Rutland Daily Herald from Rutland, Vermont • 7

November 7, 1982 The Sunday Rutland Herald and The Sunday Times Argus Page Seven Middlebury College Gauges Co-Ed Progress PMM MM Wheeler ahowi off hla prospective golf coune. Another problem for women faculty and staff members, uid Rifelj, is the demand on time. This can work to tbe cruel disadvantage of a woman who wants both a career to obtain tenure, for example and a family: The years when faculty members have to prove themselves are the prime childbearing years as well. As a career counselor, O'Connell uid, she finds repeated examples of sexism, the most obvious of which is that women still earn only 59 cents for every dollar men make in similar jobs. There are subtle things in the workplace," she uid, acidly citing a recent Boston Globe story on women managers that appeared on the 'Living' page next to the lasagna recipes rather than on the busineu page.

Workplace sexism sometimes reflects female students' underlying acceptance of prevailing attitudes, O'Connell uid. My biggest concern (is that Middlebury women) are incredibly naive and unaware of the problems they'll face as working women." O'Connell listed a half-dozen recent bright and talented" alumnae who were told by potential employers they would have to take remedial typing lessons. It makes me incredibly angry, but what astounds me is that they do it," she uid. Women students none of the panel members used the vernacular "coed suffer from subtly sexist attitudes as much as do the young men, uid Karen Kaminsky, a junior from New York City and co-chairwoman of the Middlebury Women's Union. Sexist attitudes on campus are Ingrained In women's minds," she uid, adding that discussion of sexism seems to generate discomfort at best, antagonism at worst.

There are problems, not overt ones, no blatant acts of discrimination (of female students)," she said. There is an undercurrent Few stop to think about it." Ted Truscott, a senior and president of the Middlebury Student Forum, noted some underlying assumptions held by male students. There are a lot of male (acuity members whose wives are secretaries or assistant librarians," he uid. But) it isn't always the male ho has the higher paying Job or who has a wife ho moves where be does. Truscott, like the other panelists, concluded that some of the most blatant forms of sexism, are being challenged successfully.

Despite the evident progress, he uid, (here is a long way to go, possibly the most difficult portion of the journey, i have made an outward leap. But attitudes remain the ume," he uid. ByDANGILLMOR MIDDLEBl'RY A hundred years after going coeducational, Middlebury College remains a subtly sexist drop in society's blatantly sexist bucket That wu tbe tentative consensus Friday among student, faculty and staff panelists who discussed the state of coeducation at Middlebury, one of the first New England colleges to admit women. The college this weekend is beginning a year long celebration of coeducation and the process toward equal educational opportunities for women and men since then, --'according to a program of weekend events. By some standards the process has been successful, by others less so.

Few would dispute that women students at Middlebury have equal educational, if not social, opportunities. In fart, Middlebury women have been notably better at classroom work than their male counterparts during most of this century, primarily because more women than men applied for admission and the school was able to be more selective with them, according to college historian David Stameshkin, who also spoke Friday. In recent years, however, Middlebury hu become one of the most selective schools for both sexes, and test and other proficiency scores have evened out. But Middleburys administration and faculty (including the sports coaching staff) remain totally dominated by men," said panelist Carol Rifelj, a French professor: Women are concentrated in the lower ranks." Thats true, acknowledged Nicholas Clifford, college provost and academic vice president. He uid male applicants for teaching Jobs still far outnumber women applicants, though the ratio has been reduced somewhat over the past two decades, with commensurate increases in the number and percentage of women instructors as a result, even if most positions of power at Middlebury are held by men.

Not only do young women lark female role models, said Rifelj, but the few women professors still put up with attitudes that male faculty members do not tolerate. (Women faculty members) feel they have to do more to prove themselves to earn the kind of respect and attention a male gets Just by walking in the room, she uid. Joan O'Connell, associate director of career counseling and placement, uid: I've also felt, when walking Into a room, that I'm questionable until until proven competent rather than competent until proven incompetent. It's difficult for male colleagues to understand. It doesn't happen to them.

Golf Carts Condos To Replace Coics Developing The Old Homestead Irene and Xenophon Wheeler By SARA WID NESS BOLTON Conjure up an Image of a aeptuagenarlan Vermonter named Xenophon Wheeler. Stooped, wizened, feeble? Aa It happena, Xen Wheeler not only loo la a lot younger than hla 71 yearn, but be la anybodyi match when It cornea to making buatnesa deala, especially those that have something to do with land. Hla wife, Irene, who says she Is a few years older than her husband, laughs and figures it's Just the way he Is as be walks their property where cows still graze and where next spring golfers will wheel their carts around. Wheeler Is. turning the equivalent of their south SO," 60 acres tucked Into a plateau surrounded by mountains In West Bolton, Into a nine-bole golf course with the flexibility to move to IS boles by 1985.

The nine-bole course wlU be ready for play in the spring, be promises. Phil Cote, a Richmond contractor, is doing the work. And with the golf course, pending permits, comes a 40-unit condominium development with a Northeast view. All of this Is only a few miles up the Nashville Road, five miles from Jericho Center and about 2S minutes from Burlington. The Wheelers have mixed feelings about what theyre doing with their land and about the problems they have encountered trying to do what they want to do.

On the one hand, they would like to keep their farm property, a total of about 135 acres here In West Bolton, Intact They have no sons and their two daughters have moved away from the area. One lives In Massachusetts and the other in southern Vermont One of the reasons we're doing this is we want some Input on the way we're leaving the profile of West Bolton. If my brother and I hadnt owned a good share of the road, there would be a lot more bouses ou Xen Wheeler says. We want to solidify the profile of the West Bolton Road. If I should die off without having a plan firmly anchored, the farm would be broken tq Into 10-acre lots.

The kind of development be Is planning is good for West Bolton, be says, because i won't overload the school system and will add to the tax base. Also, be says, It will help stabilize the development situation hi town. On the other band, bow do the Wheelers feel about people, even in the ctvillzed manner of golf, moving onto their property? Wo bate to see says Irene, but people have to go somewhere." time. On Armistice Day In 1918 Xen moved with his parents, William and Fanny Wheeler, Into the farmhouse in West Bolton that would have been 150 years old if hadnt burned to the ground about five years ago. Even though the Wheelers have rebuilt, I still think about that bouse," says Irene wistfully.

The farm was originally operated as a dairy farm with 18 cows and a pair of old scrub horses moving around the 165 acres, of which only about 40 are tillable. Xen hauled milk from Bolton to Richmond for five years, 60 cans of milk a day, and used those horses. Every house on the road used to have a few cows and at one time there were too cattle on Bolton Mountain. The family was milking 25 cows when Xen left the farm for a few years and worked in Oregon on farms and in lumber camps until 1927, when he returned to Vermont. That year the family's attention shifted to poultry.

My brother got Into a 4-H project and started raising poultry. We built up to 4,000 layers by 1932. We converted the old cow barns Into a hen house. We used to dress all our own poultry, be says. And on Nov.

24, 1932, be married Irene, the daughter of a village storekeeper who used to play In the band at the village bandstand. She stopped teaching after she wu married. They have two daughters, Barbara Cowles of Pittsford and Doris Brown of Southbridge, Mau. Back In those days," recalls Irene, "broilers were a luxury and we bad a contract with a summer resort In Burlington, the Allen Wood. Inn.

Used to contract with them to supply them with broilers. We used to sell them so much at a piece rate, about 60-70 cents a piece. After the chicken business wu established, the family started raising potatoes. They built a lO.OOOhushd potato cellar under where tbe bens lived, and delivered the potatoes all year to nearby Jonesville. lire cellar now bolds 20.000 bushels.

With 80 acres bt potatoes, that wu a summer and winter Job, Irene recalls. In 1934 Xen begsa a side business of selling grain. His entrepreneurial Instincts took him Into tbe lumber business In 1947 when be and his brother John, now retired to California, bought 6 uwmlll with Arthur Pratt "that took me off the farm. Dont forget tbe strawberries, reminds Irene. We bad eight acres of strawberries to pick.

And we However, says Xen, All this hullabaloo about farmland going out of production I cant see. There's so much good farmland lying Idle. The reason farms are going out of production Is because it isn't profitable to operate them as farms. There are food surpluses aplenty, and everybody squawks If the commodities get too cheap." Xen himself never played golf until four years ago. Now he's throwing around terms like short course," water hazard," moving fairways" like a pro, and with Irene a few weeks back boated an open bouse for about 150 friends at the newly framed clubhouse, approached through a stand of pine trees they set out in 1934.

In fact, says Xen, the rough lumber in the clubhouse comes from that stand, which has been trimmed three or four times." The whole golf course project, be figures, Is coating in the $75,000 range. Putting It together isnt cheap, either in money or wear and tear on the nerves, be says. And Act 250, the states umbrella land development law, Is not one of Wheelers favorite pieces of legislation. Act 250 requirements, be says, have probably mutilated more open land than any single thing. You cant afford to do very much with your land.

Some oil these young engineers working for tbe state are so unreasonable. Department beads wan to make their Jobs secure so they write more regulations. Seems like the young engineers want to see how bard they can make It for you More time and tbelr jobs last longer. You cant do with your own land what you want. Burns me up." Xen's ties to the land, like Irene's, go back considerably Into Bolton history.

Irene was born In West Bolton Just a few miles from tbetr farm In a house that hu gone through transformations from bouse to community church to schoolbouse and back to bouse again. Her roots are deep. She taught school for 15 years In Jericho, one hi Nashville, the other in Lee River. And she was at a rural school In Bolton in 1927, in November, when tbe school got washed away In the flood and five of my students drowned." Whole families went We bad to get out with boats, off the roof. It wu a real bad thing." Xen was bon on a Fairfax farm in 1904 and when be wu old enough be wu sent away to school bee sum hla father had gone to Albany Business College and wanted something better for bis sons than local education could provide at the Nineteenth-century students In Middlebury College claaaroom.

peak of 22 employees at one lime. I sold the whole complex, Richmond Seed, but kept the grain busineu and the fertilizer business. I had four fertilizer trucks on the road In the spring and was one of the first dealers to handle liquid nitrogen In the state. Through a busineu situation Richmond Seed came back to him again, and he still spends an hour or so a day tending that shop. He goes on and on.

He can quit, uys Irene. Xen's interest In farming dwindled somewhat In the mid-'60s, when he laid out 26 building lots on some of his property and built 25 houses. But 1 wu losing too much money so I quite building houses," he uys Then I got sucked Into a deal In Swanton. There were 32 building lots there. It went kaput.

I got paid for 22. The bank foreclosed on the people I sold it to and I got washed out." In addition to farms and busineu. Xen has been in town politics most of my life." He was a town selectman for 21 years. I've held most town offices. I think we re the oldest people in town.

Both he and Irene have been active in the Farm Bureau, and Xen served on the Mount Mansfield Union School Board. The golf course "Is something I've wanted to do for a long time. But I didn't want to get over a barrel money-wise. But reached the point, uys Irene, where we bated to think of having someone else's development on land we've worked so hard to keep." Says Xen, Almost every week someone Cornu and wants to buy land. Land' Is something I like.

I bought of a lot of land In the 1930s and '40s when land wu very cheap. It's done real well for us. We still have a lot of it." had lots of squash. We had 2,000 to 3,000 bushels of squash that we peddled all winter. Took It to town every week with the eggs.

strawberries and squash didn't last too long. It was a seven-day-a-week job, a real business. Oh, it was awful, with everything else, it was too much." Says Xen, We bred sows to feed the cull potatoes to, had 12 or 14 one year. When pork got up to 8-12 cents a pound we delivered to Montpelier. Finally got out of the hog business." We still have a ways to go before we get out of everything," Irene says.

There's no end to it. Sometimes we'd butcher too bens a day. We'd all help pinfeather and help grade potatoes and pack the eggs." Xen got Into the dairy business again In 1944 when he bought a 65-acre farm in Underhill, right In the village, with 36 tie-ups. He hired a man to do the milking there. Last winter the barn burned and they lost about 36 cows.

We never found out who did it, but we know It wu set because they tried to set a fire across the road too, be says In 1949 they took over the contract on a big farm In Richmond where they're still milking about 279 cows. When we bought they were shipping 583 tons of milk a day. It was up to three tons of milk In 1970 and now it's at seven tons. The house on that farm, too, burned down last winter. In 1954 Xen wu looking for a place for an outlet for bis feed.

A coal business came on the market and we bought It and were in the coal business for a few years. Tbe next year the John Deere franchise opened up In Richmond and Xen wu In businesf again. He built that bus loess over IS years to a Pig Farm Prospect Odious To Mountain Road Neighbors and uid it is retaliation for the local uproar over the hotel propoul. The developer's request for the mandatory state environmental permit was turned down last month after neighbors complained a new hotel would ruin one of the last open spaces on the busy stretch of highway that winds up a mountainside. Ray Ramsey, who owns another hotel in Vermont and four in other parts of New England, has told state and town officials be will raise up to 200 pigs and some cattles on 16 acres of the Stowe land he bought for 1110.000 in April.

He uid be would build 56 pens, a barn, a chicken coop and a mobile home (of a hire hand on his land. The town granted tbe permit since agriculture is permitted In the area under local zoning laws. Superior Court Judge Alan Cook on Friday refused to vacate the court order and scheduled a bearing on a temporary injunction order against manure trucking. STOWE (AP) Neighbors of a picturesque meadow in this tourist town didn't want another motel built along a road lined with inns, eateries and condominiums but they uy they don't want a pig farm there either. A Maine developer who was denied the necessary state nod tor his proposed 79-unit motel has been given a town zoning permit for ralsingpigsatthesite.

Manure truckloads dumped by the developer at the Vermont 106 location in the past few weeks raised the Ire of nearby residents and prompted a court order against further deliveries. Some of the residents opposed to the pig plan were In Lamoille County Superior Court late last week defending tbe court order. They have also appealed the zoning permit granted to Ramsey Associates, of York, Maine. Jonathan Brownell, a lawyer hired by townspeople, called the new plan a Joke replaced by modem units which duplicate tbe appearance of tbe original windows. A new root refitting tbe elevator.

Installing Insulation, modernizing of tbe mechanical systems and a complete overhaul of be second-door interior are also part of tbe first phase of construction. Remodel to of tbe third door Interior Is scheduled for completion next year. Means said Frank Sparrow wu hired general contractor for tbe Job because of hla experience In restoration wort. We were especially Impressed with his restoration and conversion of the Victorian mansion on Pine Street, which now known at Tbe Kingsley Condominiums," said Means. Hawley's Florists and Barclays office equipment and supplies store will remain In tbelr first -floor locations on long-term leases and tbelr businesses will not be Interrupted during construction, Means uid.

Means uid that with tbe onset of winter weather, the outside wort on tbe building Is being sped along and several crews win be working simultaneously so various parts of tbe three-story, building. Tbe change that will be most obvious to passer sty win be tbe removal of tbe deteriorating plywood skin that hu covered tbe brick facade and tbe second-and third-floor windows for years. Means uid, Retention and restoration of the cornice along tbe top of tbe building is critical Is preserving tbe original character of tbe front exterior. We learned from records of tbe State Historical Society that (his Is tbe longest unbroken 19th century cornice la downtown Rutland and Its repeating arch design Is soe of (be best examples of architectural detailing for that period." Other wort scheduled for completioa before winter. Includes reopening and enlarging tbe first Door main entry to Rs original size and reactivating tbe elevator.

Windows hidden behind tbe plywood front were found to be beyond restoration and will be Center Street Office Building Being Restored RUTLAND The business block at 25-29 Center SL is under going restoration. The bull ding wu purchased Oct 22 by associate members of A.M. Peisch and Co, a 60-year-old Vermont accounting (Inn, from Peter and Josephine AKrui George M. Means HL managing partner for tbe grog), said his firm will ocay 2,006 square feet of tbe second Door and la looking for additional tenants (or the rematalng office space. Purchase price of tbe building Mock wu according to Means.

The work on tbe building Is expected to be completed by the end of December, Means said. We have great confidence downtown Rutland and this la a merior Vocation." be uid. The building is sound although hu been long neglected, said Means: It deeems to be restored and rehabilitated Into a modem efficient structure, but with its original character brought back to Ufe.".