Castleton Spartan

Issue date: 11/18/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Wyatt Alioso Professor Anne Slonaker enjoys a moment in a morning class with her students.

Her office is dim. The only source of light comes from a reading lamp perched on her desk. It splashes light on a thick stack of papers she is leaning over and occasionally scratching notes on with a red pen.

She is Anne Slonaker, an assistant professor of education at Castleton State College. This is her third year at Castleton. She left her position at Penn State to work on the education department's new Inquiry program.

I have arrived early to our pre-arranged meeting and she doesn't seem to mind. When I knocked, her head popped up, she smiled and pushed the papers aside. I had her complete attention.

I asked few questions. A little prompting was enough to instigate a whole chronicle of stories.

What kind of car do you drive?

She snickers and begins listing her Volkswagens and the corresponding names she and her husband assigned them. There was the 61 bug, Maxwell Smart. A square back; Waltzing Matilda.

Maggie the Magnificent. Lemon Bug. Tilley Too.

They all have stories about how they died.

But that was years ago. These days she's driving a Subaru. She is a Vermonter now after all.

What is your favorite TV show?

She and her husband didn't have a TV for a long time. She did like to watch '30 something.' She just recently got a 13-inch TV set and for the first time, they have cable. She watches baseball. She's a Phillies fan. She likes the HBO series 'The Wire.'

Her favorite song?

'Divided Sky' by Phish. They do a lot of improv at concerts and she loved to hear it live. She went to the first Phish Festival in Plattsburg and she was 10 years older than the average attendee. A local paper ran a fuzzy picture of the festival; she can barely be seen at the edge.

Her door is open, which reflects the teaching philosophy at Castleton.

"It's an open-door policy. I like that policy," Slonaker said. "I'm supposed to be accessible. But I feel I'm not accessible enough."

Dianna Greene, a multidisciplinary education major at Castleton disagrees.

"She's always approachable," Greene said. "Like I saw her today, I was venting about another class I'm having issues with. She listened and she said to come in and vent anytime. It helps."

Continued...

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