February Message to Families: Shay Totten '91

I hope this note finds you safe and warm. 

I think I can safely say that faculty and staff are so excited to have your students back on campus. When I was a student, I thoroughly enjoyed my Field Work Term (FWT) experiences, but I always looked forward to seeing my friends and reconnecting with my faculty mentors.

I had the privilege of seeing some of our amazing students during FWT at an alumni gathering in New York City. A big thanks to Joel Fitzpatrick ’89 and his team at Chelsea Walls gallery in New York City for hosting more than 75 alumni, students, and a handful of staff and faculty.

This get-together gave alumni a chance to connect with each other, meet current students who are in New York City for Field Work Term, and hear music from a student ensemble accompanied by two music faculty. A big thanks to these talented student musicians: Ava Landreth ’27, Julian Conte ’26, Julius Boxer-Cooper ’26, Charlie Love ’27, and Zoe Berger’ 26; and, a shoutout to our amazing faculty members who joined them onstage—Joseph Alpar and Michael Wimberly. 

At the event, I updated folks on the many ways alumni can reconnect to the College—support this new generation of Bennington students. Watching alumni and current students engage with each other like seeing old friends reconnect after decades apart—picking up the conversation right where they left off.

While this alumni-student networking is good for alumni, it’s also good for your students. They are interested in knowing more about what it’s like after they graduate, and they hope alumni can help them along the way.

That’s why starting this week, we’re piloting Life After Bennington, a new course at Bennington. This term-long course will bring a different alumni to class (almost all of them in-person) to talk about their Bennington experience, Field Work Term jobs, what they did after college and what they do now.

The goal is to help your students understand the many ways their Bennington education can serve them after they leave campus. For some, that means graduating with a literature degree to co-founding and running a successful software company. For others, it’s graduating with a degree in public administration and getting elected to the Vermont House of Representatives. For another, it was graduating after studying Drama and becoming the Broadway star we always knew he was destined to be. Others end up returning to Bennington—like me and two dozen other alumni—to work or teach! 

We capped the course at 40, which is a darn big class by Bennington standards, and as of this writing it’s full with a short waitlist.That’s a good sign that students are eager to connect with alumni and hear our stories about what a Bennington education means out in the “real world.”

Here’s the current list of guest guinea pigs speakers (not including yours truly):

Kaiya Kirk ’20
Will Greer ’24
Jackie Sedlock ’96
Wyatt Kirby ’10
Rafe Churchill ’91
Dania Clarke ’15
Lynn Ellen Schimoler ’03
Christopher Bishop ’72
Audre Wirtanen ’17 
Jeff Williams ’91
Brooks Ashmanskas ’91
Adnan Ifthekar ’97

If your student didn’t get into this class, don’t worry. We’re already planning ahead for a similar course next year. And, if your student is graduating and would like to connect with an alum in their chosen field, have them email me.

Onward,

Shay Totten ’91
Director of Alumni and Constituent Engagement