The Goddard College Board of Trustees today announced the election of seven new members: Marty Baumrind of Brooklyn, NY; Wayne Fawbush of New York, New York and Montpelier, VT; David Hales of Bar Harbor, ME; Liam Murphy of Burlington, VT; Avram Patt of Marshfield, VT; Hillary Web of Eliot, ME and Laurie Zivetz of Chevy Chase, MD.
“The breadth of knowledge and experience that these individuals bring to Goddard College are tremendous gifts,” said Goddard President Dr. Barbara Vacarr. “Their guidance and stewardship of Goddard will help usher the college into the future as it reclaims its prominence as the leader in experimental and radical education.”
Marty Baumrind is a New York-based real estate developer and partner at Baumrind & Baumrind, a real estate investment firm engaged in the acquisition, renovation and management of residential and commercial properties in the New York City area. He is Chairman of the Ohr Haganuz Foundation and Trustee of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, and is a former Trustee of the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Richmond College.
Wayne Fawbush is a Program Officer with the Ford Foundation, where he focuses on sustainable development in rural America. He is the former Executive Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund. During his tenure, he grew the fund into an innovative economic development entity focused on helping communities and businesses in rural Vermont improve their economic base and sell forest and agriculture products in profitable markets. He was deputy for program operations for the Farmers Home Administration at the Department of Agriculture during the Clinton administration.
Fawbush served for 16 years as a representative and then senator in the Oregon Legislature, concentrating on economic development in rural areas.
David Hales is the President of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, a position he has held since 2006. Hales previously was President of DFH Global, a sustainable development and environmental consulting firm. He directed environmental policy and sustainability programs at the United States Agency for International Development under the Clinton administration and served under President Jimmy Carter as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of the Interior. He was the first American to serve as the President of the World Heritage Convention in 1978 and served on the President’s Global 2000 Task Force. He holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Oklahoma.
Liam Murphy is a partner at Murphy Sullivan Kronk, a Vermont-based law firm. Murphy graduated from Georgetown Law in 1981. He has worked as Director of Legislative Affairs for Food Safety and Quality Service with the Department of Agriculture. Murphy also helped establish the Champlain Valley Greenbelt Alliance, a conservation group dedicated to preserving working and scenic landscapes along Vermont’s major highways. He has served as a board member at the Champlain Valley Land Trust and provided volunteer legal services to a variety of land trusts, conservation and education organizations.
Avram Patt, a Goddard College alumnus, is the General Manager and CEO of the Washington Electric Cooperative (WEC), a consumer-owned utility serving over 10,000 customers. Patt is responsible for the management of WEC’s energy portfolio including the conversion to renewable energy sources and all lobbying efforts. He has served as president of the Northeast Association of Electric Cooperatives and in 2006 won Renewable Energy Vermont’s Industry Champion Award. Patt graduated from Goddard with a bachelor’s degree in 1972.
Hillary Webb is the Director of Research at the Monroe Institute (TMI), where she acts as a liaison between TMI and the University of Virginia’s Department of Perceptual Studies, aids in the development of new technologies for institute use and provides financial and informational support for researchers interested in studying altered states of consciousness. Webb is also the Managing Editor forAnthropology of Consciousness, a peer reviewed journal for the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, a division of the American Anthropological Association. She has three books to her credit. Her newest book, "Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans," presents her conservations with twenty-four of the most influential teachers and writers of shamanism today. Dr. Webb received a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from New York University, a master’s degree in consciousness studies from Goddard and a Ph.D. in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology from Saybrook University in San Francisco. She lives in Eliot, Maine.
Laurie Zivetz is an international development consultant who has worked all over the world. Her clients have included CAMFED International, USAID, the American Red Cross and the International Labor Organization. As Global Health Director for the Internews Network, she provided direction to a multi-country, long-term training program for journalists to improve the accuracy and frequency of health reporting. Dr. Zivetz holds a master’s degree in public health from UCLA and a Ph.D. in social economics from Union Graduate School.
Originally formed as the Green Mountain Central Institute in 1863, and becoming the Goddard Seminary in 1870, Goddard College was chartered in 1938 at its Plainfield, Vermont campus by founding President Royce “Tim” Pitkin. Its mission is to advance the theory and practice of learning by undertaking new experiments based upon the ideals of democracy and the principles of progressive education asserted by John Dewey. In 1963, Goddard College became the first U.S. college to offer adult-degree programs, and now specializes in MA, MFA, BA and BFA low-residency education. Offering accredited degree programs from campuses in Plainfield, Vermont and Port Townsend, Washington, Goddard’s low-residency format offers the best of on-campus and distance education, with experienced faculty advisors, rigorous on-campus residencies, and the freedom to study from anywhere.
