Author: vermontnews

A new breed of business student – one more concerned with solving the world’s sustainability issues than just turning a profit – is showing up at MBA programs across the country. These so-called “impact students” have college career counselors reeling when it comes to finding them jobs that don’t fit within the traditional corporate mold.

That’s not the case for the University of Vermont’s one-year Sustainable Entrepreneurship program (SEMBA) in the Grossman School of Business, which is composed of nothing but impact students. Matching graduates with opportunities focused on sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship has been SEMBA’s sole focus since its inception in 2014.

“Traditional MBA programs dedicate maybe one of 10 counselors to deal with these pesky impact students,” says SEMBA Co-Director Stuart Hart, who previously served on the faculties at the University of Michigan, University of North Carolina and Cornell. “This is all we do. We’ve developed a customized system and built the largest, most robust network in this space globally because we’re totally committed to it.”

Hart, a world-renowned expert on how poverty and the environment affect business strategy, and SEMBA Co-Director David Jones plan to launch a new career management system designed to propel students into careers within SEMBA’s condensed 12-month format in renewable energy, clean tech, affordable health care, inclusive business, entrepreneurship within larger companies, start-ups, and other innovative ventures.

Bolstered by a $145,000 gift from Vermont Works, an independent investment firm supporting Vermont’s job and economic development, the new four-phase system called “Launch” will be implemented in time for the SEMBA class of 2017-2018.

Four-phase system designed for SEMBA’s condensed 12-month format  

The initial Discovery phase has students draft a professional vision and identify one of five career pathways: mission-based companies; larger corporations in a sustainability or corporate innovation role; joining or launching a start-up or other venture; impact investing (venture capital or private equity); consulting; or working in a “4th sector” at a non-profit focused on leveraging the private sector in sustainable innovation.

“It’s a systematic approach to help students identify career paths through assessment tools and career counseling starting on day one,” says Jones, a leading scholar on the positive effects of community involvement by employees and sustainable business practices. “Students receive career coaching and attend more than 60 panels and networking events where they are exposed to business leaders and entrepreneurs within this space.”

In the Focus phase, students receive career coaching; mentoring from professionals within the identified pathway; skill development; and begin to hone potential employment opportunities. This includes access to the SEMBA Changemaker Network – an ecosystem of more than 125 companies and individuals focused on sustainable business – and support from SEMBA’s Advisory Board of business leaders and alumni.

The Customize phase has students work with employment experts on tailored job pitches, resumes, personal branding, and a further narrowing of potential employers. Students begin interviewing in the Launch phase often with mission-based or B-Corp certified entities. Some interview with companies they partnered with like Ben & Jerry’s, Seventh Generation and Facebook to complete their SEMBA practicums – a capstone experiential project to address issues such as poverty, climate change, and the environment.

“We’ve created a system whereby individuals can customize their way into a network that increases the possibility that they find something that helps them realize their personal and professional dreams,” says Hart.

SEMBA’s increase in rankings, class size warranted new program   

The need for Launch has increased along with SEMBA’s reputation as one of the nation’s top sustainable entrepreneurship business programs, resulting in an increase in applications. SEMBA was ranked No. 2 on The Princeton Review’s “Best Green MBA” list; made CEO Magazine’s list of top MBA programs in North America; and was ranked the 10th best “Better World” MBA program globally by Corporate Knights. Approximately 35 students are expected to enroll in the SEMBA class of 2017-18, an increase of more than 30 percent over last year’s cohort.

Although Launch won’t be in place until the fall of 2017, some students have benefitted from elements of the program that were already in place. Vinca Krajewski, a 2016 SEMBA graduate and member of SEMBA’s Advisory Board, landed a job at Seventh Generation as an Associate Brand Manager on the Personal Care Team after conducting her practicum with the Burlington-based company.

Caitlin Goss ‘17 enrolled in SEMBA after working at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Bain & Company in hopes of landing a job at a company where she could positively impact the lives of its employees. She was recently hired at Rhino Foods, where she will get that opportunity as Director of Human Resources with a focus on talent and culture.

“One of SEMBA’s greatest strengths are the countless opportunities students have to engage directly with businesses and leaders in this network,” says Goss, who learned about her job opening while on a SEMBA tour of Rhino, owned by UVM alumnus Ted Castle ’74. “The Launch program will give students who are engaged in an intense 12-month program more structure and opportunities to seek out jobs. It will institutionalize the job search process so students have those touch points like I did with Rhino and can follow-up.”

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont will launch a new season of its popular historic tours on July 1. Led by UVM emeritus professor William Averyt, the free, weekly tours will take place Saturdays from 10 to noon through October 14 (no tour September 9).

Founded in 1791, the fifth oldest university in New England, the University of Vermont boasts both an array of historic buildings, including more than a dozen on the National Register of Historic Places, and a collection of fascinating personalities.

The architectural highlights of the tour include the Old Mill, completed in 1829, whose cornerstone was laid by the Marquis de Lafayette; the Billings Library, completed in 1885, which leading 19th century architect H.H. Richardson considered among his finest buildings; and Grasse Mount, a brick Federal style mansion built in 1804 by a local merchant, which later served as the residence of Vermont governor Cornelius P. Van Ness.

Tour guide Averyt also brings to life the fascinating personalities who animate UVM’s long history. Founder Ira Allen, for instance, was both a revolutionary war hero and sometimes slippery real estate speculator. UVM’s third president, James Marsh, inspired Emerson and Thoreau, invented the modern university curriculum, and made Burlington the intellectual capital of America during the 1820s and 1830s. Professor Royall Tyler, a member of Vermont’s Supreme Court in the 18th century, is said to be the model for the villain of Nathanial Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon. And 1879 alumnus John Dewey, whose grave is on campus, is considered one of American’s greatest philosophers.

“UVM’s history is a great story to be sure, but it also resonates with significance,” said Averyt. “Through figures like Marsh and Dewey, the university played an important role in shaping modern American thought.” 

Register for the tour online or call 802-656-8673.

Source: UVM News

Jason Stockwell, an associate professor in the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and director of the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to France to study the impact of storms on lake systems around the world. The announcement was made by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Stockwell will conduct research at the Freshwater Ecology Lab on Lake Geneva at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, or INRA, a French public research institute. In partnership with a team of investigators at INRA and other institutions, Stockwell will study storm impacts on 25 lakes in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America.

“The research will enable us to put Lake Champlain in context, to see where we are on the spectrum of how storms impact lakes,” Stockwell said. “We’ll contribute to knowledge in this area, but also be able to take new insights from the work and apply them to Lake Champlain.”

Stockwell will conduct the Fulbright research from January to June 2018 while he is on sabbatical. 

“We are very proud of Jason’s accomplishment and recognition as a Fulbright Scholar,” said Rubenstein School Dean Nancy Mathews. “Through his research, he has established himself as an internationally renowned scholar on lake ecology and climate resilience. His leadership of the Rubenstein Laboratory has advanced the ability of faculty and students to engage in transformative research.”

Stockwell is one of over 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research and/or provide expertise abroad for the 2017-2018 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given more than 370,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbrighters address critical global issues in all disciplines, while building relationships, knowledge, and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 57 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 82 who have received Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.

Source: UVM News

When Ben Teasdale arrives at Stanford’s medical school in the fall of 2018, he’ll throw himself into learning anatomy, genetics, cell biology, and the other critical scientific underpinnings of becoming a competent physician. But Teasdale, a 2015 graduate of UVM’s Honors College, believes there’s another essential component to becoming a great doctor: an understanding of how history and culture are just as much a part of the medical landscape as the science.

To that end, Teasdale will enter medical school with experience as a Fulbright scholar in Nepal, which he just completed, and a master’s in philosophy from Cambridge’s Medicine, Health and Society program, which he begins this year as a Gates Cambridge Scholar — one of the most competitive and generous international scholarships available.

Why the circuitous route around the world and through the humanities for this biochemistry major? “I want to go into medicine more because of what’s problematic than what’s working,” Teasdale says. “In my career, I’m going to see things that will frustrate me if I don’t feel I have the power to change them, and when you’re trying to change something having a foot outside is beneficial. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program is a lot about giving people this perspective, preparation and support.”

It’s a path that’s been followed before. Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, author of the New York Times bestseller When Breath Becomes Air, also graduated from the Cambridge History and Philosophy of Science Department before attending medical school. Inspired by physician authors and their ability to both participate in and observe and document the practice of medicine, Teasdale turned to the bios of writers like Kalanithi, Atul Gawande and Oliver Sacks to see how their path set them on an interdisciplinary approach to medicine.

The art and the science of medicine

Since his first year as a UVM Honors College student in history professor Ian Grimmer’s course “The Pursuit of Knowledge,” Teasdale has kept alive this passion for learning across the sciences and humanities. Even as he was working on a senior thesis in pathology, he was turning to Grimmer as a mentor and taking his upper-level class on “History and Social Theory” alongside history graduate students.

“I was often struck by how well-rounded he is as a thinker,” Grimmer says. “Ben clearly does outstanding work in fields like biochemistry, but he is equally at home in the humanities and social sciences.”

Outside of class, Teasdale spent time as president of MEDVIDA, a UVM community service organization that is devoted to social justice in global public health, education and development.

“At UVM, I got the exposure to these academic areas and a culture of defining solutions or careers or lifestyles in a way that might be off the beaten path,” Teasdale says. “So when I had the time to reflect, I could link those aspects of my UVM experience together.”

Spending 10 months in Nepal, in the village of Chapagaun, teaching English to first-, second- and third-graders, gave Teasdale ample time to reflect. “Lights would go out at 8 p.m.,” he remembers. “I would have hours to read every night and hours to think.” 

“The most important thing that Nepal did was allow me to take a step outside,” says the Williston, Vermont, native. “It gave me the perspective that comes from living with people who don’t have the same background as you.” From that vantage point, he says, it becomes easier to see how systems are at work in our lives.

It’s that outsider perspective that Teasdale hopes to maintain, even as he undergoes the rigorous and demanding training of a medical student. The Fulbright years and the master’s in philosophy, he says, “are going to influence how I attend med school and how I become a physician.”

And with this incredible foundation, Teasdale will enter the medical profession prepared to change it.

Teasdale found support for his application to the Fulbright program and the Gates Cambridge Scholarship from UVM’s Office of Fellowships Advising. Learn more about this student resource.

Source: UVM News

The Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation (GBIC) has given its highest recognition award to John Evans, special advisor to the University of Vermont president, president of the Vermont Technology Council and former dean of UVM’s Larner College of Medicine.

GBIC presented Evans with the 2017 C. Harry Behney Lifetime Economic Development Achievement Award. The award was made at GBIC’s 63^rd annual meeting on June 21 at the Echo Leahy Center on the Burlington waterfront. Approximately 300 members of the northwest Vermont community attended. 

Given each year since 1995 in honor of past GBIC president C. Harry Behney, the Behney Award recognizes Vermont leaders for their significant contributions to advancing the state’s economic wellbeing and promoting a climate that enhances the economic vitality of the state of Vermont. 

GBIC honored Evans for advancing innovation, entrepreneurship and dynamic economic development in the region and the state. He is one of the founding members of the Vermont Technology Council and is the founder and creator of VCET, the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, where he continues to serve on the VCET Board of Directors. Evans is also a member of the GBIC Board of Directors and is a professor emeritus at the Larner College of Medicine.

“GBIC recognizes Dr. Evans for his incredible leadership in research, innovation and entrepreneurship in our region and in Vermont,” said GBIC president Frank Cioffi. “As the founder of VCET, Dr. Evans blazed the trail to advancing innovation & technology based economic development in our state. We honor and thank Dr. Evans as one of Vermont’s most outstanding leaders in advancing economic development. His contributions have been so transformational to Vermont and Vermonters.”

Source: UVM News