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Parks and People
What a delight it was to return from a family boating trip on Mt. Desert Island yesterday only to open my mailbox to find a picture of Acadia National Park on the cover of the VQ.
My wife and I have been here two years (after being in Vermont for nearly twenty) and have fallen in love with the area. While we miss the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain, it is such a treasure to be only one hour from Acadia National Park.

We felt firsthand what Dr. Manning is researching, as we got stuck in a serious traffic jam in Ellsworth, Maine, on the road to MDI. Clearly, the park is reaching its limit in the number of visitors it can handle. His research will be most valuable in the effort to effectively preserve and manage this spectacular resource.

I always look forward to reading VQ, but had a much broader smile on my face with this issue. The icing on the cake for me was the article on Stas Golubenko. I was a Top Cat from ’82 to ’85. Thanks for making me feel at home once again.

Jonathan Henry ’85, G’91
Director of Admissions
University of Maine

Regarding D. W. Miller’s article “How Many Are Too Many?” taken from The Chronicle of Higher Education and reprinted in your Summer 2001 issue, I couldn’t help but wonder who in either literary organization or the research teams bothered to check the math or text of the article.
Let’s see, three million visits per year to Acadia National Park (third paragraph). By simple arithmetic that’s an average of 8,219 per day, 365 days a year, or an average of 11,320 per day for 265 days annually (winter can’t have too many visitors daily, and certainly other usually good days are washed out with rain and other disagreeable weather). Now certainly some days will have below-average attendance and some days will exceed the average — Ouch! In any case these numbers far exceed the experience-degrading benchmark of three thousand visits per day proposed by Professor Manning.
What gives? Who’s checking the facts? Who’s writing the text? Where’s the editor, the arithmetician?
I’ve enjoyed Acadia, and three thousand people could get lost and remain invisible while the park looked empty — except for the parking lots. Please — check the numbers, provide better explanation of what’s being written.

I’m not a UVM alum, nor a native of the region, but I love Vermont, Acadia, and all of New England. I’ll look forward to your next issue.

D. R. Jaracz
Andover, Massachusetts

Bob Manning replies:

Unfortunately, it may not be clear from the article by Mr. Miller that the approximately three thousand persons-per-day capacity my research estimates for Acadia applies to the carriage roads only. Recent monitoring suggests that the carriage roads may be approaching this capacity occasionally on peak days, but that average summer use is just under two thousand persons per day.
Plenty of room left for you and other Acadia fans!

Bob Manning
Professor, School of Natural Resources

Good Summer Reading

Congratulations for an excellent issue. This was the most interesting issue yet. Of course, I have different interests than many of your other readers. When one gets more information from “In Memoriam” than from “Class Notes,” it tells you something. Keep up the good work.

George Ward ’41
Mustang, Oklahoma

Global Education

Though I did not read the article George E. Milo referenced in his letter to the editor in the spring edition of Vermont Quarterly, I do not wish him to have such a limited view of UVM. Therefore, I would like to offer myself, and my UVM experience, as a rebuttal to his many queries.

He questions how one small university in a small state is going to educate global society. My answer: one person at a time. I have carried with me lessons learned at UVM over the past three years to the hundreds of students in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta whom I have taught. They, in turn, carry this
to many more. Judging UVM and Vermont on their ability to contribute to society by their size is absurd.
Do we speak French? I do, Mr. Milo, (German and some Spanish too), and some of the nuances of the Canadian dialect were explained to me by a fellow graduate student from Quebec. He also explained them to others in my department who were from California, Ghana, Winooski, Mexico, and beyond. Though most of the time we were busy studying, or perhaps attending the monthly algebraic number theory seminar — jointly organized by Vermont and Montreal universities. Though the faculty also did manage to expose us to mathematicians from Nebraska, Korea, the Czech Republic . . .

Perhaps now that Mr. Milo is retired he can reacquaint himself with UVM, and thus realize that he should not judge a whole university on one article in one publication.

John Schmitt G’98
Department of Mathematics
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

Kudos for Colodny Choice

I wish to applaud the appointment of Mr. Edwin Colodny as interim president of the university. I feel that Mr. Colodny brings to UVM the right mix of business and emphasis on education that was present when I attended the university. These attributes have been sorely lacking for some time. While I have not been present in the Northeast for thirty years, nevertheless, I have maintained close ties to UVM through other alumni and Sigma Phis. My years at UVM were the most valuable in preparing me for a competitive world.

I believe that Mr. Colodny is the right choice, and, while I don’t know Mr. Colodny personally, I remember the Colodny Market in Burlington. The personal attention of that family has always impressed me.

Once again, trustees, thank you for your choice, it reaffirmed my feeling that UVM is a great university.

Ben Black ’62
Plano, Texas