Category: Education

The University of Vermont announced today that it is participating in a massive new effort, working collaboratively with 130 public universities and systems, to increase college access, close the achievement gap and award hundreds of thousands more degrees by 2025.

The participating institutions will work within clusters of four to 12 institutions to implement innovative and effective practices to advance student success on their campuses. Collectively, the institutions enroll 3 million students, including 1 million students who receive Pell Grants.

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) is organizing the collaborative effort, known as Powered by Publics: Scaling Student Success. The effort was launched at APLU’s 131st Annual Meeting in New Orleans last week.

Powered by Publics represents the largest ever collaborative effort to improve college access, advance equity, and increase college degrees awarded. In addition to committing to those goals, participating institutions have pledged to share aggregate data demonstrating their progress to help spur lasting change across the higher education sector. Participating schools will also share tactics that have helped them attract, retain and graduate students, including first generation students and students from diverse backgrounds.

“UVM is strongly committed to being accessible and to helping all students succeed and thrive once they’re here, so joining this national initiative was a natural for us,” said Tom Sullivan, University of Vermont president. “We look forward both to sharing some of our recruitment and retention strategies and to learning of new approaches that have helped others succeed, with the goal of broadening the reach and impact of higher education in the United States through this collective effort.”

Enrollment management vice president Stacey Kostell pointed to two initiatives she said UVM plans to share with the other schools in its cluster, the Catamount Commitment, which is helping bring more low income Vermonters to UVM, and a new advising software system designed to support students and help them persist and graduate.

By design, the participating institutions reflect a wide array of institutional characteristics such as enrollment, student demographics, regional workforce needs, and selectivity. The broad diversity of the institutions is intended to help create a playbook of adaptable student success reforms that can be adopted and scaled up across a variety of institution types, including those with limited resources.

Other schools in UVM’s cluster include Stony Brook, Temple, University at Buffalo, University of Connecticut, University of Delaware, University of Maryland/Baltimore County, University of Missouri/Columbia and the University of South Florida.

The clusters have identified anticipated focus areas for their work. UVM’s cluster plan to focus on first generation and male students.

“Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed a real and growing enthusiasm among public university leaders to advance college completion nationally,” said APLU President Peter McPherson. “We have to seize the moment and mobilize institutions to improve not just college access, but also equity in student outcomes and the number of students who earn degrees. That’s what Powered by Publics is all about and why we’re thrilled to work with our member institutions toward such an important national goal.”

The Powered by Publics effort will be overseen by APLU’s Center for Public University Transformation, which the association created this year to help drive transformational change across the public higher education sector. A core value of the Center and its participating institutions will be rooted in a commitment to sharing data and innovative, successful practices to help drive progress across the entire sector of public higher education. The Center will regularly disseminate lessons learned from the participating institutions to the broader public higher education community.

A national advisory council of respected higher education thought leaders will provide a strategic vision and guidance for the Center, which will work to build upon and complement existing initiatives around institutional change and student success.

View the list of institutions participating in the initiative and the clusters they will be working within.

Source: UVM News

It might sound like an odd pairing, but fashion and fishing are all in a day’s work for Claire Neaton ’12, cofounder of Salmon Sisters. The unconventional company is run by — you guessed it — two sisters who oversee a sustainable fishery and apparel line based in their home state of Alaska. Together, the Salmon Sisters were named to Forbes’ 2019 “30 Under 30” social entrepreneurs list.

For Salmon Sisters, social enterprise is at the nexus of fashion and fishing, and it’s what makes the company stand out. Neaton and her sister Emma Teal Laukitis not only source high-quality Alaskan salmon, halibut and cod sustainably, but they also raise awareness about the importance of fishing for wild seafood with integrity and the environment in mind. They also donate one can of wild salmon for every item sold on their online shop. To date, Salmon Sisters has donated more than 80,000 cans to the Food Bank of Alaska.

“It’s neat to realize this fish has a purpose — it’s going to feed someone,” said Neaton in an article for Vermont Quarterly. “Customers get a healthy product and they know where the food is coming from. I’ve always been interested in that.”

The inspiration for Salmon Sisters came from Neaton and Laukitis’ upbringing in a commercial fishing family. Their father settled the family on a homestead in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, nestled between the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean, and raised his daughters to fish and appreciate the environment that supported their community’s livelihoods. Today, the Salmon Sisters provide “beautiful protein” in the form of wild Alaskan fish and trendy apparel that reflects their way of life to customers around the world. Apart from fish, their website sells everything from passport wallets made of salmon leather — adorned with fish scales and all — to t-shirts, sweatshirts and sturdy boots.

And if the name “Salmon Sisters” sounds familiar, it may be because you’ve heard it before, right in your own home. Recently, Neaton and Laukitis were featured in a Microsoft commercial that highlighted their hands-on, mission-driven work.

While Neaton has her hand in many aspects of the business with her sister, it’s business itself that brought her to the University of Vermont. As a student, she earned her degree with a concentration in marketing from the Grossman School of Business and minored in nutrition in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

She joins an impressive roster of fellow Catamounts who have been named as Forbes’ “30 Under 30” social entrepreneurs over the years: Kristof Grina ’12, a plant and soil science graduate who went on to create Up Top Acres, a company that conducts rooftop farming in Washington, D.C.; and Sasha Fisher ’10, who launched Spark Microgrants, a non-profit organization that supports East African communities in pursuing their own development projects.

This year, Neaton joins alumna Ariel Wengroff ’10 and chemistry professor Michael Ruggiero, plus nearly 600 others, on the 2019 Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list, which spans 20 different categories ranging from consumer technology pros to immigrants.

Source: UVM News

The League of American Bicyclists has honored the University of Vermont with a Gold-level Bicycle Friendly University award in recognition of the institution’s achievements in promoting and enabling safe, accessible bicycling on campus.    

“Congratulations to the University of Vermont for its inclusion in a select class of 45 new and renewing Bicycle Friendly Universities nationwide,” says League Executive Director Bill Nesper. “The standards for attaining any of the four levels of awards—Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum—are very high and require deliberate, determined efforts to earn them. Universities and colleges are in a unique leadership position to help encourage and enable people of all ages—especially young adults—to adopt healthy, sustainable habits that can benefit them throughout their lives.”

The program, which now includes 193 BFU colleges and universities, is part of the League’s larger program and mission to create a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone.   

“More than 3.8 million students now attend Bicycle Friendly Universities in 46 states and Washington, DC,” says BFU Director Amelia Neptune. “From large to small, urban to rural, these educational institutions are creating a powerful community of college campuses that model and support the use of bicycles for improving health, sustainability, and transportation options.”

This year, UVM was promoted from a silver to a gold-level Bicycle Friendly University. “It’s really exciting to see our university be recognized as a gold-level bike friendly campus,” says UVM Bikes President, Connor Smith. “I think it marks a positive trend in bike culture and infrastructure, and hopefully this achievement will inspire UVM to continue to improve biking here on campus.” UVM Bikes is a student led group that runs the Bicycle Education Co-op on campus.

Being bike friendly has made getting around UVM and Burlington easier and more sustainable. In the spring of 2018, UVM played a pivotal role in implementing the Greenride Bikeshare, which services university students, faculty, and staff. The University of Vermont encourages bicycling as an easy option for transportation and provides amenities such as convenient bike parking, an on-campus co-op for bicycle education and repairs, and is working on implementing improved infrastructure such as bike lanes and covered bike parking.

Moving forward, the University of Vermont will have access to a variety of free tools and technical assistance from the League to become even more bicycle friendly. When colleges and universities invest in bicycling, great things happen: reduced carbon emissions, increased health of university affiliates, and a community in which people are more connected to one another and to the place where they live.

To apply or learn more about the free BFU program, visit the League online at www.bikeleague.org/university.

Source: UVM News

In 2016, Ariel Wengroff ’10 walked the red carpet with Gloria Steinem and — at just twenty-six years old — became the youngest person in Emmy history to be nominated as an executive producer in the nonfiction or documentary series category. While she may have been in good company that night, Wengroff once again finds herself in the presence of greatness at the age of twenty-nine as one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” trailblazers in media.

“As Gloria Steinem says: We are linked, not ranked. Being a part of Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ is a huge honor and it’s important to also remember the amazing work that is not reflected on the list,” says Wengeroff. “Hopefully, it will allow me to continue to share the hidden stories around the globe of those who need it most.”

A former English major and Honors College student at the University of Vermont, today Wengroff’s work in media helps illuminate marginalized communities and amplify disenfranchised voices around the world. A powerhouse at Vice Media, her current roles there include being publisher of Broadly, a women’s- and LGBTQ+-focused channel of Vice Media, as well as executive producer of Viceland’s Emmy-nominated “Woman with Gloria Steinem,” a docuseries hosted by feminist and activist Gloria Steinem that explores worldwide gender-based violence and struggles of women. She is also a board member of Lesbians Who Tech.

“Young people today feel like they’re stuck with the world’s problems,” she says. “It’s important to create content and tell stories that shine a light on serious issues, but also have a positive solution or moment of change. There are courageous people fighting for change, and with the political fracture around the world, I hope to bring the truth to the forefront and help find solutions.”

This year, Wengroff joins 600 other “bold risk-takers putting a new twist on the old tools of the trade” who made Forbes’ annual list. Her fellow innovators span 20 different categories, ranging from consumer technology pros to immigrants, and include another Catamount: twenty-nine-year-old chemistry professor Michael Ruggiero.

The Pen vs. Policy

Wengroff’s journey to impactful storytelling wasn’t always her plan, however. She admits that during her time at UVM, she thought she would be a poet — and likely a talented one at that. As a student, she earned the English Department’s Benjamin B. Wainwright Prize, a poetry prize awarded each year to one student with the best poem submitted. After graduating from UVM, she took a detour into politics before finding her home at Vice. She worked for the Executive Office of Governor of Vermont during the Peter Shumlin administration, for the Vermont Democratic Party, and for the Welch for Congress campaign.

“I was so fascinated by how people communicate and as I’ve shifted from poetry to politics to media, that hasn’t changed,” says Wengroff. “I felt that if I continued in politics, I would get buried in red tape and wouldn’t be able to make progress. And then I realized that storytelling and being as close to knowing someone yourself gives you the best chance to relate and change the way you think. Media became the natural next step, as it has the largest audience that you can immediately connect with.”

Off the top of her head, Wengroff can name a handful of professors who pushed and honed her writing skills over the years. She also credits her time in Burlington and experience at UVM for shaping her into the engaged global citizen and storyteller she is today. “Going to UVM and being in Burlington completely changed my life. Burlington, The Radio Bean and the creative writing program, The Inkpot, at Living/Learning was my everything. It taught me to challenge the norm and the status quo, to protest on campus and fight for what I believe in.”

Source: UVM News

Tight deadlines are great motivators, a central premise of National Novel Writing Month. November 1 to November 30, from first sentence to last — 50,000 words minimum — get it done. While that ambitious endeavor requires many solitary hours, UVM students in Maria Hummel’s section of English 114 have a seasoned novelist to help ease the way.

A Class of 1994 alumna who returned to the university two years ago as an assistant professor of English, Hummel is a three-time novelist and accomplished poet. Her latest book, “Still Lives,” was published this summer. Though it is Hummel’s first foray into mystery, the novel has squarely found its mark with readers. Her publisher, Counterpoint, made it their lead title in June, and it was selected by both the Book of the Month Club and Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Publication rights have sold for the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand markets, and film and television producers are interested in screen rights.

Several years ago, ripe for a new path, Hummel decided to venture into mystery. Her previous two novels—”Motherland” and “Wilderness Run”—were works of historical fiction. The particular challenges of writing a mystery, which she viewed as a kind of formal exercise in unknown territory, beckoned. “Mystery is one of the most codified forms that we have in fiction, though writers bend that form all the time,” says Hummel.  

Another new frontier: rooting her fiction in places, people and circumstances of her own life. For several years between graduate school in North Carolina and a Stegner Fellowship and teaching at Stanford University, Hummel worked as a writer/editor at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. That immersion in the L.A. art world seemed to offer a rich vein for fiction, and she made some initial efforts during her Southern California years, but nothing jelled: “I was too close to the material then.” But a decade later, setting a story amidst the excess and intrigue of that milieu clicked.

Writing mystery required a more deliberative process than her previous fiction, Hummel says. She needed a keener sense of where the book was going in order to plot out fundamental elements of the genre. “They say if you write a murder mystery you have to write out the murder first. And, whoever ‘they’ might be, are correct,” she says. “You can’t properly plant the clues and red herrings without that.”

As her English 114 (“NaNoWriMo”) students have prepared for the November novel challenge all semester, Hummel shares her own process via class discussions, exercises, and one-on-one conferences.

Students first write character sketches, much as Hummel did when beginning to find her way on “Still Lives.” Considering structure, she references screenwriter/director Stanley Kubrick’s dictum that every film requires seven “non-submersible units,” key moments that evoke the pattern of change or emotional development at the core of the plot. She has the students chart out what their seven unsinkable novel scenes would be.

While beginning to draft “Still Lives,” Hummel did a deep dive into Ian McEwan’s “Atonement,” carefully breaking down how he unfolds his story in the first sections of the book. This semester, her students have done the same with a favorite book, sharing their findings in class presentations.

“When you’re writing a novel, it feels very much like you’re on a trail. But if you can break down another novel and use that to help create a map for yourself, it will really help,” Hummel says. “Maybe writing a novel is always going to be a daunting process, but if you’re feeling stuck, it gives you a place to return.” 

Source: UVM News

Trillions of atoms in motion could take the form of a new cancer drug or a bendable phone. At the quantum scale, “atoms vibrate, combine, and pile up in very complicated ways,” says University of Vermont chemist Michael Ruggiero.

For his remarkable work in better understanding how these subtle, but very specific, motions of atoms influence the bulk properties of materials people can use, the twenty-eight-year-old UVM assistant professor was selected as one of Forbes’ “30-Under-30” leaders in science.

Forbes announced its 2019 winners on November 13, calling it their “annual list chronicling the brashest entrepreneurs across the United States and Canada.”

In his on-campus laboratory, Ruggiero and his students hit materials with a powerful laser to tease out the quantum mechanics of molecules. Then they take what they learn in these real-world materials and model their motions on a supercomputer.

“We go from the very basic to the very applied,” Ruggiero says. For example, with insights he gains about the motions of specific molecules, he’s working to help pharmaceutical companies better understand how materials may be interacting to degrade a medication.

“The kind of work we do could lead to drugs with a longer shelf life,” he says. Other examples of where the Ruggiero’s research program aims to help: improving the ability of semiconductors to work in flexible displays, and better understanding the mechanical properties of gas storage materials for improved hydrogen fuel cells.

“To be recognized as a leading scientist across my age group is a huge honor,” says Ruggiero. It’s an honor that emerges from his innovative work hunting for “specific molecular motions that lead to favorable properties,” he says.

Source: UVM News

Once again, the University of Vermont Grossman School of Business’ Sustainable Innovation MBA program has been named the No. 1 “Best Green MBA” program by the Princeton Review. This 2019 Princeton ranking marks the second consecutive year that the program has topped the list.

“We’re thrilled, of course, but not too terribly surprised,” says program director Joe Fusco about the second consecutive first-place ranking. “We’re very fortunate to have passionate students, alumni, faculty and staff involved in this program who are committed to the transformation of business and business education. They’re making this program the place to be if you want to change the world.”

The ranking comes shortly after the release of the landmark United Nations’ report on climate change that warned of worldwide poverty and natural disaster if significant actions are not taken by businesses and governments to combat global warming in the next dozen years. At the core of its curriculum, the Sustainable Innovation MBA at the Grossman School of Business seeks to aid in those issues through environmental, ethics, poverty and inequality-centered global entrepreneurship and enterprise.

“We train and launch the next generation of leaders who will create and reinvent profitable business models to address 21st century challenges pertaining to climate change, social inequities, and widening income inequality, to name a few,” says David Jones, academic director of the program. “Where others see daunting challenges on a massive scale, we see opportunities — opportunities to create innovative for-profit business models that provide scalable solutions that are sustained by the profits they generate for owners, and the social and environmental value they create for society.”

Unique in its mission, the program ultimately replaced the school’s traditional MBA program, which UVM offered for 38 years, upon its creation in 2014. Today’s iteration of the program retains the foundational business school toolkit required for graduates to succeed in business; however, its focus on inclusivity and sustainability prepares graduates to transform today’s businesses and establish new ones that improve environmental strategies and corporate sustainability.

The Sustainable Innovation MBA is a one-year, AACSB-accredited program that boasts small cohorts of students who collaborate and move through the program together. During their short, yet rigorous, time in the program, students learn from Vermont-based companies that have excelled in social and sustainable enterprise, such as Ben & Jerry’s, Seventh Generation and Keurig Green Mountain, and gain real-world experience through a required practicum. Previous practica have immersed students in topics from reusable feminine hygiene products to fighting poverty in Indonesia and Bangladesh through enterprise investment opportunities.

With its first-place ranking on the 2019 “Best Green MBA” list, the UVM program led Ivy League schools including Cornell University and Yale University, which ranked second and third on Princeton’s list, respectively.

“When you are already number one, the pressure is intense to continue to build excellence in the curriculum and the ecosystem of innovators, entrepreneurs, faculty and staff that deliver such a high-quality program. You know that excellent schools such as Cornell and Yale are breathing down your neck for the coveted number one spot. Kudos to the entire team for maintaining this focus on excellence and quality,” says Sanjay Sharma, dean of the Grossman School of Business.

The Princeton Review ranking adds momentum to growing international recognition of the program, which was ranked the No. 5 “Better World MBA” program worldwide in 2018 by Corporate Knights, based in Toronto, and was named a top tier MBA program in North America earlier this year by London-based CEO Magazine. In addition to being ranked No. 1 on the 2019 “Best Green MBA” programs list, the Grossman School of Business at UVM was also named to The Princeton Review’s “Best Business Schools for 2019” list, a merit shared with 252 other elite business schools across the nation.

The “Best Green MBA” rankings are based on students’ assessments of how well their school is preparing them in environmental/sustainability and social responsibility issues, and for a career in a green job market. The “Best Business Schools for 2019” list was based on data from surveys of 23,000 students attending the schools and of administrators at the graduate schools.

Source: UVM News