INSTITUTE FACULTY

CORE FACULTY

Gregory Sharrow is Director of Education and Folklorist at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, Vermont. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and is a former Vermont classroom teacher. Over the past 20 years Greg has conducted ethnographic field research projects documenting such aspects of regional experience as the culture of dairy farming, historic immigrant communities, and Abenaki life in the present. He has presented this research in print (Many Cultures, One People: A Multicultural Handbook about Vermont for Teachers), in exhibition (Thinking Like a Blacksmith: Artistry and Tradition in the Late 20th Century), as video (The Abenaki of Vermont: A Living Culture), and as radio (Prisoners of War: A Story of Four American Soldiers). Greg has collaborated with educators on numerous school-based oral history/community research projects and has presented community ethnography as a strategy for student engagement at programs for educators throughout the region.

Paddy Bowman coordinates the National Network for Folk Arts in Education, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts to advocate inclusion of folklore in K-12 education. She links folklorists and K-12 educators nationwide and edits the CARTS (Cultural Arts Resources for Teachers and Students) Newsletter and Web site, www.carts.org. In addition, she develops K-12 folklore in education resources and teacher training. Recent projects include Louisiana Voices, an extensive Web-based curriculum in public domain and adaptable nationwide, www.louisianavoices.org; and The Sounds of History, an online interactive museum module for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and www.bigchalk.com. As a 2003 residential Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville she began an online school desegregation history project for middle and high school students, Pioneers for Justice.

GUEST FACULTY

Susan Bonthron has taught book arts to students K-16 and adults in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. She has been making handmade books since she was inspired at a workshop by Paulus Berensohn in the arts of paste paper and coptic-bound journals. She has since studied with book artists Linda Lembke, Claire Van Vliet, Daniel Kelm and others. She earned her Master of Education degree at Antioch New England Graduate School, where she teaches a summer course in "Exploring Book Arts and Curriculum." She also offers private and group lessons at Otter Pond Bindery, her studio in Guilford, Vermont. Susan is the documentation specialist for Vermont Community Works and a senior editor with Community Works Journal.

Joe Brooks is founder and Executive Director of Vermont Community Works, and Managing Editor of Community Works Journal for teachers. He has provided technical support for schools and initiatives throughout Vermont and on the regional and national level, including a series of graduate level institutes on service-learning. Joe previously taught at Guilford Central School for twelve years, initiating and nurturing a nationally recognized service-learning program there. While at Guilford Joe was instrumental in founding and developing a student-produced community newspaper called the Guilford Gazette, now a widely acclaimed curriculum project.

Jen Cirillo is Coordinator of Shelburne Farms' Sustainable Schools Project (SSP), providing hands-on support and professional development to classroom teachers at SSP's pilot schools. During her graduate studies she focused on community sustainability and education. As a former coordinator for a city wide sustainability project in Burlington, Vermont, Jen brings a strong background in organizing community improvement projects to her work with schools. She has worked with many local schools and non-profit education programs in Vermont to enhance school-community partnerships. Prior to her work in Vermont, Jen lived and worked as an educator with many diverse communities from Alberta, Canada to Rosia, Italy.

Erica Heilman is a documentary radio producer. Her first experience in documenting stories was in South Africa, in 1993, where she collected stories from Zulu people in the Vulamehlo District of Natal. Upon returning to the U.S., Erica worked in documentary television, producing programs on subjects such as deep space, the Sturgis Biker Rally, cloning technology, and children's dreams. She then worked as a managing editor for a health-related website in New York City, and produced a weekly article series for ABCNews.com. Recently, she collaborated with the Vermont Folklife Center to produce a one-hour documentary about prisoners of war from World War II. She has also produced programming for WJFF, a public radio affiliate in the Catskills. Currently she is making radio stories about Vermont and Vermonters.

Andy Kolovos is the Archivist and a staff Folklorist at the Vermont Folklife Center. He earned a BA in Literature from Bennington College, holds an MA in Folklore and an MLS, and is a doctoral candidate in Folklore at Indiana University. His professional interests focus on the preservation of ethnographic records and field audio recording. As Vermont Folklife Center Archivist, he has instituted a plan of digital audio preservation and management, and works extensively with digital audio editing tools. He maintains the Vermont Folklife Center’s Audio Recording Equipment Guide and consults on audio preservation and field audio recording for oral history and ethnographic research projects nationwide.

Sarah Lavigne is a freelance photographer living in the Brattleboro area. She has a BA in Ecology and Photography from Marlboro College. At Marlboro she undertook a documentary photography project that linked everyday family life with biology field research through observation and perception. Since Marlboro she has studied with photographers Eugene Richards and Amy Arbus. Currently she photographs weddings, families, and events, all in a creative documentary style. She also teaches digital photography through the Hilltop Montessori Summer Camp and film photography through the In-Sight Photo Project, both in Brattleboro.

Paul D. MacGowan has been producing, shooting, writing, and editing videos for sixteen years for broadcast, corporate, and educational purposes, many of which have been created with and about middle and high school students. Throughout his career MacGowan has focused on working with young people. Recently he served as video consultant for a Vermont Rural Partnership community-based video project, working with students and faculty from three high schools to create a video on a unique aspect of their community. Currently in the works is a series for Vermont Public Television, which will be produced with high school students and will focus topics of relevance in the lives of young people today.

Verandah Porche is a poet, performer, teacher and writing partner. She explores relationships between individuals in communities. "Poetry is cultural glue," Verandah says, "its images bond people." Based in rural Vermont since 1968, she has published two books of poems, The Body's Symmetry and Glancing Off and has pursued an alternative literary career, creating collaborative writing projects in nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, and senior centers. She has developed a practice called 'told poetry' or 'shared narrative' to enable people who need a writing partner to create, preserve and share personal literature. Verandah Porche's work has been featured on NPR's "Artbeat," on NH Public Radio's "Front Porch," and in the Vermont State House. Current residencies include the Police Poetry Project with teenagers and local police in Bennington, Vermont, and Music of Our Spheres with a ninety-member women's chorus in Brattleboro, Vermont.

David T. Sobel, M. Ed., is the Director of Teacher Certification Programs in the Education Department and Co-Director of the Center for Place-based Education at Antioch New England Graduate School. David's exploration and documentation of the natural interests of children are the foundation for much of his work. He has served as a consultant with school districts, foundations, environmental organizations and the National Park Service to assist educators with curriculum development and program planning from a learner-centered perspective. His publications include Children's Special Places; Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education; Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years; and Place-based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities. David is currently co-director of Project CO-SEED (Community-based School Environmental Education), a member of the editorial board of the journal Encounter, a correspondent for Orion Magazine, and a contributing editor for Community Works Journal.