College students help small Vt. town chart its path

Many small towns struggle to balance economic growth with preservation of their community's spirit. One community is turning to the local college to help with the task.

Starksboro, Vt., population 1,900, is home to Middlebury College. City leaders have asked students to spend a semester interviewing residents to help determine what makes the town unique. “Our hope is to create enough consensus to then drive the plan’s language,” Bill Roper, president of the Orton Family Foundation, one of the groups funding the project, tells Abby Goodnough of The New York Times. “Then they can move forward with how to protect what they’ve all agreed is most important.”

The students are part of a class entitled "Portraits of a Vermont Town." The project is aimed not only at helping the town plan how they want to grow, but also at helping students understand the realities of rural life. “I’m guilty, like most of us, of really romanticizing Vermont life and Vermont towns,” said Max Kanter, a junior from Phoenix. “Now I have a sense of the challenge they have to stay afloat.” (Read more)