Health & Wellness

Emotional, Physical, Mental Health

We look at the health of our community ecosystem from the ground up. From campus safety to promoting respect and inclusion on campus, the Sterling College Wellness Team seeks to provide an environment where you can flourish.

Wellness Center

Our Wellness Center is a fully stocked, self-serve first aid site.

Clare Dolan, Director of Wellness Services, is accessible throughout the week via tele-health, scheduled appointments, and drop-in hours. She can assist students in scheduling to help set up medical and mental health appointments with local health and wellness facilities. She is available to help students understand and access their health insurance coverage, in addition to providing for students’ minor medical needs.

The Wellness Services Team offers support to students around issues of stress, transition, general mental health, and crisis response. Students with acute mental health issues will be referred to a licensed psychologist or emergency services, if necessary.

Local Health and Wellness Resources

If a doctor’s examination or outside wellness resources are required, the Wellness Service Team will assist with appointments and transportation. Excellent facilities are available in Hardwick, 10 miles from campus, and at Copley Hospital in Morrisville, 20 miles away.

List of Local Health and Wellness Resources

Students with chronic or long-term illness are encouraged to maintain the care of their home practitioner or to establish themselves with a doctor in the community.

Immunization Requirements

As part of our commitment to the health and wellness of our community, all students are required to complete and return an Immunization Certification Form. For more information about immunizations that are required by the State of Vermont, visit the Vermont Department of Health Website.

Click on the link to see Sterling’s most recent compliance report filed with the Department of Health. Sterling College Immunization Report.

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EMERGENCY TO EMERGENCE PODCAST // David Gilligan, Faculty in Ecology and Associate Dean of Sterling's Wilderness Field Programs, wants other humans to know that nature is our home. He reminds us that wild nature is the ”wellspring of human being, of all diverse cultures on planet earth, of all creativity, of all thought.” After many years of venturing into the wild nature and conceiving of it as the ultimate unbounded classroom, David remains awed by the depth and kinds of learning that are possible in extended backcountry field programs. For this reason, he (along with recent guest Laura Beebe), lead Sterling’s Wilderness Field Program, which gives undergraduate and Gap Year learners an immersive opportunity to simultaneous participate in a liberal arts education and adventure in the Southwest and emerge as influential interdisciplinary naturalists, environmental leaders, educators, and protectors of the wild. Guided by the belief that free people are responsible for knowing about and caring for our earthly home, the Wilderness Field Program uses experiential, liberal arts education -- and a curriculum that blends outdoor skills with natural history and sciences, arts, humanities, and indigenous cultural studies -- to prepare the next generation to protect, preserve, and thrive as part of the natural world.

Take a listen. Link on bio.

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We recently partnered with the Kentucky Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation to plant 24 American Chestnut trees at the Brown Farm of the Wendell Berry Farming Program. These tall trees reigned forest canopies along the eastern coast for millions of years until the first half of the 20th century when heavy logging combined with the introduction of a fungal blight decimated their population.

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Creepy Crawlies | Sterling Chronicles

Michael Tessler '09 started catching creepy crawlies at a very young age. This passion was evident during his time as a student at Sterling. This love was further fostered in graduate school, first working on moss ecology at Fordham University and then on leech evolution at the American Museum of Natural History. He continued postdoctoral work on broader questions of plant and animal evolution across the tree of life. His research has led to over 30 journal articles, a textbook on phylogenomics, media coverage by the New York Times, and fieldwork across the globe.

Doing this research, he has mentored over 20 students (high school through doctoral), many of whom have helped co-authored publications. Currently, Michael is an Assistant Professor of Biology at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, where he continues his passion for teaching the next generation of scientists and grow my research in ecology and evolution.

This video was made possible by a generous donation from David Behrend ’60.

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Some of the most beautiful aspects of Henry County, Kentucky, could go easily unnoticed, unless you stop to look. We're grateful for autumn weather and its fungal blooms, how about you?

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Cob oven skill swap full of clay shaping, hay snipping, watermelon harvesting, and dancing on cattails at the Wendell Berry Farming Program. The work IS the reward, students are excited for upcoming pizza nights at Hope Hill Farm!

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Student, Ruth Gardinet, talks about why she chose Outdoor Education and how community can serve as a support system.

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Celebrating Sterling College President, Matthew Derr. As nature has demonstrated, the only constant is change and disturbances are important for health and evolution. When a tree falls in the forest - a disturbance - there is a loss but also an abundance of opportunity and potential for new growth. Speaking in ecological terms, Sterling is in a moment of secondary succession.

As Matthew Derr’s last day as president approaches, October 31, we acknowledge the vision and passion that he has brought to his nearly ten years. Through his good work, he has inspired many to consider what is possible in higher education and how it can be a force that strengthens the human relationship with the natural world. The role of mission-aligned philanthropy has been a transformative component of our collective success and is critical to fulfill Sterling’s aspirations for the future.

In this moment, we invite you to show your support of this special institution, its collective vision, and all that we have accomplished during Matthew’s tenure with a tax-deductible gift. A gift today will help ensure a smooth transition for our community and ensure the Sterling experience for what it is known for: accessible, experiential, supportive, and interdisciplinary.

The future is brighter with Sterling in it.

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Students on the banks of Six Mile Creek during ecology class at the Wendell Berry Farming Program.

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New student, Oliver D'Orazio, speaks on the value of a small community.

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Student Anna Webber-Loomis provides gear repair services and education to the local community as part of an Experiential Work Learning Grant received from the Work College Consortium. The grant supports Sterling's new Community Gear Design and Repair Program which included the purchase of this industrial sewing machine. Students like Anna will provide gear repairs to students and employees as well as the greater Craftsbury community.

This new program at Sterling is a direct result of a course the College piloted in Spring 2021 by the same name, Gear Design and Repair.

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EMERGENCY TO EMERGENCE PODCAST // Laura Beebe joins Emergency to Emergence hosts, Nakasi and Dakota, for a rich conversation on the importance of the backcountry to human development -- her own and her students. Resisting a guide’s tendency to define backcountry in geographical terms or locate it far from the places that bear obvious marks of human development, Laura conceives of backcountry as a "state of being" reached through immersion in natural places, relationships with other species and with ecologies, and a sense of belonging among the same. But in this ranging and rich conversation, Laura also resists the all-too-common tendency to obscure the modern cultural forces that force separation, replicate problematic hierarchies and tend to make adventure and discovery exclusive. Reflecting on several decades of often being the only women in male-dominated spaces, Laura also delves into the inclusive aspirations of Sterling College’s Wilderness Field Program and illustrates how extended backcountry education, paired with the study of natural history and cultural ecology, allow students to see into deep time, celebrate continuance, and figure out more about how they want to be in the world. TAKE A LISTEN. LINK ON BIO.

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Last week we hosted a group of 10 new Sterling College students at The Farm Between. They spent an afternoon harvesting apples, as the surrounding hillsides were just beginning to show color. We grow around 40 varieties of apples at The Farm Between, which we sell wholesale: early, mid and late season apples, cider apples and dessert apples, red apples, speckled apples, russeted apples. For those interested in growing your own, we still have trees available for sale in the nursery. Please email thefarmbetween@sterlingcollege.edu or call (802) 335-2000 to schedule an appointment.

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Health & Wellness

Health & Wellness

Emotional, Physical, Mental Health

Wellness Center

Local Health and Wellness Resources

Immunization Requirements

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Gravity & Gravidity

Give Us This Day Our Daily Toast

Nelson, Jeanette, and Yaya: A Carrot, By Any Other Name…