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Spotlight: Dr. Susan Kasser - Local Golisano Health Leadership Awardee

  • Bennett Townley
  • Jul 17
  • 3 min read

My name is Bennett Townley, I am an athlete and staff member with Special Olympics Vermont.


I have had the privilege to work with Dr. Susan Kasser since 2015 in the Unified Fitness Program at UVM, and I have had the opportunity to interview her about her work experience, college education, and her time volunteering with Special Olympics programs from different states, including the original Chicago Program that started it all!

She has volunteered with 3 different Special Olympics Programs, starting in 1981 with Special Olympics New Hampshire (SONH). She then moved to do more schooling out in Chicago, which is the birthplace of the original Special Olympics Program, and she got to see athletes that were in the first practices back in the year 1967! In the early 2000s, she moved up to our home state of Vermont, starting with a fitness program in the old Trinity Campus Gymnasium. She has gone above and beyond with her efforts to make accommodations and educate us, our families, and the community about how to promote health in our population.

Dr. Susan Kasser (L), Bennett Townley (M), and Dr. Dorothy Brodmann (R)
Dr. Susan Kasser (L), Bennett Townley (M), and Dr. Dorothy Brodmann (R)

Personally, I have known Dr. Susan Kasser since fall of 2015, which was the first year she started Unified Fitness at the Rowell Building at UVM. At that time, I was only doing regular competitive sports on Traditional Teams. I did Bocce and bowling with Unified UCS Sports and Healthy Athletes. I was never a kid who liked to work out since the other high schoolers at my old high school would laugh at me since I wasn’t very strong and I couldn’t physically do a lot of the fitness that they did in Personal Fitness. However, I decided to try working out with the Rehab Students in the new Unified Fitness Program run by Dr. Susan Kasser, as the Special Olympics is a lot more accommodating than high school sports and P.E. classes.


In her class, I still struggled with a lot of the exercises, but she would teach my partner how to simplify and/or accommodate the exercise so I could do it. She also didn’t have the strict requirements that school had to pass the class, where I had to meet a certain number of exercises in a repetition or have to run a 15-minute mile, etc. She did not care how bad I might have looked or performed, but she did care about how much effort I put in and that I tried new things, even if they were challenging. She perfectly worked with the values of our Athlete Oath, “Let me Win, But if I cannot Win, Let me be Brave in the Attempt!”


At Special Olympics Vermont’s 2025 Summer Games, we have taken time to honor Dr. Susan Kasser with the Golisano Health Leadership Award along with Dr. Dorothy Brodmann. The Golisano Health Leadership Awards are special awards that are the highest Special Olympics honor for health partners to recognize health champions—leaders and organizations—that are making a significant contribution to equal access to health, fitness, or wellness for people with intellectual disabilities in our community. This award also promotes awareness for the progress and extraordinary efforts toward fulfilling the goals, values, and mission of Special Olympics Health programming.


Thank you, Dr. Susan Kasser, for going above and beyond doing what you have done for me and my fellow athletes.


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