< Back Steven Arms David and Jan Blittersdorf Frank Bryan Mary Cushman David Marvin Raymond J. McNulty Lindsey Melander Miriam E. Nelson Germain Njila David Perez Andrew Siebengartner Bridget Thabault John Todd Mary C. Watzin Jody Williams		RAYMOND J. MCNULTY C.A.G.S. Administration and Planning, 1983, College of Education and Social Services Born in East Boston, educated in Massachusetts, Ray McNulty got his first teaching job in Montgomery, Vermont and was paid an extra $400 to be assistant principal “and chase the boys who were smoking out of the boiler room.” He spent the next thirty years in Vermont, rising to principal to superintendent to Commissioner of Education. The University of Vermont was with him every step of the way. “There wasn’t a place,” McNulty says, “where UVM wasn’t present.” During his first principalship he was the subject of a UVM professor’s ethnographic study while thirty undergraduates bunked with families in the neighborhood to gain firsthand knowledge of rural education. “Not only do young people go to UVM for a good education, but UVM comes to you.” While earning a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Administration and Planning at the College of Education and Social Services, McNulty made “really strong connections with the University. Probably the most important lesson I learned is summed up in an expression on the wall of my office: ‘Those who teach must never cease to learn.’ We’re always seeking to do a better job for children.” As Commissioner of Education, McNulty relied heavily on UVM. “The University is a key partner on many fronts,” he says. “It has a sweeping set of responsibilities, and it steps up to the plate.” In 2003 McNulty was named program director for education by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His mission is to improve high school graduation rates and access to college, especially among African-American and Hispanic students, by transforming high schools throughout the nation. Why would the largest philanthropic organization in the world entrust this responsibility to a veteran educator in a state whose African-American and Hispanic populations are minuscule? “Vermont’s a great state for its public education system,” McNulty says. And the University lends Vermont’s schools invaluable support.