Jim Hudziak was interviewed on the popular national radio program, The Sporting Life on ESPN, about a study he co-authored that showed participation in team sports can reduce the risk of depression in 10-year-old boys.
Source: UVM News
National Academy of Sciences Elects UVM’s Mark Nelson to Its Membership
The National Academy of Sciences has announced the election of Mark Nelson, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor and Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Vermont, as a member, in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Nelson joins 100 new members and 25 foreign associates elected April 30, 2019 to the National Academy of Sciences.
Nelson is the first and only UVM faculty member to be elected as a member in the National Academy of Sciences. Specifically, his membership is in Section 23: Physiology and Pharmacology. George Pinder, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Engineering, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
A member of the UVM faculty since 1986, Nelson is internationally recognized for his research on the molecular mechanisms and cellular communication involved in blood flow. He is a Fellow of both the American Heart Association and the Biophysical Society, and received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and an NIH MERIT award.
Nelson’s extensive research contributions have been recognized with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 360 invited lectureships since 2000, including the Paul M. Vanhoutte Lectureship in Vascular Pharmacology by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. In addition, he is the recipient of the Annual Reviews Award for Scientific Reviewing from the American Physiological Society and University Scholar honors from UVM.
“Election to the National Academy of Sciences is among the greatest honors that a biomedical researcher can receive,” said UVM Larner College of Medicine Dean Richard L. Page, M.D. “Dr. Nelson richly deserves this recognition, based on a body of work that has provided major discoveries in the field of blood flow regulation to the brain. The Larner College of Medicine and the entire UVM community are proud to celebrate his outstanding accomplishment.”
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and—with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine—provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations. View the list of members elected on April 30, 2019.
Source: UVM News
Meet UVM’s Fulbrightest
A Fulbright grant is among the most prestigious awards a graduate or young alumnus can attain. This year, the University of Vermont celebrates six Fulbright winners who will travel the world – to Spain, Jordan, South Korea, Canada, Poland and Taiwan – to pursue research, serve as cultural ambassadors and advance their careers.
For Alison Chivers ’19, this won’t be her first time conducting research abroad. The graduating medical laboratory sciences student, who minored in Spanish, conducted cancer research at the Biomedical Institute at the University of León in Spain during the summer of 2018. Her Fulbright Open Research Award will allow her to return to the lab in León.
With that experience already under her belt, Chivers is prepared to dive right back into her research exploring how p73, a single gene among millions in the human body, might function as a tumor suppressor in healthy cells. “We’re trying to move towards a more molecular, research-based approach to targeting and treating cancer,” she says.
To study the gene’s ability to suppress tumor initiation, Chivers knocks it out of cells, or represses the gene, to make the cells more cancer-like. She then compares the growth of cells active with the gene against the growth of cells with the gene knocked out. “Often when tumor suppressor genes are mutated, cells lose their ability to control their own progression through the cell cycle and, consequently, grow and divide uncontrollably. That’s what defines cancer, rapid and uncontrollable cell proliferation,” she explains.
Meet the rest of UVM’s 2019 – 2020 Fulbright recipients:
Claire Dumont stopped to take in the sights in Madaba Governorate, Jordan, en route to the Dead Sea during her sophomore year abroad in Aman, Jordan. (Photo: Courtesy of Claire Dumont)
Claire Dumont ’19, a Geography major and Environmental Studies minor, will hike the newly established 400-mile Jordan Trail, which spans the length of Jordan from Umm Qais to Aqaba along the Jordan River, in order to create a culturally specific hiking guide. Working in collaboration with the Jordan Trail Association, Dumont’s guide will help Jordan establish its wildlife identity and standards for how citizens and visitors interact with its natural environment. “The goal of the project and why it’s important is, since the trail is becoming more popular, to create this hiking guide so Jordan has control over what their wilderness is supposed to be,” she says.
Patrick Long. (Photo: Doug Gilman)
Patrick Long G’19, a Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration graduate student, will build English language capacity in South Korean schools as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. “I’m most excited for the opportunity to join a network of leaders, changemakers, and engaged citizens as part of the Fulbright community,” he says.
Briana Martin (left) working with Urmila Chhetri ’21 in the TRIO Student Support Services Office at the University of Vermont. (Photo: Doug Gilman)
Briana Martin ’11 will pursue her Masters of Social Work at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, through a Fulbright Graduate Degree Enrollment Award. With a concentration in gender and women’s studies, Martin plans to “support communities on multiple levels through one-on-one counseling, group therapy, and community wellness experiences. I want to uplift, inspire, and support individuals and communities in need through an inclusive social work practice that centers on healing,” she says.
Cailtin Mello. (Photo: Doug Gilman)
Caitlin Mello ’19, a Social Work major and Behavioral Change minor, will teach English in a university setting in Poland and serve as a cultural ambassador as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. “I’m really excited about it. The Fulbright experience can inform what I’m learning in the field, and how that’s going to impact teaching later on. With the Poland Fulbright, I’ll have an opportunity to do community engagement work, along with the chance to experience a different culture,” she says.
Annie Ryan took in the Swiss Alps while studying abroad in Germany her junior year. (Photo: Courtesy of Annie Ryan)
Annie Ryan ’19, a Global Studies major and Chinese and Anthropology minor, will teach primary or secondary school children English in Taichung City, Taiwan, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. Drawing on her senior thesis that explored an increase of xenophobia and fear of foreigners, Ryan is looking forward to expanding the world view of students she works with and vice versa. “I think it’s important to promote cultural exchange, especially with small children to help them gain skills to become global citizens and see the world. I’m sure I’m going to learn a ton from them, as they learn a ton from me,” she says.
In the last five years, more than 100 UVM students and alumni have won or been finalists for prestigious scholarships and fellowship competitions ranging from the Fulbright to the Rhodes. Learn more about how UVM supports students and alumni through the Office of Fellowships, Opportunities and Undergraduate Research.
Source: UVM News
UVM Awards Six REACH Grants Supporting Faculty Research and Scholarship
The Office of the Vice President for Research has announced the 2018-19 winners of the REACH Grant Program.
This year’s winning grants and award winners are:
- Flight and Concealment: Surviving the Holocaust Underground in Munich and Beyond. PI: Susanna Schrafstetter. Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences. $12,000
- Monastic Attitudes to Islamophobia in Northern Thailand — Islamophobia or Not? PI: Thomas Borchert. Department of Religion, College of Arts and Sciences. $10,700
- Biomechanical Factors Six Months Post-ACLR with Meniscal Resection. PI: Niccolo Fiorentino. Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. $29,664
- Data Privacy for Deep Learning via Language Design. PI David Darais, Co-PI Joseph Near. Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. $29,409
- What happens next? Predictive abilities during linguistic and visual narrative comprehension in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. PI Emily Coderre, Co-PI Neil Trevor. Department of Communication Science and Disorders, College of Nursing and Health Sciences. $29,485
- DNA Damage Response to PARP and PARG inhibitors in Glioblastoma. PI: Delphine Quenet. Department of Biochemistry, Larner College of Medicine. $25,000
REACH grants are designed to promote innovative research, scholarship and creative projects that enhance UVM’s reputation as an incubator for cutting-edge ideas; encourage faculty members to reach the next level of achievement in their scholarly trajectory; and leverage institutional investment by providing the building blocks to support applications for competitive extramural funding.
Source: UVM News
Postdoc’s Bat Roost Wins First Pitch It, Fab It for Faculty and Staff
Timothy Treuer, a postdoctoral student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Gund Institute, is the winner of UVM’s first Pitch It, Fab It competition for faculty and staff.
Pitch It, Fab It invites participants to pitch product ideas related to their research to a judging panel. The winner earns the opportunity to work with the staff and use the equipment at UVM’s Instrumentation and Model Facility to take their rough concept to the working prototype stage. Similar contests are held for UVM students and for entrepreneurs in the Vermont community.
Treuer pitched a novel way to combat malaria by using a modified, commercially available bat roost to attract bats to communities at risk for malaria. The roost features an ultrasonic speaker that plays bat calls that will attract those bat species researchers have found to be the most mosquito-hungry. A solution like Treuer’s is needed. After years of decline, malaria is again on the rise as mosquitoes become resistant to pesticides that had previously controlled them.
Treuer was awarded $5,000 in materials and services to develop the prototype with the IMF.
The judges were Richard Galbraith, vice president for research, Linda Schadler, dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences and Jake Kittell, a research engineer at the Instrumentation and Model Facility.
There were six presentations in all at the event, held on April 18 in the Davis Center.
Source: UVM News
Gund Announces Catalyst Award Winners
The Gund Institute for Environment at UVM announced $200,000 in Gund Catalyst Award seed grants for five interdisciplinary teams today.
The awards, ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, will catalyze new research and action on urgent environmental issues, including city parks’ influence on happiness and well-being, sustainable cashmere in Asia, urban agricultural design, conserving traditional crop varieties in Mexico, and refugee farming communities in Vermont.
The five teams receiving Gund Catalyst Awards for 2018-19 are:
Chris Danforth (Complex Systems) and Jarlath O’Neil Dunne (Rubenstein) will explore how urban parks influence human happiness. Focusing on six U.S. cities, the study will use social media and UVM Spatial Analysis Lab tree canopy data to quantify links between nature and measures of well-being. A goal of the project is to justify expenditures in greenspaces to meet cities’ sustainability goals and improve quality of life.
Jon Erickson and Jed Murdoch (Rubenstein) will pilot a sustainable certification approach for the multi-billion-dollar cashmere industry. Used in luxury clothing, cashmere production has increased unsustainably, damaging fragile ecosystems in China and Mongolia, and threatening the iconic snow leopard and other species. With collaborator Pablo Bose (Geography), and colleagues from Mongolia and Denver Zoo, the project aims to help standardize Earth- and farmer-friendly practices.
Stephanie Hurley (Plant and Soil Science) will use iconic urban farms in Italy to explore sustainable agricultural design and planning. Working with UVM and Italian colleagues, Hurley will investigate the design and benefits – both ecological and social – of historic urban farms to understand and inform future urban agricultural projects that are culturally-engaging, environmentally sustainable, and stand the test of time.
Yolanda Chen (Plant and Soil Science) and Dan Tobin (CDAE) will study farmers’ use of traditional and hybrid crop varieties, and the impacts of these decisions on insect and microbe biodiversity. Working with UVM and international partners in historically significant regions in Mexico, the team will explore farmers’ motivations for conserving traditional “landrace” crop seeds, which can influence biodiversity and reduce farmers’ reliance on water, fertilizer and pesticide inputs.
Eric von Wettberg (Plant and Soil Science) and Travis Reynolds (CDAE) will study seed and crop diversity among refugee farmers in Vermont. The team will explore seed access and genetic diversity, and their effects on adaption to Vermont’s changing climate, farmer livelihoods, and nitrogen and water use. Collaborators include UVM Extension and New Farms for Americans.
The five grants will catalyze new collaborations by 27 UVM faculty and students from four colleges/schools and five departments. At least 6 external partners from 4 countries will participate, including collaborators from North Carolina State University, Italy and Mexico.
“As a campus-wide institute, we are delighted to support these exciting new interdisciplinary research efforts,” says Taylor Ricketts, Director of the Gund Institute for Environment. “Each project shows great promise to advance knowledge, address critical real-world issues, and attract additional funding and recognition to UVM.”
Each of the five funded projects connect multiple Gund themes – climate solutions, resilient communities, sustainability agriculture, and health and well-being. By echoing UN Sustainable Development Goals, these themes connect UVM scholars to global priorities and increase opportunities to impact policy.
This is the second Gund Catalyst Awards competition. In two years, the program has funded over $400,000 in interdisciplinary scholarship, supporting 10 interdisciplinary teams and 50 UVM scholars from across UVM.
Proposals are evaluated on five criteria: intellectual merit, interdisciplinary reach, strength of team, potential for impact, and potential for growth. Additional priority is given to new UVM collaborations with external partners and opportunities for students. Proposals are reviewed by UVM and external evaluators.
The next Catalyst Awards competition will be announced this summer.
Learn more about Gund Catalyst Awards and past recipients.
About the Gund Institute
The Gund Institute for Environment catalyzes environmental research, develops real-world solutions to global issues, and connects UVM with leaders in government, business and beyond. Based at the University of Vermont, the Gund Institute is a newly expanded campus-wide center, where more than 150 faculty, global affiliates, post-docs, and graduate students collaborate widely to understand the interactions among ecological, social, and economic systems.
Source: UVM News
Team First
On the sidelines of a matchup with rival Dartmouth, women’s lacrosse coach Sarah Dalton is watching with quiet intensity. She’s standing stoically, except when you look down: her toes are tapping nervously in white-and-green Adidas. “I’m passionate,” says Dalton, “in terms of caring about the team, the program, the game. But I’m not someone who is ra-ra, jumping around.”
Loud is not the Vermont native’s coaching style, which leaves plenty of room for the players at her back to cheer for every teammate, throughout all sixty minutes. That collective mindset, says Dalton, has been one of her biggest goals in her three years at the helm. “Team first, that’s our culture. What you’re doing, the work you’re putting in? It’s all toward the team.”
And the program is making strides. The team kicked the 2019 season off with a 7-1 start, their best eight-game start since 2014, before falling to a series of America East opponents. Last year, Dalton led the team to achieve the third-best win improvement rate in Division I; the year before, the Class of 2017 left with 30 career victories, tied for fourth-most by a graduating class. “We know we need to keep pushing our program forward,” says Dalton, “and I tell our girls that every year, it’s going to get harder.”
Among the standouts this season: low defender and captain Micaela O’Mara ’19, “incredibly determined for the team to do well,” says coach Dalton; the “backbone of who we are,” goalkeeper Maddy Kuras ’19; “one of the most competitive people we have on our team,” Grace Giancola ’21; and offensive transfer Elise Koehl ’19. Plus, “the freshman as a whole are just outstanding. Their dynamic is what you want in a class, they raise our level in the weight room, and they’re great lacrosse players,” says Dalton.
Finding the Drive
Growing up in Cornwall near Middlebury College, Dalton “got to see the best of the best at a young age, seeing teams playing at high levels, winning championships.” Sports were a big part of life – basketball, ice hockey, soccer, and, of course, lacrosse. Eventually, she went all-in on lacrosse, and ended up with an offer to play at Boston University.
“I can’t speak enough to my time at BU, and what that program gave me in terms of friendships and life skills,” says Dalton. Playing at that level, and the commitment it took, was eye-opening. “It was the first time I was finding other females that were as driven as I was.” That’s something Dalton brings to her players today. “We talk a lot about how it’s OK to work hard.”
Her college coaches left a lasting impression, including Liza Kelly (now head coach at University of Denver) and Liz Robertshaw. “Liz was the first person that really talked about the full student athlete package. It wasn’t just you as a lacrosse player, she cared so much about you as a student in the classroom, how you interacted with other people in the department.” She heard echoes of that philosophy when she met athletic director Jeff Schulman. “He wants the student athletes to have the best experience,” says Dalton. “It’s not just on the field, it’s in the community, in the classroom, and in the culture.”
All Roads Lead North
In 2009, Dalton graduated from BU with a degree in psychology, and finished her career as the most accomplished offensive player in school history. Post-graduation, she became an assistant coach with William & Mary, and then she took a year off to work with her dad at College for Every Student, a nonprofit focused on helping underserved students prepare for, gain access to, and succeed in college. “It was one of the hardest years of my life, but probably the best thing I ever did,” says Dalton. While there, she managed a partnership that paired college student athletes with students from low-income area schools; today, she still forges those types of bridges between Catamounts and aspiring players by hosting camps and clinics. “I loved it, but I realized how competitive I was, and that I loved coaching. In life you don’t get many mulligans,” laughs Dalton, “and I got one to go back to Notre Dame.”
In each of her four years as an assistant coach and offensive coordinator with the Fighting Irish, the team earned a top 20 national ranking and a spot in the NCAA Tournament. But, says Dalton, “I knew if I could, I would want to return to Vermont.” It was all about getting back to the Green Mountains, not chasing a title. “With other places I lived, I realized how special and unique Vermont is.”
Back on Virtue Field, head coach Dalton brings the team in for a huddle. They’ve lost to Dartmouth, but that’s not the point of this post-game regroup. “Rest up. Recover. The focus is on the next game,” Dalton tells her players.
How does the young coach deal with a tough loss? “I’m probably the hardest critic on myself. If we lose, I look at myself. I know there are outside doubters, but whatever someone else is expecting of me, I can tell you I expect ten times more.”
Catch women’s lacrosse in their final game of the season Saturday, April 27 at 12 p.m. on ESPN3 against Binghamton. See schedule details.
Source: UVM News
Policy in Action
Anyone who has made a trip to Pho Dang Vietnamese Café in Essex Junction might recall the tasty pho noodles, sweet iced coffee or low-key atmosphere. What they likely won’t think about is whether they paid for their meal with cash or a credit card.
That’s because Pho Dang, like many small businesses around Vermont, has moved away from being a “cash only” operation and invested in a credit card processing terminal, sparing many customers a trip to the ATM. To acquire the necessary terminal, owner Dung Dang entered into a lease agreement with a company that leases the equipment in 2017.
Within six weeks of signing the lease, he noticed higher than anticipated charges on his bank statement and placed a call to the Vermont Attorney General’s Consumer Assistance Program, a partnership with UVM. Danielle Shaw, then a graduate student in UVM’s Master of Community Development and Applied Economics program, answered the phone.
“He was going to be paying $6,200 over the course of four years to lease a product he could have bought new for $300-$500 at most,” says Shaw, who served as the Consumer Assistance Program’s graduate assistant.
Housed within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at UVM, the Consumer Assistance Program, commonly referred to as CAP, helps Vermont consumers resolve conflicts with businesses, protect themselves from fraud and deal with a host of other consumer protection issues.
Since the early 1980s, CAP has functioned as the primary constituent services arm of the Attorney General’s Office, while also providing a unique learning environment for UVM students. Undergraduate students can earn up to six credits by enrolling in the Consumer Assistance Program practica administered by the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, where they work as consumer advocates on the frontlines of CAP’s consumer hotline. The course is co-taught with help from Attorney General T.J. Donovan himself.
Kathryn Pfefferle ’18 participated in the CAP program as a public communication major at UVM. After graduating last May, she was hired to stay on as a full-time consumer associate and now supervises students in the practicum.
“The first thing I learned was a lesson in transgenerational communication – how to communicate with Vermonters and communicating what needs to be said in the appropriate way. I had no idea the types of skills that were needed for a phone call,” said Pefferle, adding that CAP receives many calls from elderly and vulnerable populations in the state.
On any given day, students may receive calls from consumers who are cold because they’ve run out of propane, or are afraid because they’ve accidentally given their password to a scammer, or feel they’ve been duped by a company. Last year, CAP handled more than 12,000 constituent contacts and recovered more than $124,000 for Vermont consumers.
Not all the calls CAP receives relate to consumer issues. “We joke that people call us because we answer the phone,” says Charity Clark ‘97, chief of staff to the Vermont Attorney General, who oversees the program. “With those non-consumer calls, the core of what we do is help people navigate government. It’s such an important service.”
CAP volunteers get a crash course in conflict resolution, consumer law and how government functions by assisting consumers in formalizing their complaints or referring them to other agencies of government as appropriate. As the same time, “they’re learning the ethics of public service,” says Sarah Anders, who replaced Shaw as the CAP graduate assistant last year.
Working with Vermonters around the state gives students direct experience in advocacy and policy work and has influenced the career trajectories for several graduates, like Cameron Randlett ’17, who, after finishing the practicum, stayed on to work at CAP part-time while finishing his degree in political science.
“I learned how to read, write and think critically from my political science degree, but really practical things – like how to manage an inbox, how to communicate effectively, how to stay on task when a billion different things are going on – I learned from CAP. All of those skills gave me the ability to be successful in my job,” says Randlett, who now works as a paralegal at a San Francisco-based immigration law firm and has his eyes on law school.
“I still really like consumer protection law. The CAP program was the first time in my life that I connected with the feeling that I did something that mattered, had a purpose. I think I’d like to do that ultimately in the long-term,” he says.
Since the early 1980s, CAP has functioned as the primary constituent services arm of the Attorney General’s Office. Undergrads earn up to six credits through the Consumer Assistance Program practica; the course is co-taught by Attorney General T.J. Donovan (left) and his chief of staff Charity Clark ’97 (right).
Taking Action
A ninth-generation Vermonter and descendent of Thomas Chittenden, Vermont’s first governor, Charity Clark’s Vermont roots are older than the state itself. After graduating from UVM, she went on to Boston College Law School and spent some time in New York before coming back to work in the service of her home state.
Clark, who splits her time between Montpelier and Burlington, was at UVM the day Danielle Shaw received the call from Pho Dang owner Dong Dang. By the time she had been briefed by Shaw, she was fuming. Dang was not the first to call the consumer hotline about the credit card terminal issue. In recent years, students managing the CAP phone lines had already received a number of complaints from other small businesses in the state who had fallen victim to similar predatory lease agreements. After hearing Dang’s case – the most egregious yet – Clark knew something had to be done.
“The leases made me so mad. We decided that a legislative solution would be most effective,” she said. She reached out to legislators and worked with the state legislative council on a bill that would require more disclosures about lease terms and a 45-day right of cancellation for credit card terminal leases.
With a magnifying glass in hand, Clark presented the bill to the Vermont legislature explaining the ways in which the leasing companies were taking advantage of Vermont small business owners, such as including important disclosure language in fine print nearly illegible to the naked eye. Among the bill’s first sponsors was Senator Chris Pearson ’95, who Clark had coincidentally run into in UVM’s Morrill Hall the day she’d learned about Dang’s call. “I was passionately pitching our idea for a bill,” she says.
Clark also compiled a list of consumers who had filed complaints – owners of a yarn shop, car wash, bed and breakfast – all of whom agreed to testify in the House and Senate. “They were so effective,” said Clark. As a result of their testimony, the bill was expanded to address additional issues raised. The bill passed both houses in the Vermont legislature, was signed by the Governor, and Act 4 went into effect July 1, 2018.
For students like Pfefferle, who managed a credit card processing lease complaint from Mountain View Inn – one of the consumers who testified in the case – the experience provided unique exposure to how the legislative process works – a handy lesson for someone aspiring to run for office herself one day.
“The power of individuals and the power of voice is something that can never be overlooked,” she says. “People have a lot more power than they think, especially when it comes to local government. It doesn’t take a superhero.”
Source: UVM News
Making Climate Change Personal
Climate leaders, international ambassadors and teen activists from around the world gathered at the United Nations last week for an international panel highlighting the unique role of women and parents in developing innovative climate solutions.
Organized in partnership with DearTomorrow, an organization co-founded by UVM behavioral and environmental economist Trisha Shrum, the event aimed to relaunch an international “Our Kids’ Climate” coalition to mobilize parents, grandparents, and families around the world to take action in their own lives, in their communities, and to push for serious political action around climate change.
“Fighting for our children’s future is a core, primal instinct that crosses all political and social boundaries,” said Shrum, a professor in the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics and mother of two. “The work of DearTomorrow and Our Kids’ Climate aims to leverage the universal power of parental love across the globe to push back climate change.”
Shrum began conducting transdisciplinary research on behavioral science and climate communication while receiving her Ph.D. at Harvard University. Her research, as well as the birth of her first child, motivated her to start DearTomorrow with Harvard colleague Jill Kubit. Their goal is to open up conversations across generations about why climate change is important in order to create the cultural shift necessary to transition to a world fueled by renewable energy.
DearTomorrow functions as a digital archive that gives people the opportunity to write messages to their children and grandchildren about climate change that can be accessed when their children are grown. The messages are shared through social media, traditional media, and community art.
Speaking at the UN panel last week, Kubit said, “We created a platform where anyone can write and share a story about how they think about climate change and what they want to do. We ask you to think about someone in your life in the year 2050 and think about the conversation you want to have with them.”
Using these storytelling techniques, DearTomorrow is making climate change personal, a core focus of the international forum and emphasized by former EPA head Gina McCarthy during her keynote address.
“If you remember the first time your child was handed to you, my revelation was, ‘how can I be so in love with someone I just met’ right? You fell in love. But the other thing is that it terrified me. Because no longer was the world just mine or was my happiness just mine alone, it was my responsibility to keep them happy and to keep them healthy because if they weren’t, my world fell apart. That’s what climate change has to be about,” said McCarthy.
Back at UVM, Shrum draws on her experience as a social entrepreneur in her ongoing research and teaching in community entrepreneurship. Catch her at Burlington’s FlynnSpace on May 22 where she’ll be giving a Pecha Kucha style talk on her research and public outreach work with DearTomorrow. See event details here.
Source: UVM News
Patricia Prelock Appointed Interim Provost and Senior Vice President
Effective on April 15, Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences Patricia Prelock has been appointed Interim Provost and Senior Vice President. She will serve as a key partner and chief academic officer to President-Designate Suresh Garimella, who will assume his position on July 1.
“I am most looking forward to engaging with faculty to facilitate curricular and research innovations, with staff to enhance processes that support our academic mission and with students to ensure a high quality academic experience,” says Prelock of her new appointment.
As Interim Provost and Senior Vice President, Prelock will be responsible for collaborating with deans and the Faculty Senate to strengthen curriculum; exploring new possibilities for educational and research initiatives and partnerships both locally and globally; advancing efforts for inclusive excellence; and fostering respectful conversations about how the university can meet both its unique challenges and common challenges of all higher education institutions today, among other duties.
Prelock has served as Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences for 10 years, as Department Chair in the College of Arts and Sciences for 8 years, and as a Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders during her years at the University of Vermont.
Her appointment comes following careful consultation and input from many across the university, including survey responses, faculty, staff, students, and search advisory committee co-chairs Professor Jan Carney, Faculty Senate Vice President and Professor John Hughes, former Provost and Senior Vice President. The decision was made in collaboration with President-Designate Garimella.
“Both President-Designate Garimella and I believe Dean Prelock brings skills, experience and knowledge that will enable her as Provost to support and strengthen our colleges and academic programs, and continue to elevate the university as a whole,” said President Tom Sullivan in an email to the university community.
Prelock succeeds David Rosowsky, who served as Provost and Senior Vice President of the University of Vermont for 6 years before stepping down to facilitate a smooth and quick transition of leadership for President-Designate Garimella. While Prelock assumes her new role, Dean Scott Thomas will serve as Interim Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences in addition to his position as Dean of the College of Education and Social Services.
Source: UVM News