My relationship with Northern Vermont University and the Lyndon campus runs long and deep. My mother, in her 20s, chose to focus on raising my sister and me while working in the family business, and never attended college until her early 30s. Always a hard worker, by the early ’80s she had enrolled in business classes at Lyndon State College and was able to balance work, raising a family and attending classes to receive her associate degree. I still remember hanging out on the campus lawn with my sister while she either met with professors or attended class. That degree enabled her to grow professionally, eventually having a long and successful career at a New Hampshire-based engineering firm from which she comfortably retired in 2017. This opportunity would never have been available to her without Lyndon.
Today, I have watched similar experiences with staff members at my organization. One of the biggest challenges facing Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, and all our health care institutions, is our current and future workforce. The Vermont State Colleges, and especially NVU, plays a vital role in filling these essential positions. At entry level computer science jobs alone, we currently employ 37 NVU-Lyndon graduates (formerly Lyndon State), 24 Castleton State graduates (23 of them are RNs), three Johnson State graduates, 15 CCV graduates, and 40 Vermont Tech (VTC) graduates (including 30 RNs). That is a total of 119 staff out of a workforce of just over 600. Many of these people, especially women, grew up here and are locals, but many others came here for college and stayed. These numbers highlight just how dependent our local healthcare system is on the Vermont State Colleges System to grow and support our workforce.
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