"Increasing enrollment when we couldn't bring prospective and admitted students to campus is quite an achievement," said Stephanie Kloss, media director at Champlain College. 

The surge comes a year after enrollments at colleges and university dropped steeply as students chose to sit out rather than enroll in remote classes or hybrid systems. But the numbers for some colleges are also higher than in 2019.

Most colleges are reopening this fall with fewer health restrictions, though many are requiring students to be vaccinated.

Another added boost: UVM and Middlebury, like other colleges around the country, dropped the requirement that students submit standardized test scores. That decision “all but guaranteed a surge in applications from students who otherwise wouldn’t have applied,” Eric Hoover wrote of the national trend in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The agreement says the city will pay Redstone $400,000 in tax-increment financing funds for an easement to build a road underneath the company’s building at 100 Bank Street, which is adjacent to the CityPlace site. The easement, for 4,000 square feet of Redstone’s property, will allow the city to reconnect a portion of Pine Street that was lost to the former mall.

The city also agreed to provide Redstone with up to 200 parking spaces in city-owned garages, at the city’s prevailing rate, for at least five years. The settlement is the result of two mediation sessions between the city, CityPlace team and Redstone.

“I initiated and led this mediation because it was clear that Redstone and the developers of CityPlace were on a path of serious and deepening disagreement that threatened to delay or terminate the long-anticipated, transformative downtown project,” Mayor Miro Weinberger said in a statement Friday. “I am grateful that the two sides set aside their differences and worked hard to get to this agreement that will do so much good for the community.”

The agreement still must be approved by both the Burlington City Council and, because TIF funds are involved, the Vermont Economic Progress Council.

Updated at 7:56 p.m.

An anonymous person has accused Burlington City Councilor Jack Hanson (P-East District) of sexual assault stemming from a night in 2017 while both worked for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Hanson, who was not on the council at the time, denied the allegations. He published an account of the evening in question on Facebook on Monday evening.

Shortly afterward, at the council’s first in-person meeting since March 2020, two people alluded to the accusations during public comment. Some people in the audience held signs that read, “Abolish Vt Prog Men,” “Abolish VPIRG,” and “Believe Survivors.”

“We’re here because we want to hold a city councilor, in particular, accountable for his actions,” said a woman who later declined to provide her name to Seven Days. “When you do harm, it comes at your doorstep — or it comes to city hall.”

“Jack Hanson has trampled all over the work of Black femmes in our community,” said Will Keeton, who sat next to the woman. “We’re really done with the political games to protect the reputations of politicians,” he added.

“Whose side are you on?” the woman said. “Don’t be silent. You have the name, so do something about it.”