“It’s Not Simply Being Good. It’s Being Good For Something.”

It’s a July afternoon in Johnson, Vermont, and all that’s left of the storm that dropped two months’ worth of rain in just a few days are the signs of life disrupted: belongings strewn over soggy lawns, porches in shambles, a greasy dark gloss coating the roads.

Abagael Giles ’15, Vermont Public Radio’s climate and environment reporter, has come to this community to hear the stories of what people had seen and what they’d lost. They are stories told in the tired, gravelly voices of grit and gutsiness. A woman remembers living through Hurricane Irene in 2011—she can’t quite believe she’s dealing with epic flooding again. Her home was soaking in 4-5 feet of water. Her renter’s insurance won’t cover the damage, but she’s hoping the federal government will step in to help. Nearby, a man and his wife are worried about their missing cat. They’d left their house overnight seeking dry ground in a gas station parking lot, and when they returned, the water was lapping the edges of their porch.

Abagael reports on the ways so many pitch in to help, even with their own lives in disarray: the guy who’s working with neighbors to pump water out of their basement; the general store owner in Cambridge who says, “OK, we have no power but we’re going to give away our fresh produce over the next 24 hours and we’ll figure out about the furnace later.”

“There was so much loss,” she says today. “Every scientist I talked to that week said it’s clear that climate change is already bringing a lot more extreme rain to Vermont and New England. But the good news is, they say there’s still time to make it better.”

Chronicling the effects of climate change—and especially efforts to mitigate its sometimes devastating impacts—is the kind of mission-driven work that Abagael first discovered at St. Lawrence, while interning at North Country Public Radio. She’s also grown up watching as her dad devoted his career to effecting positive change in the world, one student at a time.

As president and CEO of Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC), Scott Giles ’82, P’15  leads a nonprofit organization  that opens doors to education for young people and their families across the state. Both say their passion for learning was transformed to a focus on public service while at St. Lawrence.

“Our lives were changed in large part because of the commitment and the availability of faculty,” Scott says. “In my case, they helped me to actually see societal needs and present my ideas on possible solutions. Some didn’t work, but others did. Lots of schools talk about leadership, but at St. Lawrence it’s part of the community. Students take action that strengthens and constantly renews the community.”

Lots of schools talk about leadership, but at St. Lawrence it’s part of the community. Students take action that strengthens and constantly renews the community."

–Scott Giles ’82, P’15

A Calling to Public Service Being a reporter wasn’t at the top of Abagael’s list of career paths when she first arrived at St. Lawrence. She double-majored in physics and philosophy, taking a broad array of classes from different disciplines, and she received a lot of support along the way.

“All my professors were incredibly kind and generous with their time,” she says. “They really nurtured the practice of bringing a different viewpoint into the learning setting.” And beyond the cerebral side, she felt like she was truly seen for who she was at St. Lawrence. She found mentors who encouraged her and inspired her to reach beyond what she thought she could do. “It was really about shaping me as a whole person,” she says.

Over time, she began to wonder, how could she use everything she’d learned to serve others? In her senior year, she took an internship with North Country Public Radio, mostly because it satisfied the requirement for an art credit. Learning to report on and tell stories that really mattered, that made a difference to the community, felt like a calling.

“Fact-based reporting and information are so important,” Abagael says. “They’re absolutely vital to a functioning democracy. The public needs to know what’s actually happening and why. My work is often challenging and always interesting, but it also feels something like a calling. Public media is a service and I feel like my work makes a meaningful contribution to the community I serve.”

From his vantage point listening to his daughter’s broadcasts, Scott is proud of the person who has taken shape before him. Over the years, he has seen her grow into a young woman of purpose and passion. As he watched those qualities flourish at St. Lawrence, it reminded him of his own experiences in college. 

“My professors seemed to see qualities in me that I didn’t even know I had yet,” says Scott, who majored in religious studies and served as director of the Singing Saints and president of Thelmo while at St. Lawrence. He went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in religious studies with concentrations in bioethics and religious ethics from the University of Virginia. “And throughout my time there, they nurtured and supported those qualities. In so many ways, they helped me become the person I am.”

At VSAC, he leads a nonprofit organization that helps students of all ages across Vermont save, plan, and pay for college and career training. In FY22, VSAC awarded $30 million in grants and scholarships and serviced $540.7 million in federal and private loans. Each year, VSAC’s financial aid counselors assist nearly 42,544 Vermonters and other borrowers.

One of the most important ways VSAC opens doors to education for young Vermont students is by sending counselors to every middle school and high school in Vermont, providing mentoring services to first-generation low-income students.

“The most impactful work we do,” he says, “is finding those students for whom opportunity is not something they can take for granted, and providing them with the support they need, both from an intellectual and financial perspective, to help them pursue their goals.”

Turning Ideas Into Action

With print journalism at an inflection point, Abagael sees promise in the different ways stories can be told. She tells people seeking to enter the field that diversification of skills is key—you have to be a strong writer, but you also need to have a facility with audio and video. However the story is told, she says, sharing information in very human terms is at the core of what it means to be a journalist.

“In people’s homes, on the streets, in the stores: that’s where we do our most meaningful work,” she says. “Reporting at the local level is really impactful.” It’s also challenging.

Early on, working at The Sheet: News, Views and Culture of the Eastern Sierra, an independent weekly in California, Abagael reported on a story that examined the tension between the City of Los Angeles, which diverts water from the Eastern Sierra for its municipal water supply, and local conservation groups, over the impact on the local sage grouse habitat. That experience taught her about environmental justice—how we manage our resources, who gets to have a say, and who gets left out of the conversations.

From that first big environmental story, she learned that, as a reporter, you have to wade through the noise of divergent voices. It means treading lightly, observing keenly, and sharing information in a compelling way—all while “checking your own biases and making sure you’re ready at every turn to consider (and admit!) you are wrong.”

Sometimes, as she unravels the many threads of a story, she is surprised by how wide-ranging an environmental issue can be. Sometimes the controversy keeps her up at night. But the rewards come when someone says one of her stories helped them understand the other side better. As climate change continues to affect us all, Abagael believes there’s power in learning about our shared experiences.

“We have the tools to solve this crisis,” she says. “The question is: can we build a better future?”

For father and daughter, tackling that question is their life’s work. And they’re in good company.

“My college friends,” Scott says, “so many of them have gone in the same direction. They have different job descriptions—healthcare, international development—but all with an orientation to serve.”

“I see it, too,” says Abagael, who married Levi Keszey ’13, an ecologist, on September 2. “My friends from St. Lawrence are dreamers and action takers, marine biologists fighting climate change, teachers working with affordable housing advocates. The point is turning ideas into some kind of humanitarian action. It’s not simply being good. It’s being  good for something.” Scott nods and says, “St. Lawrence taught us to be good for our communities. It’s hard to imagine a better outcome than that.” 

Serving St. Lawrence

Over fall break in October, Scott Giles ’82, P’15 hosted students and alumni at VSAC headquarters for a breakfast and panel discussion on careers in government and nonprofits as part of the SLU Connect Burlington program. He advised students to leverage the mighty St. Lawrence alumni network (Ranked #4 in the nation by The Princeton Review), encouraging them to cold call alumni working in fields they want to break into.

“Every one of us will respond to any one of you who has a question. The question you should ask is, ‘This is the type of position I’m interested in, do you know anybody who I should talk to, and would you be willing to introduce us?’ You start with one person, and pretty soon you have a personal network of 10 people.”

Scott’s call to service extends to his alma mater. He serves on the Alumni Executive Council, and has been engaged in a number of career development efforts, including the Sophomore Boot Camp (now called Saints Accelerate) and LINC Mentoring Program, which pairs an alum with a student to provide career counseling and support. T

he overarching theme of this work, says Scott, reflects his desire to connect people—in this case, students and alumni. Their shared experience gives them a common ground where the person with more years behind them can be helpful in myriad ways, including the daunting work of looking for that first job.

“In my own job search there were a few people who really made a difference,” he says today. “I want to help this generation find their niche in the world.”