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LETTERS
To the Editor
The Fall issues UVM News article about Professor Joni Seager,
Looking at a Womans World, and her sense of geography
reminded me of my freshman year at UVM in 1930.
One of the required courses as an economics major was two semesters
of economic and industrial geography. These were taught by a young lady
professor whose teaching method compelled a fascination with a subject
many of us simply endured in grade and high school. I have
never lost that interest, which eventually led to my business involvement
in international trade. So much of what I was exposed to in class fostered
an understanding that made my experiences throughout the world especially
meaningful.
After retirement, I served as a volunteer with International Executive
Service Corps with assignments in Colombia and Ecuador. Were it not
for the two Spanish courses at UVM my sophomore year, I dont believe
I could have functioned well in those settings. The insights needed
to get along and communicate were fortified by the study of geography
in my years at UVM.
I trust Professor Seager impresses her students with the lasting knowledge
of geography that I still retain after seventy-one years.
Herbert J. Selib 34
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
With
degrees from Yale, University of Virginia, and University of Vermont,
as well as training from Washington University, I receive more than
my share of alumni magazines. The letter from Beth Wheeler Hall 74
[concerning UVMs Alternative Summer Break Civil Rights trip] in
the Winter 2003 edition of Vermont Quarterly is the best letter I have
ever read on any subject in any of these illustrious publications.
Dr. Washington Winn MBA 93
Burlington, Vermont
My thanks to Tom Brennan for his touching article on Kevin Roberson.
Kevin was the best basketball player ever to wear a Vermont uniform
and had every right to act like any high-profile athlete. He never did.
For those of us who knew him, his legacy would be his genuine kindness,
humility, and dignity.
Coming from the industrial Midwest, I found Vermont to be quite a cultural
adjustment. Talking about sports with Kevin made me feel at home. He
was a huge Buffalo Bills fan, and he let my Indianapolis-Colts-loving
butt know it on a daily basis. We talked about Indiana basketball so
much that he and Kenny White gave me the nickname Indy,
a name I took great pride in for four years.
We eventually learned to leave sports out of our conversations and would
just talk about life, as friends do. When news of Kevins death
hit campus, I was sickened and remember the sadness that filled the
streets. As I think back, the tears that poured out that night werent
so much for Kevins pain, or for my own grief they were
for all of the people who would never get a chance to know him. It is
very sad to think of the many lives Kevin never had a chance to touch.
Maybe we can best honor Kevin on this tenth anniversary of his passing
by trying to treat those in our daily lives the way Kevin treated us.
Jefferson Hammond 93
Aliso Viejo, California
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