Snelling Center: Other Programs
Current:
Orientation for New Vermont Legislators
In collaboration with Vermont's Legislative Council and Joint Fiscal Office, The Snelling Center offers a three-day training session to new state legislators before the start of each legislative session.
Training for Boards and Commissions
The Snelling Center offers retreats and professional development series designed to meet the specific needs of policy-making organizations. For example, state environmental policy-makers participated in a two-day educational retreat in 1994; members of Vermont's Supreme Court and the Vermont Bar Association's Environmental Law Committee served as the panelists and leaders. Other retreats have focused on regional planning, statewide transportation, and women in higher education.
Past:
The Snelling Center/Windham Foundation Partnership
In 2000, The Snelling Center partnered with The Windham Foundation to promote public discussion of the individual citizen's role in state and local government in the 21st century. In June, The Windham Foundation hosted a Grafton Conference in which participants were challenged to revisit Vermont's rich democratic traditions and create ideas for enhancing those traditions or developing new models for public participation.
→ Link
The Vermont Survey Research Project
This project encourages Vermonters to add their voices to the process of public policy creation and assessment. Currently, twenty-four foundation, association, and business community members serve on an executive committee guiding the formulation and administration of semi-annual surveys. Past surveys, addressing topics such as educational reform and the ongoing debate over Act 60, continue to provide data for in-depth analysis of issues important to all Vermonters. The most recent survey, published in January 2001, dealt with economic development in Vermont and public opinion following Vermont's general election in the year 2000.
The Northeast Kingdom Enterprise Collaborative (NEKEC)
The Collaborative is comprised of public agencies, municipalities, educational institutions, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and community groups dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Northeast Kingdom, Vermont's most economically disadvantaged area. The Snelling Center helped develop NEKEC and continues to provide technical and organizational support.
→ www.nekcollaborative.org
Vermont State Government Since 1965
In conjunction with The University of Vermont's Center for Research on Vermont, The Snelling Center published a supplement to Andrew and Edith Nuquist's State Government in Vermont (1966). With chapters written by such Vermonters as former Secretary of State and current State Treasurer Jim Douglas, Justice John Dooley, State Archivist D. Gregory Sanford, and other prominent Vermonters, Vermont State Government Since 1965 chronicles the state's recent history as a window through which to frame future policy and continued positive change.
Vermont Presidential Primary Information Booklet
The Snelling Center worked with the Vermont Secretary of State's Office to develop, organize, and distribute a non-partisan voter information booklet for the state's first binding presidential primary in 1996.
Vermont Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations (VANPO)
In conjunction with The Vermont Community Foundation, The Snelling Center provided technical and organizational support to establish VANPO, an organization that seeks to increase the influence and organizational capacity of nonprofit organizations in Vermont through collaboration, education and advocacy.
→ www.vanpo.org