Perhaps the level of violence against women and men is too immense to be memorialized on just one night of the year.
Years ago, some “Take Back the Night” rallies were women-only events. Monday night’s vigil had a respectable showing of men. But, like most efforts to illuminate the hidden epidemic of violence against women — one in every four women is victimized at some point in her life, though fewer than half report it — these events are typically portrayed as “women’s issues.” Meanwhile, the people whose eyes really need to be opened — that is, the young men who are most likely to commit such crimes — aren’t anywhere in sight.
Just consider a few local headlines from recent memory: In March 2005, Burlington was rocked by the brutal rape and murder of 31-year-old Laura Winterbottom. In August last year, the bodies of Linda Lambesis, 57, and Alicia Shanks, 56, were found shot to death after a gunman rampaged through Essex Elementary School, leaving three others wounded. In October, the body of University of Vermont senior Michelle Gardner-Quinn, 21, was found along a roadside in Richmond; she’d been the victim of a kidnapping, rape and murder. And just weeks ago, Bernard Congdon of Chittenden was found dead in his home, the apparent victim of a shooting by his own 16-year-old son.
What do all these incidents, and countless others like them, have in common? The answer is so obvious it’s easily overlooked. The massacres at Virginia Tech and Columbine and every one of the more than 40 high-profile school shootings over the last 10 years were all committed by young males.
If such a pronouncement elicits a “No shit!” response, consider how different our collective soul-searching would be if the perpetrators were all female. Instead of asking, “Why are America’s youths so violent?” we’d be asking, “Why are America’s girls so violent?”
And yet, when extreme violence is perpetrated almost exclusively by boys and young men, their gender is seen as a given, as inexorable a force of nature as gravity or the shifting of tectonic plates. The media trot out a predictable list of culprits to flog — hip-hop music, violent movies and video games. Meanwhile, no one challenges the false logic: If girls and young women are listening to the same hip-hop music, watching the same movies and playing the same video games, why aren’t they going ballistic in record numbers?
Vermont, like other states, pays a high price for ignoring the gendered nature of its violence. More than 85 percent of the people who commit murders are male, and the 15 percent of women who do are often reacting to male violence against them. Nationally, 90 percent of all violent crimes are committed by men, including 95 percent of all domestic assaults. It’s estimated that between 85 and 95 percent of all child sexual predators are men, regardless of the victim’s gender.
Jackson Katz, co-founder of the Mentors in Violence Prevention program, addresses this imbalance in the documentary Tough Guise. “Calling attention to the way masculinity is connected to these problems is not ‘anti-male,’” he says. “It’s just being honest about what’s going on in boys’ and men’s lives.”
Yet all too often, the public institutions best suited for collectively addressing issues of male socialization and how boys and young men learn to define masculinity — the schools — sidestep the gendered nature of the problem. In fact, some critics complain that timely opportunities for raising these issues are routinely ignored.
Consider the recent Virginia Tech shootings. One Burlington middle school teacher (who asked not to be identified) noted that her school held a moment of silence for the victims, but did not otherwise discuss the incident with students. (According to this teacher, the response to the Essex shootings was identical.) Although she discussed the shootings with her own students at the beginning of class, only half of the colleagues she spoke to did the same. Those who didn’t either said they felt “unprepared” to open a meaningful dialogue on the topic or claimed it was “unrelated” to the day’s curriculum.
A violent episode in the school itself was similarly “swept under the rug,” according to this teacher. Recently, two boys in the cafeteria got into a fistfight that was witnessed by numerous students and was serious enough to require a police response. Nevertheless, this teacher says, students were warned the next day to “not discuss the incident” among themselves.
“What I’ve observed while teaching in Burlington is that there’s this climate of ‘Let’s not talk about it,’” the teacher says. “Are we teaching kids to put widgets in a machine, or are we teaching them to live in the real world?”
Charles Johnson is statewide coordinator of Vermont Safe Schools, a program created several years ago within the Vermont Department of Education as a way to address issues of discrimination, harassment, bullying and other violent behavior. “Schools don’t like to talk about violence, which is a weakness,” Johnson admits. “It’s a form of denial.”
Johnson thinks the state has done an admirable job of addressing school violence from a legal perspective, such as by enacting anti-bullying and anti-harassment legislation. But he says there still is no comprehensive program in place for helping kids — boys, particularly — learn the social and emotional skills they’ll need to function as responsible and self-aware members of society.
“We all have good intentions, and there are a lot of teachers and administrators who recognize what needs to be done,” Johnson adds. “But we don’t have the infrastructure in place yet to really deliver in a reliable way. There’s a need for significant, systemic change.”
One school that’s taken a small step in the right direction is Bellows Free Academy–St. Albans. Like many public schools in Vermont, BFA-St. Albans has struggled with male violence in recent years. As one teacher at the school recently noted, it’s not unusual to have several fights occurring on school grounds every week, and even to have police and/or ambulances there on a daily basis.
The teacher (who also asked not to be identified) believes the severity of these incidents has mounted in the last 3 to 4 years. “Within the community, [the violence] has definitely increased,” this teacher asserts. “The kids are seeing it at home and they just think it’s a normal way to handle their problems.”
In the past, the only tool administrators had for dealing with such violence was an in-school suspension. Katharine Hutchinson, director of guidance at BFA-St. Albans, has been at the school for 25 years. She disagrees with the assessment that violence is on the rise there. Still, she admits it’s an ongoing challenge.
“When schools suspend kids, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to learn something from it,” she says. “It might just mean they’re fighting outside of school instead.”
Recently, however, BFA-St. Albans added a new tool to its toolbox — a pilot program called Project Safe Choices. Part of the Domestic Abuse Education Project (DAEP) at Spectrum Youth and Family Services, the program targets young men ages 12 to 17 who have a history of abusive or violent behavior. Like DAEP, which was created for adult male batterers in the criminal justice system, Project Safe Choices helps young men recognize the thoughts, emotions and cultural assumptions that fuel their violent tendencies. Ultimately, the goal is to help them understand the consequences of their behavior, so they can learn to make better choices in the future.
Justin Morgan Parmett, program coordinator of Project Safe Choices, has been helping communities from St. Albans to Rutland to St. Johnsbury set up violence-intervention classes for young men at risk. As he travels around the state talking to teachers, administrators and community leaders, Morgan Parmett says he hears a common refrain.
“They’ve all noticed a drastic increase in violent and problematic behaviors,” he says. “I think there’s something happening in our society. There’s been a shift where violence is becoming more normalized.”
Project Safe Choices offers two classes: Safe Choices Basic is a 12-week violence-prevention program for young males who haven’t been in trouble yet but are believed to be at risk for behavioral problems. Safe Choices Intensive is a 24-week program for young men who’ve already been in trouble for violent or abusive behavior and may have had run-ins with the courts and/or the Department for Children and Families.
Like DAEP, Project Safe Choices starts by challenging young men’s underlying assumptions about manhood. As Morgan Parmett explains, every course begins with an exercise in which the participants list the characteristics that define a “real man.” The same is done to define a “real woman.”
“No matter where I go, no matter who I speak to — whether they’re 12-year-olds, 17-year-olds or 50-year-olds — when we do the ‘man-in-the-box’ exercise, everybody comes up with the same answers,” Morgan Parmett says. “Everybody knows that to be a man means you’ve got to be tough, not back down, and you’ve got to be able to fight.”
The next step, Morgan Parmett explains, is to deconstruct those assumptions and make a new list of characteristics that these young males would use to define an admirable person of either gender. Typically, those characteristics — such as honesty, integrity, loyalty and generosity — don’t make the original list for a “real” man or woman.
Morgan Parmett says he’s often asked why there’s no similar course for girls and young women, especially since female violence is also increasing. His answer makes sense: The overwhelming majority of violent acts in society are still perpetrated by boys and young men.
Morgan Parmett says that schools, parents and the media are still reluctant to label this problem “male violence,” partly because that term may be seen as “anti-male.” Nonetheless, he thinks that reluctance reflects a more widespread cultural denial of the pervasiveness of violence in our society, from the household to the international scene. It’s no coincidence, he notes, that the most recent up-tick in school violence dates back 4 or 5 years, to around the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“That connection is not being made in the media in discussions about violence,” he says. “But there’s a correlation between the direction our country is taking and the direction our kids are taking.”
Hutchinson at BFA-St. Albans agrees. “That’s the elephant in the room,” she says. “We’re a violent society and the schools have to deal with that, too.”
But Hutchinson is cautiously optimistic about Project Safe Choices. She says that, after some of her counselors sat in on a DAEP group of adult batterers, several of the men participating asked if they could talk to student groups. “They said, ‘If we’d had this at our high school, we wouldn’t be in this place now.’”
Pomp and Circumstance at UVM
Burlington, Vermont - May 20, 2007
Jack Thurston - WCAX News
Sunday was graduation day at the University of Vermont. Saturday, UVM decided to move the main commencement ceremony indoors, for fear of rain. The weather ended up cooperating, but it was too late to change plans again.
Graduations bring with them such a mix of feelings: from pride after years of hard work to intimidation over what's next.
Student Government President Seth Bowden told his fellow graduates, "You spent the last few years preparing for this moment to leave behind what you know and take on new challenges. From everything I've seen, we're prepared to do just that."
UVM's commencement ran the emotional gamut. There was humor from class president Samuel Madden. He told the crowd, "Relax. Don't be afraid to age. Middle age is when you pick the cereal for the fiber and not the toy."
There was also great grief, as the University paused to honor Michelle Gardner-Quinn, the senior from Virginia Kidnapped and murdered in Burlington last year. UVM President Dan Fogel presented the family of Gardner-Quinn with a posthumous bachelor of science degree in environmental studies.
Speakers inspired the grads to use their educations to give back. Congressman John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and a leader in the civil rights movement, said, "Tomorrow, you must be prepared to roll up your sleeves. Because the world is waiting for talented men and women to lead it to a better place."
That challenge brings with it a reminder that gets at the emotional range of these yearly rites of passage. They are not times to just say goodbye, not an end, but a beginning. "Seniors of the class of 2007, growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Go at your at your own pace. Enjoy life and never lose focus on what or who you love," Madden said.
After the ceremony, Mary Wrigley Keener, a nursing student from Northfield, said, "I'm glad I came here." Wrigley Keener says she plans to travel before returning to her home state to start a nursing career. Many will see that as an encouraging decision, because Vermont sees more and more young people choosing to live elsewhere.
In total, UVM handed out more than 1900 bachelors degrees and 550 masters, doctoral, and medical degrees. The graduates hailed from 39 states and 20 countries.
Michelle Gardner-Quinn 5K Fun Run/Walk
Class of 2007 - Gardner-Quinn 5K
May 19th, 2007
UVM Campus -- Gutterson Fieldhouse
Registration 8:30 AM
Race 10:00 AM
Closing and raffle: 11:00 AM
$25 Pre-Registration (online registration close Wednesday, May 16th at 1:00 PM)
$30 Race Day Registration
Join us for a 5K fun run/walk (untimed) in memory of Michelle Gardner-Quinn -- an opportunity for Burlington, South Burlington, surrounding communities, and UVM students and their families to gather in support of environmental studies. The 5K course will run through UVM's Redstone campus, down the South Burlington Spear Street bike path, returning to Gutterson Fieldhouse. All proceeds go towards the Gardner-Quinn Scholarship Fund.
We'll be raffling an I-Pod from Small Dog Electronics, items from the UVM Bookstore, and 2 free season passes to the UVM Theatre Department events.
Parking: In front of Gutterson Fieldhouse off of Spear Steet (Top level will be closed for race). Overflow parking available at the UVM Water Tower lot. A map of the university and these parking areas is available here http://www.uvm.edu/~tpswww/data/2006TransMapFall.pdf.
Want to volunteer? E-mail Heather Greenberg at heather.greenberg@uvm.edu.
Want to donate but can't join in the 5k? Click here. Be sure to designate your gift for the Michelle Gardner-Quinn Memorial Fund for Environmental Studies.
Thanks to our sponsors:
99.9 The Buzz
Burlington Bagel Bakery
Dunkin Doughnuts
GTrono & Sons Bagel Factory
Myers Bagle Bakery
Select Design
Sign-A-Rama
Small Dog Electronics
UVM Bookstore
UVM Parking and Transportation
UVM Print and Mail
UVM Development and Alumni Relations
UVM Office of Federal, State, and Community Relations
UVM Rescue
UVM Senior Class Council
UVM Theatre Department
University of Vermont
University of Vermont's Coca-Cola Olympics
Killer Coke Newsletter, May 14, 2007
E-mail from Justin Hurtt
Hello everyone! This past weekend, the University of Vermont held Earthfest in celebration of Earth Week and as a tribute to Michelle Gardner-Quinn, a student who was murdered this past fall in Burlington. Coalition for Responsible Coca-Cola was out in full swing with its Coca-Cola Olympics to highlight the unethical and environmental destructive acts Coca-Cola commits in Columbia and India.
These crimes were transformed into carnival activities for people to participate in and learn about Coke's misdeeds! These included:
• Steal Groundwater from Indian Villagers Sponge Race which had participants fill a sponge with water from the Indian villagers' well and race across to fill a Dasani bottle with the winner being the first to fill their bottle.
• Contaminate Coca-Cola with Pesticides Rock Toss which had people throw rocks or "heavy metals and lead" into Coke products, similar to ring toss.
• Chased by the Paramilitary Potato Sack Race which had participants represent Colombian trade unionists in burlap sacks trying to out run the paramilitaries or they would be shot by water guns.
• Pollute the Groundwater Around the Bottling Plant Relay Race which had participants get rid of "toxic waste" from a Coke bottling plant by dumping it into a nearby village's groundwater. We had the participants form groups of two to transport the waste by a cup, but couldn't hold the cup so they "wouldn't have any traces on their hands."
All in all, the event was a big success having many people sign our petition to kick Coke off campus while also providing information about each of these different events. A local drink company named Vtea donated several cases of their product to help us promote a local and healthier alternative to Coke products on campus. Many of these drinks were given away to winners of their events. We even had our university president participate in one of the events!
Although our semester is winding down, we received much attention from the event and also recently gave a packet of information to our university president detailing the crimes Coca-Cola has committed. We will be meeting with him to discuss the packet sometime soon. In the meantime enjoy some of the pictures from this event!
IWF College Essay Contest
2006-2007 College Essay Contest
May 3, 2007, Independent Women's Forum
Second Annual Essay Contest Winners
The Independent Women's Forum is pleased to announce the thirteen award recipients for the 2006-2007 Michelle Gardner-Quinn essay contest.
Full-time female undergraduates from around the world entered the contest, writing a 750-word essay on the following topic:
What does it mean to be a feminist in 2006? What can proponents of individual liberty, free market economics, limited government, liberal democracy and personal responsibility do to reclaim feminism?
These outstanding essays were selected by our distinguished panel of judges:
1st place - Nicole Pepperl, Stanford University , 2009
2nd place - Meghan Grizzle, Harvard University , 2007
3rd place - Amanda Evans, Texas Tech University , 2010
Honorable mentions:
Jennifer Creekmur, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee , 2009
Erin Fitch, Liberty University , 2007
Heather Imboden, Ashland University , 2007
Nene Kalu, Princeton University , 2007
Lindsay Nelson, College of William and Mary, 2008
Rachel Parker, University of Alabama , 2007
Samantha Soller, Bucknell University , 2009
Paula Stang, Houston Baptist University , 2009
Danielle Sturgis, Drake University , 2007
Sara Walter, Lafayette College , 2009
The winners of the contest will be honored at a luncheon in June. Please stay tuned to the IWF website for details on our third annual campus essay contest this fall.
Gardner-Quinn 5K Fun Run/Walk Slated for May 19
By The View Staff
Article published May 1, 2007
The Gardner-Quinn 5K Fun Run/Walk will be held on May 19 at 10 a.m. at Gutterson Fieldhouse with proceeds going to the Michelle Gardner-Quinn Memorial Fund for Environmental Studies.
The race is an opportunity for area residents and students and their families to gather in support of the Gardner-Quinn Scholarship Fund and environmental studies. Raffle tickets will be on sale at the race for an iPod from Small Dog Electronics, items from the UVM Bookstore and two, free season passes to UVM Theatre Department performances.
The course runs through UVM'’s Redstone campus and down the South Burlington Spear Street bike path before returning to Gutterson Fieldhouse. Pre-registration for the event is $25. Race day registration starts at 8:30 a.m. and is $30.
Extraordinary Efforts
UVM President Daniel Mark Fogel
Staffline - A Newsletter by UVM Staff for UVM Staff
A publication of the UVM Staff Council Office
May 2007
Our 2006-2007 academic year has seen some significant stresses on life at the University of Vermont. None had greater impact, of course, than the tragic loss of Michelle Gardner-Quinn early in the fall semester. As we all struggled to comprehend Michelle's senseless death, many members of our staff worked through their own grief while helping our community to cope, managing the crush of media in order to protect the privacy and dignity of the Gardner-Quinn family, and assembling candlelight vigils and a beautiful memorial service at Ira Allen Chapel that brought us together and began the healing process. I'm grateful for the many contributions of staff during that terrible time. In February, the New England winter shut down the University of Vermont for the first time in decades. I should say, it shut down classes and normal operations at the University of Vermont for the first time in decades. While students and most faculty and staff stayed home, a number of our staff made great efforts simply to arrive on campus and then proceeded to do the work that needed to be done - plowing our parking lots, shoveling our footpaths, tending to operations at our farms, maintaining our heating and ventilation systems, and keeping our campus safe. While staff have shown extraordinary effort in extraordinary circumstances this year, they have also contributed extraordinary effort in everyday circumstances. It is work that continues to drive the progress of this university. I refer to our Campaign for the University of Vermont going over the top on the $250 million goal months ahead of schedule, to another record year for undergraduate applications, to the rapid progress on the Davis Center as it nears completion, and to so many other initiatives in which staff have played critical roles. As another academic year comes to a close and we prepare to send the Class of 2007 into the world, let me offer my thanks to the many who make possible the achievement of our interwoven goals of becoming the nation's premier small public research university while remaining a close community befitting our marvelous home state.
EARTHFEST: Benefit festival for the Michelle’s Earth Foundation
Friends plan event for Michelle Gardner-Quinn, throw Earthfest in her honor
By Kensington R. Moore News Editor Emeritus
Vermont Cynic
Michelle Gardner-Quinn may be gone, but her friends are making sure that her work in environmental stewardship and community service continues in her name.
Many of Gardner-Quinn’s friends have gotten together to make sure her memory and work lives on by starting an organization called Michelle’s Earth Foundation based in Arlington, Virginia.
“A core group of her friends and her sister started it” said Gardner-Quinn’s longtime friend and director of special events for the foundation Tommy Lang.
“We promote environmentally conscious groups, mainly we are geared toward youth and getting them involved” Alison Bell, a friend of Gardner-Quinn’s from Arlington said.
Michelle’s Earth Foundation gained non-profit status in January and has since held numerous events and contests to raise money and awareness according to the organizations members.
Currently, an essay contest is being held for Arlington high school students. They must answer the question; “What can individuals, corporations and governments do to prevent, curb or reverse our human contribution to global warming?” Prizes include a $1,000 first prize, $500 second place prize and $250 third place prize.
The Foundation’s latest work includes UVM Earthfest; a Tribute to Michelle Gardner-Quinn where all donations and food profit goes directly to the Michelle Gardner-Quinn fund according to organizers of the event.
The event, which was originally scheduled to be located on the Redstone Campus Green, was held in the Aiken lot due to administrations worries concerning the state of the Redstone Campus Green according to event organizers.
Bands playing at the Earthfest event included The Jazz Mandolin Project and UVM’s student band Avi & Celia. Students were also able to buy food from Leonardo’s pizza and other local vendors with all proceeds going to the Michelle Gardner-Quinn fund.
Ben and Jerry’s and Feel Good also set up booths and donated 25 percent of profits to the fund according to event organizers.
The University of Vermont has also started a scholarship in memory of Gardner-Quinn entitled the Michelle Gardner-Quinn Memorial Fund for Environmental Studies.
Brian Rooney —the man accused of Gardner-Quinn’s murder— is currently incarcerated on charges of aggravated murder, and a series of sex charges unrelated to the murder of Gardner-Quinn, which a judge has set to be tried before the aggravated murder charge.
A gag order was set on the case after Seven Days published an article by local law enforcement personnel that Rooney’s lawyers attempted to argue would pollute possible jury pools.
Police say that DNA evidence conclusively proves that Rooney is the killer. Rooney could face life in prison if convicted.
Friends of murdered student create foundation to honor beliefs
April 22, 2007
Boston Globe
BURLINGTON, Vt. --Friends of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, the University of Vermont student abducted and murdered last fall, have formed a foundation to work for the things she believed in.
On Saturday, some UVM students used EarthFest as a way to raise money for Michelle's Earth Foundation and focus attention on the issues that were important to her such as environmental education for young people and protecting the environment.
A number of local bands provided entertainment in front of a backdrop of snow-capped Mount Mansfield while groups like the UVM Gardening Club took part along with thes Community Economic Development Office promoted its "No Idling" campaign.
"This is a way of bringing her memory back, to carry on what she would have wanted," said UVM sophomore Julia Martin, 20, who conceived of using EarthFest as a way to honor Gardner-Quinn, her friend.
Gardner-Quinn, 21, of Arlington, Va., was kidnapped in Burlington Oct. 7 and later murdered. Brian Rooney, 36, of Richmond has been charged with killing her. He is being held without bail while awaiting trial.
Gardner-Quinn's father, John-Charles Quinn, attended Saturday's event.
"These are all part of the future. They're a part of how we go on and how we get better," Quinn said. "Look at these students. They're out here supporting one another and becoming aware of good things."
In January, Michelle's Earth Foundation, based in Arlington, registered as non-profit organization. So far, the foundation has raised about $7,000 and is expecting a grant for "several thousand dollars," Quinn said.
The foundation is based in Arlington, Va., and has chapters in Burlington, Boston, Richmond and Charlottesville, Va.
The foundation has carried out an invasive species removal project in Arlington and has participated in city clean-ups in Boston, Arlington and Charlottesville. It is now sponsoring an essay contest on global warming for Arlington high school students.
On the Net:
Michelle's Earth Foundation: http://www.michellesearthfound.org/
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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
Earthfest
Source: Earth Day Network, Events
Location: Redstone Quad, University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05401
United States
Organization: Michelle Earth Foundation
Contact Information: Julia Martin
211 Slade House 420 South Prospect Street
Burlington, VT 05405
United States
609 933 0877
julia.martin@uvm.edu
Event Start Date & Time: 4/21/2007 2:00 p.m.
Event End Date & Time: 4/21/2007 11:00 p.m.
Event Type: Other; College/University Event; Civic/Community Event
Event Region: North America
Activity Size: 501 to 1,000
Volunteers Needed: Yes
Description: A day full of Music, Environmental Activism as well as a time to remember Michelle Gardner Quinn. There will be various local, and internationally touring bands, venders serving local, organing food, and activist tables. We are hoping to get a clebrity speaker as well. The concert and speakers will be on from 12pm until 10pm and will culminate with an open mike night where people can share their feelings about the environment and about the loss of Michelle and other experiences they have had with violence against women. All poets, musicians and regular old people are welcome to share.
Slain UVM Student Remembered on Earth Day
Burlington, Vermont - April 21, 2007
Beth Parent - WCAX News
A slain UVM student is being remembered as folks celebrate Earth Day. The environment was Michelle Gardner-Quinn's passion, and her friends and family are making sure no one forgets that.
Students at the University of Vermont are hoping to raise awareness about environmental issues through this year's Earth Festival. "I think Earth Day is generally an important thing here at UVM, we have an environmental emphasis in general," said Brady Mott, a UVM freshman.
Celebrating Earth Day is just part of today, students are also coming out to remember their friend, classmate and environmentalist Michelle Gardner- Quinn, who was raped and murdered six months ago. "I just really wanted to do something that could help me remember her and some way to focus my energies," said Julia Martin, a UVM sophomore.
Students like Martin are using the all day concert to try and raise money for Michelle's Earth Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating a healthy, sustainable habitat for humans and nature. Even Gardner-Quinn's parents and friends made the trip up from Virginia to support the cause. "It goes to help support an education of young environmentalists. I guess the idea is that Michelle really had an appreciation of the environment and that appreciation makes people be environmentalists and help the environment later in life," Martin said.
Efforts like this, I mean really touch the hearts of a lot of people when we see that we're trying to make such a tragic loss of the community known and felt and remembered," Mott said.
And those who organized the concert say planning the event was comforting during the tough days after Gardner-Quinn's death.
Earth Day Remembrance
Burlington, Vermont - April 21, 2007
Beth Parent - WCAX News
It's been six months since a UVM student was raped and murdered on her way home one night. Today, her friends held a benefit concert to raise money for her environmental foundation.
It's a celebration of life. Students at the University of Vermont are hoping to raise awareness about environmental issues through this year's Earth Festival.
"I think earth day is a generally an important thing here at UVM, we have an environmental emphasis in general," said Brady Mott, a freshman at the university.
Celebrating earth day is just part of today, students are also coming out to remember their friend, classmate and environmentalist Michelle gardner Quinn who was raped and murdered six months ago.
"I just really wanted to do something that could help me remember her and some way to focus my energies," said Julia Martin, friend of Michelle Gardner Quinn.
Students like Julia Martin are using the all day concert to try and raise money for Michelle's Earth Foundation -- an organization dedicated to creating a healthy, sustainable habitat for humans and nature. Even Michelle's parents and friends made the trip up from Virginia to support the cause.
"It goes to help support an education of young environmentalists I guess the idea is that michelle really had an appreciation of the environment and that appreciation makes people be environmentalists and help the environment later in life," said Martin.
"Efforts like this I mean really touch the hearts of a lot of people when we see that we're trying to make such a tragic loss of the community known and felt and remembered you know," said Mott.
And those who put the event on say planning this event was comforting during the tough days after Michelle's death.
"It helped to not try and forget it and just try and get through it ," Martin said.
Alicia Shanks
Dedication to Alicia
Opening Remarks - Honors Day 2007
April 20, 2007
Charlie Rathbone, Ph.D., UVM
Don McLean, a pop culture poet to at least one of the generations gathered in this room today, writes...
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.
This has been a most unusual year for us at UVM. With the lives taken at a sister institution in Blacksburg, VA, we end our year in tragedy; and with the taking of lives of those close to us, on August 24th 2006, and sometime in the hours between October 4th and October 6th, 2006, we began our year in tragedy. I speak of Michelle Gardner Quinn, a student of environmental studies at UVMs Rubenstein School, whose time with us is to be celebrated tomorrow in at EARTHFEST 07, and Alicia Shanks, a second grade teacher at Essex Elementary School. Alicia was a mentor to students in our professional programs in elementary education and early childhood education. Alicia was also a member of the council of advisors to our Professional Program in Elementary Education; two people who didn’t know each other, two people whose manner of living life touched those around them in ways still being discovered. We wanted to take a moment to recognize Alicia at the beginning of this honors day ceremony.
I knew Alicia personally and professionally. We worked together supervising students she agreed to mentor in the intense student teaching phase of their eled preparation. You, Alicia, would demur, I think, the honor, attention, and accolades that have accrued to you since your sudden incomprehensible death. If there was ever anyone who walked the face of this earth with feet planted firmly on the ground, it was you Alicia. You were as many have remarked, salt of the earth and you had an uncanny ability to spot anyone or any program effort that seemed to you to be putting on airs. Sooner than later one of us would get a phone call and have a little talk about what was on your mind. You possessed a constantly open heart for your school children, especially those growing up in challenging circumstances, as you did. And yet knowing you well, I think without a doubt you were the last one to let a child pull the wool over your eyes in an attempt to do less than that little girl or boy was capable of. And you were always was quite clear that you would be the judge of that “capability.”
These dispositions are a good thing to keep in mind as we head into this important and joyful ceremony of recognition. The really good teachers of this world see in us what may be unseen by us. And in their own way – sometimes inspirational, sometime provocative, sometimes downright irritating - they provide a certain urging that moves us over time in those directions. The disposition towards creating instructional environments that support the actualization of self, of becoming not who we are but who we are growing to be, is one of the hallmarks of the professional programs honoring students here today. We like to think we know something about how to do this.
I would like to suggest, that these two people did, too. I also think they knew, that even when the music dies in one place, when you can bring yourself to listen really carefully once again, when the shock begins to dissipate, what begins to awaken in our dulled spirits is the sound of other musics to be heard. John Dewey constantly reminded us as their lives did, that there is music all around us in the communal spheres in which we live. Other people’s music. The music of other journeys. And this communal music, when we finally hear it, is the music that sustains us and beckons us to move on. Ultimately, this is the music that will redeem us, this is the music that is grace, even through the thickest of tears.
So we thank you Alicia, and we thank you Michelle, and we thank all the teachers who work with us in all our programs, for walking with us on the communal journey we take with each one of our students. The journeys we celebrate here today. Welcome, each one of you, parents, students, honorees, grandparents, faculty, friends, honored guest, to Honors Day, 2007. Let us celebrate and let us feel in the deep places of our hearts, the joyful music generated by the lived lives of those we honor today.
Earthfest: A Tribute to Michelle
Presented by UVM Program Board, VSTEP and SGA
www.uvm.edu/bored for more information // April 18, 2007
Earthweek (April 14-21) events will culminate with a free benefit concert featuring Jazz Mandolin Project, for the environmental nonprofit organization Michelle?s Earth Foundation(MEF), to commemorate the Earth and Michelle Gardner-Quinn.
Groups featured include folk group The Low Anthem, afrobeat group, The Motet, local favorites Burlington Taiko Drumming, Panda Watch, and Avi & Celia.
Local food vendors Feel Good, Champlain Orchards, Cabot Cheese, Madhouse Munchie's, Leonardo's Pizza and Burlington staple Ben & Jerry's. Profits from Food and Donations going to MEF.
The festival will begin at 1pm on Saturday April 21, on Redstone Campus (rainsite location: Mann Hall Auditorium), and will be free and open to the local community.
This day of activism and music will end in an open mic at Slade Hall, for those who want to express thoughts and beliefs reflecting on Michelle's life, the environment and social justice.
Release Date: 04-12-2007
Beat The Heat: UVM Launches Climate Teach-In
Author: Joshua E. Brown
Email: Joshua.E.Brown@uvm.edu
Phone: 802/656-3039 Fax: (802) 656-3203
River deltas disappearing in India, polar bears drowning, Vermont’s maple sugar season evaporating, Greenland’s glaciers sloughing off into the sea—the headlines are full of news not about the theory of global warming, but about its real effects.
For EarthWeek, University of Vermont faculty, staff and students are planning to have their own real effects on reducing the problems and causes of climate change through a four-day "teach-in" and other events including lectures, tours, art displays, concerts, and campus meetings to bring attention to the latest scientific findings and new ideas for action.
The UVM events begin Thursday, April 12 — complementing the more than 1300 nationwide events in 50 states that are part of a national day of climate action sponsored by Step it Up, Saturday April 14 — and continue until Earth Day, Sunday, April 22.
All are open to the public.
“It’s such a tough problem to confront, but we have to. The nation’s universities — including ours — should be at the forefront,” said Alan McIntosh, a professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and an organizer of the teach-in along with four UVM undergraduate students. “We need to do more to take the lead on this issue.”
“We are the environmental university,” he said, “and climate change is the environmental issue of the millennium.”
The week’s events include:
Thursday, April 12
UVM geologist Thomas Neumann will speak on “Glaciers, Ice Sheets and Climate Change,” 6-9 p.m., Delahanty Hall. Neumann spends his summers studying glaciers in Greenland and is a fast-rising researcher on the fast-disappearing ice cap there.
Saturday, April 14
Roelof Boumans, a scientist with UVM’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, will give a tour of his Windy Corners Farm in Charlotte, 9 a.m., demonstrating steps he and wife are taking to reduce their impact on climate change, from organic gardening to energy efficiency efforts.
Beginning Saturday, April 14, noon
A UVM Environmental Program class on environmental art will be developing a community art project, "If Earth Could Hear You Now...," on the UVM Green; it will be up all week.
Monday, April 16
Seven education events across campus on Monday form the heart of the teach-in:
Forest ecologist Bill Keeton talks on “Climate Change and Forest Fires.”
Professor of sociology Dan Krymkowski speaks on “Fundamentals of Social Research: Climate Change Models,” and then, later in the day, on climate change’s disproportionate impact on poor people.
A lecture, “Tons of Carbon and more: Vehicles, Roads, Drivers and Air Quality,” will be delivered by engineering professor Britt Holmen.
Economist Nancy Brooks will speak on the economics of the European Union’s carbon emissions trading program.
The realities and potential of growing your own energy in Vermont will be the topic of presentation by professor Sid Bosworth and his colleagues from the department of plant and soil science.
And the day will conclude with a 5pm screening of Al Gore’s now famous movie, An Inconvenient Truth, with a discussion following led by Nadine Unger, professor of atmospheric chemistry.
Tuesday, April 17
The teach-in concludes with a discussion about the health implications of global warming, led by medical doctors Patti O’Brien and Chuck Hulse.
Wednesday, April 18
UVM & Climate Change: A Call to Action
Stephanie Kaza, professor in the Environmental Program, will facilitate a campus-wide forum, and then small-group discussions, about what additional steps UVM could be taking — in operations, curriculum and activism — to confront climate change, 4:30 pm-6:30 pm, Billings North Lounge.
The forum has been developed with leadership from undergraduate students and by professor Jennifer Jenkins in the Gund Institute and Rubenstein School, who serves on the Vermont Governor’s Commission on Climate Change.
The goal of the forum is to develop a set of recommendations to present to various UVM governing bodies. These recommendations will outline new institutional commitments and lines of research the university could pursue as part of the global effort to stem the rise of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
Thursday April 19
Going Local
The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences presents an all-day colloquium, “Going Local,” on the value and challenges of local foods—including a panel on the impact of climate change on Vermont’s food system, beginning 9 a.m., Waterman Building.
Earthday Fair
Starting at 10 a.m., in UVM’s Living and Learning residence walkway, an “Earthday Fair” will present projects from several on-campus courses about environmental stewardship and climate.
Saturday, April 21
Earthfest: Michelle’s Earth Foundation Benefit Concert
UVM’s EarthWeek events will include a benefit concert featuring Jazz Mandolin Project for the environmentally focused nonprofit, Michelle’s Earth Foundation, to “commemorate the Earth and one of its own,” UVM student Michelle Gardner-Quinn, who was tragically killed last year.
The concert will be held in the Agricultural Engineering Parking Lot, near Aiken Building, beginning at 1 p.m. Donations and profits from food vendors and merchandise will go to the foundation.
The mission of Michelle’s Earth Foundation is to advance environmental education for young people and facilitate the role of the community in efforts towards creating a healthy, sustainable habitat for humans and nature.
One of Gardner-Quinn’s close friends, Julia Martin ’09, helped organize the festival, with assistance from two student organizations, VSTEP and the UVM program board.
Other performers include the afrobeat/funk group, The Motet, Burlington Taiko Drumming, Panda Watch and Avi & Celia.
Sunday, April 22
Earth Day
A sunrise hike sponsored by UVM’s Outing Club and a 3 p.m. screening of An Inconvenient Truth at the Campus Center Theater, Billings Student Center, wrap up the week’s climate change events.
UVM Assesses Student Safety
Burlington, Vermont -- April 12, 2007
Andy Potter - Channel 3 News
Vermont is one of the safest places in the world in terms of violent crime. But recent high-profile crimes like the rape and murder of UVM student Michelle Gardner-Quinn show that anyone can become a victim. Today, UVM held a candid discussion about how it handled the Gardner-Quinn crisis.
The University of Vermont called on two top administrators from the University of Florida in Gainesville to help them work through issues surrounding the murder. It's been six months since the killing. The suspect, Brian Rooney, was arrested a week later. The speakers, Myra Morgan, Director of External Relations for the Division of Student Affairs at UF, and Arthur Sandeen, a former vice-president for Student Affairs, spent a couple of days analyzing the murder and its aftermath -- and talked to local officials.
They should know. Both administrators served during a time of crisis in 1990 when five college students in Gainesville were murdered over a three-day period. The defendant in that case was executed under Florida's death penalty last year -- sixteen years later.
The conclusions from Morgan and Sandeen concerning the Burlington case were positive.
Morgan told Channel 3, "We felt that the Burlington community and the University of Vermont did an extraordinary job dealing with the death of Michelle. It was very caring, it was very personal, they took good care of the family. They tried to take care of each other, they took care of the students.I don't think anybody anywhere in the country could have done a better job than what was done here."
At the same time, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies earned praise for their teamwork and the way they handled a crush of national news media. In the aftermath, the same people who dealt with the crisis are assessing the lessons learned.
"Everybody wants to be a part of trying to resolve things and make things better," Burlington police chief Tom Tremblay said.
Time has tended to heal most of the pain that the UVM campus felt last fall. But bad memories are bound to return when the defendant in Michelle Garder-Quinn's death stands trial for first degree murder. College officials at UVM are preparing for that day.
"It's going to be very painful," Tom Gustafson, UVM Vice-President for Student Life, said. "And I think we need to recognize that it's going to be very painful. But I think the best we can do is acknowledge that pain -- but also learn from this tragedy and make sure that it doesn't happen again, if at all possible."
UVM officials admit that the most they can do is educate students about how to stay safe, and try to reduce the chances of another tragedy. A "blue light" alarm system has been installed across the campus. UVM students are given free passes to use CCTA buses and are urged to ride UVM's own Campus Area Transit shuttles. They are urged to walk in groups at night.
But no one is entirely safe. The random rape and strangling of Laura Winterbottom of Burlington a year before the Gardner-Quinn murder is case in point. The defendant in that killing, Gerald Montgomery, is also awaiting trial on a first degree murder charge.
Morgan said, "As hard as we try, we can't prevent bad things from happening. And when they happen, the relationships that exist among people, the communication that can exist, that's what's critical to help people move on."
UVM and Burlington officials agree that communication is key, in getting through a tragedy and trying to prevent another one. The students who grieved the death of their friend, the police who brought the defendant to justice -- and the public. By talking to each other they brought the community through the tragedy as well as could realistically be expected.
April 11, 2007
Earth Week 07 Events
Source: The Adventures of Ecologic-Girl, Katie Chang
ALL WEEK:
Be environmentally friendly in your own way!
April 14-22
All Week | Anywhere!
Make your own contribution to saving the environment. Keep your lights off for a day, or don't print anything out all week. Do whatever moves you! Brought to you by the eco-reps program.
MONDAY:
"If the Earth could hear you, what would it say?"
Art installation on main green in front of waterman all week.
Climate Change Game
Monday April 16
7-10PM | L/L Fireplace Lounge
Learn about the global climate issue while having fun. The simulation addresses the question? Now what? What actions can we do that will make a difference? And it then provides you with the opportunity to take those actions.
TUESDAY:
Climate Change Teach-Ins
Monday & Tuesday April 16-17 More Info TBA | Various Locations
A variety of opportunities provided across campus over two days to learn about climate change from a variety of perspectives. More info TBA.
WEDNESDAY:
Climate Change: A Call to Action!
As the "Environmental University", do you think UVM is doing enough about Climate Change? Come participate in a discussion between students, faculty, and staff on what UVM can do to take on the challenges of Climate Change in our academics, campus operations, and culture.
Wednesday April 18, 4:30-6:30pm
Billings North Lounge
Pizza will be served!
Additional information about events is available at www.uvm.edu/~efarrel1/ccevents
Madeline Kunin, key note for local foods colloquium
Wednesday April 18
7:00PM | Waterman Memorial Lounge
Check out this opening presentation by former Governor Madelline Kunin. Free coffee and desserts generously provided by Sodexho. This event kicks off the the Going Local Colloquium that will take place from 9am-5pm on Thursday, April 19 in Waterman.
THURSDAY:
EarthDay Fair
Thursday April 19
10AM-2PM | L/L Walkway
Class projects and presentations about being earth friendly, a great way to support your classmate's work and check out how to be a better environmental steward.
FRIDAY:
Wear your special Earth Week "Word to your Mother" t-shirt. These will be on sale all week in front of the library. Show your pride for Earth Week!
SATURDAY:
EarthFest Concert: A Tribute to Michelle Gardner-Quinn
Saturday April 21
1-10PM | Redstone Quad
Check out an day of excellent music in tribute to Michelle Gardner-Quinn. Bands performing include: Jazz Mandolin Project, The Motet, Avi and Celia, The Burlington Taiko Project, and other special guests. There will be a special speakout for Michelle and opportunities to donate to Michelle's Earth Foundation. You do not want to miss this special event. (Rainsite: Mann Hall)
SUNDAY:
Sunrise Hike
Sign up for this awesome hike at the Outing Club House.
SATURDAY:
An Inconvenient Truth
Sunday April 22
3PM | CC Theater
Ben and Jerry's sponsors a viewing of "The Inconvenient Truth" Free ice cream!
EarthWeek Concert to Benefit Gardner-Quinn Foundation
By The View Staff, UVM
Article published April 10, 2007
UVM’s EarthWeek events will include a benefit concert featuring Jazz Mandolin Project for the environmentally focused nonprofit Michelle’s Earth Foundation to commemorate the Earth and one of its own, Michelle Gardner-Quinn. The benefit concert, Earthfest: A Tribute to Michelle, will be held on Saturday, April 21, on Redstone Campus, beginning at 1 p.m. Donations and profits from food vendors and merchandise will go to the foundation.
The mission of Michelle’s Earth Foundation is to advance environmental education for young people and facilitate the role of the community in efforts towards creating a healthy, sustainable habitat for humans and nature.
One of Gardner-Quinn’s close friends, Julia Martin ’09, helped organize the festival, with assistance from two student organizations, VSTEP and the UVM program board.
Other performers inlcude afrobeat/funk group, The Motet, Burlington Taiko Drumming, Panda Watch and Avi & Celia.
Information on concert: Bored
A Vigil for Michelle
Adam Briere '10, Vermont Cynic
Issue date: 1/30/07 Section: News
This Sunday, students, faculty and members of the community gathered to honor what would have been Michelle Gardner-Quinn's 22nd birthday with a candlelight vigil on the UVM green.
The vigil was one of several held around the country, sponsored by friends and family of Gardner-Quinn.
Although almost four months have passed since her death, Gardner-Quinn's friends and family are making her absence known by holding numerous events to honor Michelle and raise awareness of violence against women.
Honoring Message of Michelle Gardner-Quinn
Burlington, Vermont - January 28, 2007
Jack Thurston - Channel 3 News
A slain UVM student was honored tonight at the University. This would have been Michelle Gardner-Quinn's 22nd birthday. Friends and classmates she should have been celebrating with, are using this somber date to educate the community about an important cause.
The savage killing of Gardner-Quinn darkened this community, and the lives of people close to the victim. Her future seemed as bright as the glow from candles that, on what would have been her 22nd birthday, symbolize her memory.
"I want to remember her as the great person she was. Someone who was going to make a difference in the world. I hope that she couldn't do it in her life, we can do it for her," said Julia Martin, a UVM student attending the vigil.
The UVM senior was a passionate environmentalist, and the newly-formed "Michelle's Earth Foundation" aims to continue her life's work, by bringing education programs into schools, organizing clean-up projects, and promoting energy conservation, through simple efforts like buying compact fluorescent light bulbs.
"She was all about alternative energy. She wanted to see the world a better place. She liked to go abroad to different countries and help those communities with their environmental practices," said Kate Gladstein, a UVM Sophomore.
Gardner-Quinn vanished October 7th, after a night out in Burlington. Surveillance video from a Main Street jewelry store showed her walking with carpenter Brian Rooney. Following six days of intensive police work, the student's body was found dumped near the Huntington Gorge. She was raped and strangled. Police say DNA evidence conclusively proves Rooney is the killer, but he has pleaded not guilty, and is awaiting trial. In the months ahead, these friends hope Vermonters will remember Michelle and the issues she stood for.
"This kind of experience can bring a community together and have it coalesce in sprit around an affirmation of values that Michelle and her life certainly embodied," said UVM President Dan Fogel.
Another candlelight vigil in Gardner-Quinn's memory took place tonight in her hometown of Arlington, Virginia. The theme there, as it is here, is environmental awareness.
Slain Student's Family Creates Foundation In Her Memory
POSTED: 6:02 pm EST January 28, 2007
UPDATED: 10:24 pm EST January 28, 2007
NBC 4 Washington
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Family and friends gathered at an Arlington park Sunday in the cold and rain on what would have been Michelle Gardner-Quinn's 22nd birthday.
An Arlington native and student at the University of Vermont, Gardner-Quinn was abducted and killed in Burlington last year.
The candlelit birthday remembrance was held at the park because it's the place Gardner-Quinn used to hang out with her friends back in high school.
On Sunday, grieving friends and family gathered there to honor the young woman's memory.
"We have committed to working on her life's dream of environmentalism," said her half sister, Yassmine Rassam.
Gardner-Quinn's loved ones have formed a group called Michelle's Earth Foundation "to create a healthy habitat for humans and nature," Rassam said.
Brian Rooney, 36, of Burlington is charged with aggravated murder in Gardner-Quinn's death. Police said surveillance video shows Rooney walking with her the night she was killed. Rooney is awaiting trail, but the student's family said they won't let anger consume them.
"It's really important to celebrate her life and not focus on her death," Rassam said. "I don't want her to be thought of as a victim, despite the brutal circumstances."
IWF College Essay Contest 2006-2007
Independent Women's Forum 1/11/2007
The Independent Women's Forum is pleased to announce the thirty finalists for the 2006-2007 Michelle Gardner-Quinn essay contest. These outstanding essays were chosen from hundreds of entries from around the world. The contest was open to full-time, female undergraduate students and first prize is $5,000.
The finalists' essays have been forwarded to our prestigious panel of judges who will award the prizes among this group. Winners will be announced later this spring and the winning essays will be featured on IWF's website.
Shannah Birkle, University of Houston
Sarah Breeding, University of Maryland
Alexandria Bruton, Texas Christian University
Jennifer Creekmur, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
Valerie Dowling, Converse College
Amanda Evans, Texas Tech University
Erin Fitch, Liberty University
Evelyn Garcia, New York University
Lina Gomes, Wellesley College
Meghan Grizzle, Harvard University
Heather Imboden, Ashland University
Jo Jensen, Mount Holyoke College
Nene Kalu, Princeton University
Emily Kiddoo, Truman State University
Laura Meyer, Alverno College
Sarah Moerbeek, University of Oklahoma
Lindsay Nelson, College of William and Mary
Amanda Nichols, University of Michigan
Rachel Parker, University of Alabama
Nicole Pepperl, Stanford University
Megan Reiss, Stanford University
Ashley Reynolds, Oklahoma State University
Miriela Rico, University of Texas – Arlington
Lynn Robbins, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Samantha Soller, Bucknell University
Paula Stang, Houston Baptist University
Kelly Stettner, Vermont College
Danielle Sturgis, Drake University
Kiersten Timpe, Ithaca College
Sara Walter, Lafeyette College
UVM Quarterly Vermont Connection
UVM Quarterly Vermont Connection Winter 2007
UVM NOTEBOOK
Campus in mourning
Michelle Gardner-Quinn made friends quickly at the University of Vermont. Scarcely more than six weeks after the senior transfer student had begun her studies at the University, a circle of those friends who knew her best gathered on the stage of Ira Allen Chapel, yellow wildflowers in hand, and shared memories.
Standing before a chapel filled to capacity with UVM students, faculty, staff, and members of the local community, their words offered a glimpse of a vibrant, committed young woman. One spoke of Gardner-Quinn’s sense of humor, recalling their rain-soaked, muddy hike down Mount Mansfield during Wilderness Trek when, after several falls, they decided sliding on their rear-ends was the better alternative—and did it laughing all the way. Another talked about the times in the dorm room when Gardner-Quinn was quick to get down to homework on the computer even while others were chatting and procrastinating. They spoke of their friend’s love of music, then one of the young women filled the lofty hall with a simple folk melody on the violin.
Those who met Michelle Gardner-Quinn of Arlington, Virginia, during her short time in Burlington came to know her well. Many of the hundreds in the chapel for the UVM memorial service on October 15 did not know her at all, but had come to share their grief and seek comfort after a week of concern for the 21-year-old’s disappearance had turned to mourning her death.
The news of Gardner-Quinn’s killing stunned the local community and rippled across the entire nation through newspaper, magazine, and cable news coverage. The grim circumstances became familiar to many. In the early morning hours of October 7, Gardner-Quinn began to walk up Main Street to her University Heights Residence Hall after an evening downtown with friends that had included dinner with her parents, in town for UVM’s Homecoming and Family Weekend. After calling a friend at 2:15 a.m., Gardner-Quinn vanished, setting off an intensive search that ended on October 13 when the student’s body was found in a rocky crevice near Huntington Gorge.
Brian Rooney, a 36-year-old local man who loaned his cell phone to Gardner-Quinn when the battery in her own phone failed on the night she disappeared, soon became a focus of police investigations. On October 25, Rooney was charged with aggravated assault in Gardner-Quinn’s death, and police have cited DNA evidence tying Rooney to the crime. The suspect has pleaded not guilty and is jailed without bail pending trial. Aggravated assault, the most serious count Vermont prosecutors can bring, carries a sentence of life in prison.
An exceptional person
As people on campus who knew Gardner-Quinn spoke of their memories, a picture emerged of a highly intelligent, driven individual with a passion for world travel and social justice issues. “This was a mature and sophisticated person who knew how to get around the world,” said Elizabeth “Ibit” Getchell, student services coordinator in the environmental studies program and academic advisor to Gardner-Quinn. “She took very demanding courses. It was obvious that she was someone who sought out valuable experiences and made the most of them. She was driven, resourceful, motivated, and adventurous. I was highly impressed with the range of her experiences and obvious zeal for learning. She really wanted to be at UVM and worked hard to get here. In my experience, transfer students are often exceptional people, and Michelle certainly was exceptional.”
At the campus memorial service, Cecilia Danks, assistant professor of environmental studies and natural resources, read from a personal essay Gardner-Quinn completed shortly before her disappearance. The piece described the senior’s strong environmental ethic and desire to make a difference on issues such as climate change, a commitment that grew from Gardner-Quinn’s deep love of and curiosity for the natural world. (See page 64 for complete text.)
Danks got to know Gardner-Quinn in her intermediate environmental studies course, which focuses on academic and career choices and preparation. “Michelle had gone to a progressive high school and had attended a gifted and talented summer camp and was very much in charge of her learning and education,” Danks said. “She was always trying to get the best educational experience. She chose UVM to study environmental studies. In talking with her family, they said she was very happy here.”
While at UVM, Gardner-Quinn’s coursework touched on a wide variety of subjects, including Latin America, buying and growing locally-produced food, communications, and wildlife management.
To support the education of like-minded students, UVM has established the Michelle Gardner-Quinn Memorial Fund for Environmental Studies.
Renewed intensity
When the University’s trustees gathered for their November meetings, Gardner-Quinn’s fate was the first subject addressed by Carl Lisman ’67, board chair, and President Daniel Mark Fogel. Both spoke of the shock of the crime that took the student’s life, and both also made note of their pride in Gardner-Quinn’s character and achievement, as well as the University community’s rise to the challenge of the difficult time.
Following a moment of silence in Gardner-Quinn’s memory, Fogel said, “This tragedy has prompted us to examine the social fabric of our community with renewed intensity. While we continue to feel that Burlington and the UVM campus are comparatively safe places, we feel with new poignancy that we are not immune from atrocities like the one that took Michelle. We are committed to examining all the ways in which we might make this center of learning, discovery, and service an increasingly safe and secure environment. To achieve this end, we have been in close dialogue with the City of Burlington, both with its political leadership and its public safety officials—to whom our gratitude for exemplary service in this crisis cannot be overstated. During this dark hour, we experienced an extraordinary expression of community engagement and commitment to common goals. We will continue in that spirit.”
Following Gardner-Quinn’s murder, UVM’s Student Government Association passed a resolution calling for creation of a task force to address the security of the campus community. Fogel announced that the University would be moving ahead with that initiative with Thomas Gustafson, vice president for student and campus life, and Gary Derr, chief of staff in the office of the president and provost, heading up efforts to gather a broad group, including representatives from Champlain College and the City of Burlington.
—Jon Reidel, Thomas Weaver
More news:
Oct 8-14 2006 |
Oct 15-21 |
Oct 22-Dec 31 | Jan-Sep 2007 |
Oct-Dec | Jan-May 2008 |
IndexURL: http://www.michellegardnerquinn.com/news_archive_2007_1.htm