VTC and the Village Are Trying To Connect

VTC and the Village Are Trying To Connect By Sandy Vondrasek

Although Randolph may not feel like "a college town," it IS one, and in recent months downtown business owners and Vermont Technical College officials have been working together to increase mutually beneficial "town-gown" interactions.

New steps taken in just the past month include:

• A shuttle service that runs between Vermont Tech and the downtown, Tuesday and Thursday, during the late afternoon and evening, providing students a free ride to and from Randolph Village, and

• Organized efforts by a coalition of 29 downtown business owners to better meet the needs and schedules of the 600 or so college students living a mere three miles up the hill in Vermont Tech dorms.

According to Dean of the College Mike Van Dyke, the new shuttle service grew out of Vermont Tech’s search for a cheaper way to transport student athletes to away games. The individual VTC contracted with to provide away-game transportation also agreed to drive one of his large vans for the Tuesday and Thursday shuttles.

"My goal is to try to get students more involved in the town, said Van Dyke, a Randolph resident who also serves on the Randolph Union High School board.

The bus leaves VTC hourly, from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., stopping at MacDonalds, Valley Bowl, the downtown, Gifford Medical Center and, finally Shaw’s. It waits there about 30 minutes, before retracing the same route back to the campus.

The service helps students save on gas money, and allows those without cars to find their way downtown, he noted.

"It’s three miles, but it might as well be 100," Van Dyke said, of the short distance between campus and town.

So far, he added, student use of the shuttle bus has been "not overwhelming," except for the late run Thursday nights, 9-11 p.m., to Valley Bowl’s special VTC night.

Part of the problem, he said, is that student schedules aren’t generally a good fit with downtown business hours.

Most students aren’t free to head downtown until the 4:30 p.m. bus, when many businesses are getting ready to close.

That’s an issue that a group of downtown business owners is trying to address. Steve Graci, a member of the group and the owner of The Rosebud florist shop, has been leading merchants’ efforts to improve connections with VTC students.

Over the last year, the group has been staging festive downtown promotions designed "to give the population more reason to come downtown," Graci said. "One of the populations it makes sense to get to is VTC," he added.

Graci and other owners took their first step in reaching out to students by setting up a table on campus during the college’s freshman orientation in August. Many of the businesses came up with special promotions. Graci, for example, is offering all students a 5% discount with their student ID card, and free delivery for parents of VTC students.

Local banks have traditionally had a presence at the orientation, but it was the first time a group of merchants came.

Now, the businesses are looking into staying open later one night a week—"sort of like a student discount night," said Graci. The idea, still in the planning stage, would include discounts for all students—including RUHS, Whitcomb High, and Vermont Law School—with student IDs.

The idea, he added, "might not generate a dramatic increase in business, but the point is to try to stay together, support each other, and enhance the downtown area."

VTC has taken other steps to increase student interaction with the town. Dean Van Dyke noted that VTC’s "corporate membership" at Montague Golf Club allows students to play for half-price.

"On occasion we do things with The Playhouse, literally buying out the show," he said, and the town’s ice rink is also popular with students.

Van Dyke also stressed the college’s commitment to connecting in multiple ways with the greater Randolph community.

One growing point of contact, he noted, is the SHAPE facility, which now has more than 1000 members from area communities. SHAPE members may—and are in fact encouraged to—use the VTC shuttle bus to travel to and from the pool and fitness center. Shuttle bus use, Van Dyke pointed out, would ease a new parking crunch on campus, due in part to SHAPE’s popularity.

Vermont Tech is also hosting a series of events (see side article) designed to serve the wider community.

Van Dyke noted that each of these steps "is kind of small."

"But if you look at the aggregate," he added, "you could say a lot of things are happening between the town and college."

VTC Events Open

To Community

Coming community events on the Vermont Tech campus include the following:

• Starting Monday, Sept. 22, a five-week book discussion series on American 20^th-century presidents, sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council. Call Nancy Aitken, 728-1237, for more information on the noon-hour series.

• Wednesday, Sept. 24, 6-8 p.m., A "Meet the Candidates" forum at the Old Dorm Lounge. Attendees from several districts and counties will include: Patsy French, Mark MacDonald, Stewart Skrill, Sandy Haas, John Block, Anne Donahue, and Laura Day-Moore.

• Saturday, Sept. 27, 9-11 a.m. A free "Home Energy Savings Workshop" on campus. For more information, call Frank at 728-1328.