is 开云体育鈥檚 listener-powered journalism podcast. Every episode begins with a question submitted by our audience. Today, Tess Mix of Tunbridge asks us to investigate speculation she鈥檚 been aware of ever since she was a kid:
鈥淒o South Royalton and the surrounding towns actually have to worry about the Vermont law school leaving, or is it just a recurring rumor?鈥�
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Sabine Poux: OK ready? From 开云体育 and the NPR network, this is Brave Little State. I鈥檓 Sabine Poux.
Frances Mize: I鈥檓 Frances Mize. (laughing) From the NPR network, I鈥檓 Frances Mize.
Sabine Poux: Yeah. Straight from it.
Frances Mize: Alright.
Sabine Poux: Alright.
Sabine Poux: This is my roommate and dear friend, Frances. A few weeks ago, I asked her if she'd let me roll tape while we were chatting. She kindly obliged.
Frances Mize: We鈥檙e sitting outside of RB鈥檚 Delicatessen on the South Royalton Green. And we live about 12 minutes from here.
Sabine Poux: I don鈥檛 know if that鈥檚 going to make it in because that鈥檚 kind of personal. (Laughter)
Sabine Poux: Frances has lived near South Royalton for years. I鈥檓 a newcomer. So when I decided to move to this area, she suggested I drive around and get a feel for it, best I could.
Sabine Poux: The first time I ever visited this here town, South Royalton, I texted you my observations. Can you read them? Can we find them in your phone?
Frances Mize: Sabine said, 鈥淲hy were there multiple young hot people walking around South Royalton?鈥� I responded, 鈥淚 know. It鈥檚 hot there. Vermont Law School is the reason why.鈥�
Sabine Poux: Look. I have no shortage of small town love in my heart. Still, I think it鈥檚 fair to say that if you鈥檙e hoping to spot young hot people ambling around in big numbers, you're better off setting your sights on the big city.
More from Brave Little State: What鈥檚 Vermont鈥檚 small-town dating scene like?
But, like Frances said 鈥� this small town has something that others don鈥檛: Vermont Law and Graduate School, the state鈥檚 only law school.
Sabine Poux: Do you see a lot of people from the law school on dating apps?
Frances Mize: Yeah. These people are all over Hinge.
Sabine Poux: Can you tell on Hinge when someone鈥檚 here from the law school?
Frances Mize: That鈥檚 a good question. Yes. There鈥檚 a certain look sometimes to a law鈥� to a Vermont law school student. They鈥�
Sabine Poux: Can you describe the look?
Frances Mize: Just a certain, uhh, glimmer in their eye. (Laughter)
Sabine Poux: The glimmer of justice.
Frances Mize: The glimmer of justice. Right.
Sabine Poux: The law school鈥檚 footprint in this part of the state is no joke. About 400 of its students live here, in tiny South Royalton and the surrounding communities. They make up something like half of South Royalton鈥檚 population.
The law school鈥檚 been around since the early 1970s, when it was founded by . Anthony first started another school, Royalton College; the law school was sort of tacked on. And while the original institution went out of business, the law school persisted. And it quickly carved out a niche befitting its bucolic setting. Over time, this scrappy institution came to boast .
Make no mistake: The school didn鈥檛 trade scrappiness for snobbery. It doesn鈥檛 really attract typical, buttoned-up, corporate lawyer types. I mean, there are compost toilets in the main academic building. The slogan on the school鈥檚 website is 鈥淚dealists. Realists. Catalysts for change.鈥�
Some alumni stay in Vermont to practice law. Three of the five Vermont Supreme Court Justices right now are graduates of the law school.
Tess Mix: The conversation about where the law school fits into all of our lives has been, like, omnipresent my whole life.
Sabine Poux: This is Tess Mix. She spent her childhood just up Route 110 from South Royalton, in neighboring Tunbridge, and she recently moved back home. The law school is basically her neighbor.
Tess Mix: Yeah, I mean, I go to their gym. I donated blood today at the law school.
Sabine Poux: But for as long as she can remember, there鈥檚 been this sort of black cloud hanging overhead. She says the law school鈥檚 presence in town has felt tenuous.
Tess Mix: Everybody's scared, I think, of maybe finding out that maybe the law school is actually, truly, going to actually move up to Burlington, even though they've been saying this since I was a kid. Like this, this conversation that happens every few years has been happening as long as I can remember.
Sabine Poux: Moving the law school to Burlington. It's an idea that was floated a few years ago, when the school was looking for ways to fix its financial problems. And it seemed plausible. They already have a satellite office there. And it鈥檚 easier to get to Burlington from other places than it is to South Royalton.
It wasn鈥檛 the first time upping sticks for the big city came up. And it probably won鈥檛 be the last, either.
Tess Mix: That's the thing. It's like, constantly, like, well鈥� it's cyclical. Like every few years someone鈥檚 like 鈥淎h!鈥�
More from 开云体育: South Royalton businesses concerned with Vermont Law School's financial challenges
Sabine Poux: Tess says her mom 鈥� who has been in the area since the law school started 鈥� she鈥檚 been hearing these rumors for more than 50 years.
And even though the school's still around, so are the rumors. That makes Tess nervous. She wants to open a restaurant, right on the town green.
Tess Mix: I have a dream of reopening the pub that I went to as a kid. But, yeah, I think that honestly, again, like the fear goes to, if the law school wasn't here, would it be financially viable?
Sabine Poux: So, she wants to know:
Tess Mix: My question is, does South Royalton and the surrounding towns actually have to worry about the Vermont law school leaving, or is it just a recurring rumor?
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A whirlwind tour
Sabine Poux: South Royalton is the platonic ideal of a New England town. Look no further than 鈥� where shots of South Royalton stand in as Stars Hollow.
The town is sandwiched between I-89 and the White River. And the law school campus is pretty much the first thing you see when you cross the bridge into town.
Drive a little further and you鈥檒l get to the geographic heart of the community鈥� a gazebo-dotted town green, bordered by a church, train tracks and a strip of locally owned businesses 鈥� including not one but two bustling coffee shops.
It鈥檚 here where the energy of the law school is undeniable.
On weekday mornings, groups of students huddle over their laptops at First Branch Coffee, which acts as a de facto student library.
Lauren Adamoli: I do have a good, solid community of local folks and my regular people, but I feel like they're a decent percentage of our day to day sales.
Sabine Poux: Owner Lauren Adamoli says she hires law students to work the front.
Lauren Adamoli: So it's just such a hub. There's people that live upstairs that are law school students.
Sabine Poux: A few doors down is the South Royalton Legal Clinic 鈥� the law school鈥檚 version of a teaching hospital. Clients come from all over Vermont to get pro bono legal help from students and their supervising attorneys 鈥� on family law cases and on appeals to the department of Veterans Affairs.
Lawrence Creech: Trying to navigate the legal system on the VA end is nearly impossible.
Sabine Poux: Lawrence Creech is an Army vet who lives in Rochester. He says the VA messed up an operation he had back in 2019. With the clinic's help, he鈥檚 been fighting to be compensated since.
Lawrence Creech: You know, It鈥檚 been saving my mental part of my being, by able to talk to somebody and saying, 鈥淚t's OK, it's going to be alright, things are going to get better. We're going to try to help you.鈥� It gives you encouragement.
Sabine Poux: After school, law school students get drinks at Crossroads. Professors take meetings at Worthy Burger.
And on a handful of winter nights, you鈥檒l find a considerable law school contingent in nearby Woodstock, at the Union Arena.
That鈥檚 because Vermont Law and Graduate School has a hockey team. They attract a sizable, very rowdy crowd.
One first-year law student is dressed as the team鈥檚 mascot: the 鈥淔ighting Swan.鈥� It鈥檚 a riff on the swan included in the school鈥檚 official academic seal 鈥� an emblem that stands for dignity, strength and grace.
(Fans yelling)
Sabine Poux: From the coffee shop to the legal clinic to the ice, law students are everywhere. Even on the local airwaves.
Julia Wickham: We're gonna keep going with our 鈥�90s theme here on the One Woman Show, where we listen to women in country, folk and bluegrass music.
Sabine Poux: Julia Wickham is a second-year law school student studying agricultural law. On this Tuesday night, she鈥檚 in the DJ chair at Royalton Community Radio 鈥� the local, volunteer-led radio station housed above an old garage on the law school鈥檚 campus. Four of her law school friends eat pizza and pore over a course catalog in the room next door.
Friend: It was free pizza on campus.
Julia Wickham: They ran over there to go get it.
Sabine Poux: Julia鈥檚 from a small town in Iowa. She loves that South Royalton is small, too.
Julia Wickham: Growing up in a small town and then being, you know, living in one, I knew that it was really important to me to, to kind of jump in and meet folks. So I feel like I've鈥� this year's been really busy, but I feel like I've made a good, a good little path through the town.
Tess Mix: It's great to have these kids around.
Sabine Poux: Question-asker Tess Mix again.
Tess Mix: And I can't believe I'm saying kids. I used to think they looked so much older than me, but (laughter) they're not anymore. It's just, it鈥檚 just great. It鈥檚 a great thing to have the school here. It adds a lot of, a lot of just energy to the community.
Sabine Poux: Energy and also money. Law students rent a lot of the homes in town. The school pays taxes to Royalton, and has scholarships for local kids.
Tess Mix: There's an economy here based on the law school, and I totally understand that. I'm wondering if we're as reliant on it as we think. But also I don't want the law school to go anywhere.
Sabine Poux: Well, Tess, we have good news for you.
'Here to stay'
About a month into the law school鈥檚 spring semester, I visited campus to put Tess鈥� question directly to the source: Rod Smolla, president of the law school.
Sabine Poux: I wanna ask the question that this this question-asker had about whether the law school would ever move to a place like Burlington, would ever join up with UVM, for example.
What do you think of that?
Rod Smolla: The easy answer is, no. No. People thought about it five or six years ago. It didn't look feasible, and there's, now it's completely off the table.
Sabine Poux: Five or six years ago, the law school was dealing with some big budget issues. Like other law schools around the country, Vermont law had , which . A few years before Rod became president, the school in an attempt to cut costs.
And the school鈥檚 board of trustees said it was considering a bunch of possibilities to right the ship 鈥� including moving the campus to Burlington to be closer .
Rod says, they looked into it and decided it just didn鈥檛 make sense. They already had the property in South Royalton, and had invested a lot into it. And Rod says the rural location is actually a draw for a lot of people.
Rod Smolla: There's simply no good reason to move and it would be an enormous headache, very difficult.
Sabine Poux: Instead of moving, the school did a big rebrand. In 2022, the same year Rod became president, it changed its name from Vermont Law School to Vermont Law and Graduate school. With help from an so students could get masters degrees in things like public policy and restorative justice, not just JDs.
Rod Smolla: That鈥檚 giving us a new stream of enrollment.
Sabine Poux: And the school amped up its online offerings, so students can get law and masters degrees remotely.
Rod Smolla: And that has proven to be enormously popular. And so it's the blend of the opening of the graduate school and the very robust online law school program that we have that has turned the trick.
Sabine Poux: Also: The school launched a big fundraising campaign. It鈥檚 also been working on getting its 鈥� an important measure of a law school鈥檚 success.
In other words 鈥�
Rod Smolla: We're here to stay. We're stable. We're not moving.
If you're interested in opening a restaurant or a hotel or an apartment complex, come to South Royalton, there's plenty of students that'll that'll buy your services and your stuff.
Sabine Poux: It sounds like this is sort of a rumor that comes up every couple years. How do you, how can you kind of quash it?
Rod Smolla: I don't know. I'm hoping this interview does the trick! We made the decision 鈥� first day I came, I said, 鈥淲e鈥檙e not moving.鈥� Board has said we鈥檙e not moving, we鈥檙e not moving. And we still get the questions. Somebody comes up to me, you know, in a wine bar, and says, 鈥淲hen are you moving to Burlington?鈥� So you all send the word out: We're not moving. We're here. We love it here.
Its own lifeforce
Sabine Poux: South Royalton has this really unique young energy. My roommate Frances and I feel it. Question-asker Tess feels it.
Tess Mix: Things are really happening here, like there's people are doing really cool things.
Sabine Poux: And those cool things are coming from all sorts of places 鈥� not just the law school. At least, according to Susan Dollenmaier.
Susan Dollenmaier: How about this? I only speak from my age group. They don't know anything about the law school, and they don't really care. I鈥檓 telling the truth!
Sabine Poux: Susan is Tess鈥檚 mom. I met up with the two of them at First Branch, that coffee shop on the main street.
Susan鈥檚 brother-in-law was part of the law school鈥檚 first ever graduating class in the mid-1970s. She鈥檚 been in the area almost as long.
Susan Dollenmaier: I didn't realize it at the time, because I was part of it. But there was a major influx of what I would call counter cultural types. I definitely was one of those people.
Sabine Poux: She鈥檚 seen almost 50 years of law school classes come and go.
Susan Dollenmaier: The older I got, your dad and I would say, 鈥淗ere come the baby law students.鈥� Because, I mean, the older you get the younger they look.
Tess Mix: I said the exact same thing when we were talking the other day.
Sabine Poux: The thing is, Susan says, most of those 鈥渂aby law students鈥� are around for three years at a time.
The energy that sustains this place long term 鈥� it鈥檚 coming from people who are putting down roots here. Starting businesses here.
Susan Dollenmaier: The co-op next door, in my opinion, has absolutely cemented this community in a way that is mind blowing.
Sabine Poux: People who are running for local office and raising families 鈥� and moving back home. People like Tess.
Susan Dollenmaier: OK, this is another thing: More people Tess鈥檚 age are coming back here or moving here.
Tess Mix: I would say it's like very, especially, like, accelerated from the COVID pandemic. Like, there's very, you could definitely see this, like, second return, which is, I think, very, very similar to what happened in 1970s.
Susan Dollenmaier: Yeah, I think it could be.
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Credits
Thanks to Tess Mix, of Tunbridge, for the great question.
This episode was reported by Sabine Poux. It was edited and produced by Josh Crane and Burgess Brown. Our intern is Catherine Morrissey. Angela Evancie is our Executive Producer. Digital support from Sophie Stephens. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to Stephanie Clark, Don Hayes, Lisa Lance, Todd Tyson, Katie Merrill, Victoria Paquin, Andrew Hockenberry, Matthew McGovern, Drew Collins and Kelli Cigelnik.
As always, our journalism is better when you鈥檙e a part of it:
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Brave Little State is a production of 开云体育 and a proud member of the NPR Network.
