CRAFTSBURY – The Sterling College Board announced plans last week to pivot to a non-degree curriculum officials managing the campus have been enticed by since its inception in 1887. The plan has the campus dropping all motorized and electrified conveniences, plus all its internet connections, returning to ancient agricultural and educational practices.
President Scott Thomas said, “We’ve worked hard for well over a century to
revitalize lost and declining agricultural and educational arts, but never had the nerve to make the hard decision this board has just taken.”
The new curriculum will study weather using Vermont weather sticks and reading the stripes on wooly bear caterpillars, for example.
The study of beavers for flood mitigation and construction is expected to be particularly in-demand as global warming increases atmospheric energy, resulting in more rainfall, with hurricanes reaching further inland.
All of the campus trucks and tractors will be sold and the funds reinvested in a herd of wooly mammoths recently developed from ancient DNA fragments.
A community meeting is scheduled for April 1, at 1 p.m., in Simpson Hall to hear details of the plan. Attendees will be asked to contribute a line to the new campus song, which begins “Old McCarthy had a barn, AI-AI-No.”
