Vermont Humanities Council It is with great sadness that we share the news that Victor R Swenson, the founding Executive Director of the Vermont Humanities Council, died on Thursday, July 25 at age 84. A memorial service has tentatively been scheduled for September.
As the organization’s founder, Victor started many of our flagship programs, including our Speakers Bureau, Reading and Discussion, Annual Fall Conference, and Literacy programs. After his retirement in 2002, the Vermont Humanities Council board created an award in Victor’s honor that recognizes an outstanding Vermont educator in grades 6 through 12. The Victor R. Swenson Humanities Educator Award is presented each year at our Fall Conference.
We sat down with Victor in February 2019 to discuss his recollections of the Council’s early years. In the article, Victor said, “I started in January 1974 on New Year’s Day…I moved a picnic table into the office, which was empty, and a folding chair and got to work.”
We at the Vermont Humanities Council—and the many thousands of Vermonters whose lives were changed because of the programs that Victor founded—are deeply grateful that Victor approached that work with such grace, intelligence, compassion, and vision. We are honored to have known him.
Vermont Humanities Council 8.7.2019