Community Health Education major Jolie Ritzo schools
future Olympians at CVA
Jolie Ritzo, who majored in community health education and teaches at Carrabassett Valley Academy near Maine's Sugarloaf ski resort, understands her students' goals. Most at the prestigious college-preparatory academy (that counts Kristen Clark, Bode Miller and Seth Wescott as competitive skiing and snowboarding alumni) would like nothing more than to stand atop National, Olympic and World Cup podiums.
Despite their ambitions, Ritzo says there's one topic that won't make the grade for her creative writing assignments.
"They're so passionate about their sport that I have to say, 'Tell me more about yourself than your love of skiing and snowboarding,'" says Ritzo, who teaches English, social studies and health at CVA. "We have very goal-oriented kids here, but we can't allow skiing and snowboarding to be the only focus. It has to be balanced by all of the rest of the things that go into making us who we are. Our alumni are doing some amazing things, and a lot of it doesn't have to do with skiing."
So, for Ritzo's students the après-ski scene involves school work- and lots of it. Ninety-eight percent of CVA alumni go to college, and given how much learning, skiing and snowboarding CVA students pack into a typical day, they graduate with superior time-management skills. It's a lifestyle that Ritzo, who graduated from CVA and was a competitive ski racer, knows all too well.
She started her college career at a large public university in New Hampshire. But after taking several intro-level courses "with upwards of 300 students," she found the school "overwhelming in its size."
Her parents, she says, encouraged her to come home and "take classes at UMF to sort out what I wanted to do." Asked why she stayed, she recalls sitting roundtable-style with 12 other students in a creative writing course taught by UMF Professor Pat O'Donnell.
"It was awesome," she says. "I was used to growing up in a small-school community where people make eye contact with you, and it was right there again at UMF."
-- By Marc Glass, managing editor of the UMF alumni magazine
