March 2021 Dispatch

March greetings from your alumni council!

Hoping you are all well, healthy, and safe. We are pleased to share some news and updates around committees and procedures, all of which we hope will encourage broader participation and increased transparency as we build an MCAA in the spirit of Marlboro College.

Announcing a New Committee!

For more than a year, alumni have expressed broad support for a re-founding of Potash Hill (formerly known as The Marlboro College Alumni Magazine and The Magazine of Marlboro College) under the auspices of the MCAA. Although we no longer have the campus on Potash Hill as a place to gather, we envision Potash Hill, the publication, becoming a place where alumni can meet one another and share news, stories, ideas, and intellectual work within its pages. We’re excited to report that at our last meeting, we voted enthusiastically to officially charge a committee to re-found and produce Potash Hill as a publication by and for the MCAA. We hope it will be both social (class notes, sharing memories and news, etc.) as well as intellectual and creative (journalism, articles, visual art, literature, etc.).

The committee will be tasked with developing a plan for the re-founding of Potash Hill as a magazine (in print, online, or both) of the MCAA, for alumni and friends of the former Marlboro College on Potash Hill in Marlboro, VT. If you’d like to join this committee, visit the MCAA website’s Potash Hill Committee page to submit a 500-word letter of intent to the council by Friday, April 16th. Appointments will be made based on these letters, stated alignment with the rationale and expectations of the charge, with particular attention to diversity, including, but not limited to, class year, region, gender, ethnicity, and other relevant demographics.

Reminder: Ad Hoc Facebook Committee

If you are active on the MCAA Facebook page—or even if you’re not!—please consider volunteering for the Ad Hoc Committee on Facebook. This committee will be tasked with devising rules and norms for the MCAA page that ensure it’s a place where alumni can interact in ways that are respectful, friendly, productive, and fun—and for achieving community buy-in for those norms via democratic means. As an ad hoc (rather than standing) committee, we anticipate a shorter time commitment for this work, and the council is ready to support committee members. We have extended the deadline to submit your letter of intent to Friday April 2nd.

Meeting Minutes Now Available

In the interest of transparency and good governance, council meeting minutes will now be available on the MCAA website, per our council procedures. As they get up and running, MCAA committees will also make their minutes available in the same space.

We are looking forward to building this association together.

Sincerely,

CJ Churchill, 1991

Dagmawi Iyasu Eminetu, 1998

Mark Genszler, 1995

Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, 1972

Melanie Knight Gottlieb, 2002

Kate Hollander, 2002

Pamela Witte Nye, 1993

Bess Poehlmann, 1992

Ellie Roark, 2012