In Saxtons River, educating herbalists

Vermont Business Magazine, Apr 01, 1997 by Reing, Susan

in 15 years of working up and down the Connecticut River Valley, Acworth, NH, midwife Elizabeth Mazanec has earned a reputation for being able to deliver.

But the hardest birth she's ever supervised is in Saxtons River, and it's not a baby but an alternative medical school, the Northeast College of Healing Arts and Science.

The college opened its doors in September, in a building on the former campus of New England Kurn Hattin Homes. It's just where Mazanec pictured her school being, and that's a story in itself.

Starting a college is a big-league proposition, requiring big bucks, a board of trustees, regulatory approvals, aggressive fund-raising and a marketing campaign to make it fly. Which makes it all the more unlikely that Mazanec was able to succeed in bringing her vision to fruition in under three years.

Mazanec would be the last person to describe herself as a hard-headed businesswoman. If instead, she depends on what she calls her spiritual instincts to guide her. In the back of her mind was the thought that someday she wanted to start an alternative health-care clinic in the area, and that having some kind of training available for these kinds of practitioners would help support it.

"I did a walking meditation," she recalled, "and it came to me that it was time to start the school."

She walked back into her house and announced to her husband that she was going to establish a college.

"He told me I was nuts," she laughed.

WHY SAXTONS RIVER?

From the first, Mazanec had her sights set on the old Kurn Hattin campus. Kurn Hattin, a residential school for children in grades 1 through 8, with a main campus in neighboring Westminster, had finally decided to end the segregation of the sexes, and had opted to close down the girls' campus in Saxtons River and move everyone to the main facility.

That decision had some major implications for the village of Saxtons River. The campus was probably the largest remaining parcel of undeveloped land in a small residential community, and very few -- if any -- residents wanted to see a bustling truck terminal or large-scale industry snatch it up.

Mazanec initially hoped to swing the purchase of the entire property herself, but the $650,000 asking price was beyond her means. In the meantime, the village of Saxtons River stepped forward, and trustees eventually were successful in getting a $350,000 community development grant from the Vermont Agency of Development and Community Affairs. That grant, combined with Kurn Hattin's willingness to hold $350,000 of the mortgage, enabled the village to close on the property early this year.

And Mazanec was right in line to get her school's name on the list of potential tenants.

Mazanec said she already knew she wanted to put the college in the Bellows Falls area.

"For one thing, they were really interested in having a college in their town," she said. "And the (Montrealer) train comes through there, which was important in terms of getting students. And, the community could really benefit from having a clinic here."

There were other reasons as well. The state of Vermont was very receptive to the idea of an alternative medical college, she said.

"The New Hampshire Department of Education made it very clear they didn't want us," she said, "Vermont welcomed us. And the Connecticut River Valley is full of alternative health-care practitioners. That meant we would be well received and we'd be able to get good teachers."

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

From the first, it's been a grassroots operation, Mazanec said. She, her husband and children have all pitched in to renovate the former Hewitt Cottage where the school is housed, and to get things off the ground. A core group of 14 people volunteered their time, and didn't start getting paid until school opened this past September.

"Even now, we're making substandard wages," she said. "Everyone is doing it because they want this project to happen." In the last year the college has been able to raise $135,000 in seed money, mainly in the form of small donations from practitioners, clients, and community people interested in seeing the school succeed. Mazanec would like to raise at least that much this year as well.

"We're just squeaking by," she said.

But making the college profitable was never in Mazanec's plans: So long as it can be financially viable, that's good enough for her. And her biggest goal is to bring some well-deserved respectability to alternative health care.

In Europe, where homeopathy and herbology have been accepted therapies for decades, established schools offer programs for practitioners. Here in the United States, there's a dearth of schools -- in fact there's only a handful, all on the West Coast and in the Southwest -- and anyone can hang out a shingle advertising their services as an alternative practitioner.

Even that doesn't stop an estimated one-third of all Americans from seeking out non-traditional care at some point -- but many of them don't tell their family physicians, she said.

"It's really time to give some credibility to alternative health care, although I think 'alternative health care' is an awful phrase," Mazanec said. "Natural therapy is a better term, or complementary therapy."