Education – Page 28

November 7, 2018November 7, 2018

Microbiome Implicated in Sea Star Wasting Disease

The culprit might be many microbes. Since 2013, a gruesome and mysterious disease has killed millions of sea stars along the West Coast from Mexico to Alaska—making the animals turn to goo, lose their legs, and pull their own bodies into pieces. For years, ocean scientists have searched in vain for the cause.

Now a first-of-its-kind research study shows that the animals’ microbiomes—the community of bacteria living in and on the sea stars—are critically important to the progression of the disease.

“An imbalance of microbes might be leading to the disease,” said Melissa Pespeni, a marine biologist at the University of Vermont, who co-led the new study published November 7 in Scientific Reports, an online journal from the publishers of Nature.

Or, it could be that the changes the scientists observed in the sea stars’ microbiomes were caused by another, as yet undetected, pathogen. “We were thinking we might find a smoking gun of one microbe but no, there’s a whole suite of known pathogens that increase in abundance with the onset of the disease,” Pespeni said.

Bacterial balance

These known disease-causing bacteria from the family Tenacibaculum, and other opportunistic bacteria, spiked in abundance at the beginning of the time the scientists observed the sea stars getting sick. And these same troublesome bacteria continued to increase as the diseased animals progressed toward death. At the same time, known beneficial bacteria, from the group Pseudoalteromonas, greatly decreased in abundance at the onset of the illness.

“We don’t yet know the cause of sea star wasting disease,” said Melanie Lloyd, who co-led the new study as a post-doctoral researcher in Pespeni’s UVM lab.

“But we do show that the microbiome plays a powerful role in whether a sea star stays healthy or becomes sick,” said Pespeni.

Limp and liquidy

Together, the two scientists observed thirty-seven ochre sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus) collected from Monterey, California—a known hotspot of the disease—in thirty-seven tanks in Vermont. All the animals came into the lab looking healthy, but, over two weeks, twenty-nine of them developed the wasting disease and died.

“It’s really quite sad to see. They become limp and liquidy, with holes straight to their insides and no tissue integrity. If an arm starts walking in one direction, it’s likely to leave the rest of it’s body behind,” said Pespeni.

In contrast, the eight animals that didn’t get the disease had a higher overall richness of microbes than the sick ones. And, the UVM scientists show, the healthy animals hosted an abundance of helpful microbes that can detect disease-causing microbes, inhibit their growth, and clean up harmful substances that might damage the sea star—like environmental pollutants.

The wasting disease has attacked more than twenty different species of sea stars across a huge geographic range, threatening several of these top-level predators with extinction—and rewriting the ecology of the west coast of North America.

“The disease has crossed into multiple different genera of sea stars, and suddenly appeared in many far-apart places,” says Pespeni. “Because of the widespread nature of the disease, it seems increasingly less likely that it’s a single pathogen.”

General disruption

Since the late nineteenth century, some scientists have assumed that the progression of infectious disease is the result of one organism attacking a host. This approach doesn’t shed much light on some complex diseases. For example, Black Band Disease in corals has been shown to be caused by a whole community of microbes. And, in humans, several chronic diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes, have been linked to so-called “dysbiosis”—a general disruption of a person’s microbiome.

“Even if we find a single pathogen at the root of sea star wasting disease, it could be doing its work by throwing off the microbiome of the host,” Pespeni said. But she suspects the disease is the result of a multifaceted cascade of troubles affecting the animal’s microbiome and immune system—that, in turn, she speculates, may be triggered by pollution or environmental change, noting important areas for further research.

During this and other experiments, “it’s not uncommon at all to observe a sea star healthy one day and in pieces and near death the next morning,” said UVM co-author Melanie Lloyd. “If this disease was happening in humans, it would be the making of a Stephen King novel.”

Source: UVM News

November 7, 2018November 7, 2018

A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates

When UVM’s Class of 2022 attended orientation sessions last summer, they enrolled in courses, got to know the campus, the city and one another. They were also handed a book — “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates — and an assignment: read it before returning to town in late August ready to begin college in earnest. UVM’s First Year Reading Program unites incoming classes in a common experience, and, at its best, sends a clear intellectual message that they are not in high school anymore.

Lisa Schnell, Honors College interim dean and associate professor of English, teaches a section of the college’s first-year seminar, “The Pursuit of Knowledge.” The course is among many at UVM that incorporate the first-year reading selection into the syllabus. Schnell admits to some initial concern at the proposal of that particular title, a deeply personal, unflinching perspective on racism in the United States and winner of the 2015 National Book Award.

“I honestly thought it was a little dicey. It is just a challenging book that requires conversation, engagement and well-facilitated discussions.” Working with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Center for Cultural Pluralism, faculty prepared over the summer to teach the book as effectively as possible. And the new students, as well, have proven up to the challenge, Schnell says. “It has been an incredible experience. Students are excited, none of the ‘why do we have to read this?’ chorus you sometimes get with other books. We started with it the first day of class, a powerful example of what college education is right at the beginning. It surprised them, and they had to go beyond.” Ten weeks and several books down the road, Schnell says her students still bring it up in class.

Deborah Noel, senior lecturer in English, is teaching Coates’ book in both an Honors College first-year seminar and a Teacher Advisor Program short story course. For each class, she notes, “Between the World and Me” serves as a powerful example of counter-narrative. “We have a familiar, even ubiquitous, idealized story of American identity enshrined in founding documents, made popular in the media, in textbooks, in popular discourse in general,” she says. “But this idealized view describes a narrow sampling of American life, and its very idealism is predicated on the suppression of terrible realities.”

Noel says that her students appreciate the “brutal honesty” of Coates’s book. “The book makes most of them uncomfortable, but some aspects of American life right now are very uncomfortable, and they feel that, too. So it resonates with that nagging feeling that we have huge challenges in front of us that we need to talk about directly.”

Or, as Noel’s teaching colleague Lisa Schnell puts it, there is “a necessariness” to reading this book at this moment. And she adds that sitting in the same room with the author takes the experience of reading his work a step deeper. “His ideas are so powerful. But to have Ta-Nehisi Coates there in the flesh, sitting on the stage talking, that also has its own power,” she says.

A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates

Students, and the wider university and local communities, had that opportunity on Tuesday, November 6, weathering a damp Election Day evening and a long line spiraling outside of the athletic complex to hear Coates in conversation with UVM professor and poet Major Jackson.

Addressing a full house, the author opened with a short reading from “Between the World and Me,” prefacing it with the comment that his book is, above all, about fear — in particular, the degree to which fear in African-American communities is at the root of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Then Jackson joined the author on stage, sitting side by side in arm chairs as Jackson guided a discussion through topics that included Coates’ early efforts as a poet, his formative years at Howard University, current teaching in the journalism program at New York University, influences from James Baldwin to Marvin Gaye and the persistent desire many express that his writing might offer some vision of hope around racism in America.

Speaking to what he hopes to impart to his students at NYU, Coates said, “I want them to learn to respect the beauty of language.” Though he was self-deprecating about the poetry he wrote early in his career, Coates noted that “one of the great lessons as a poet was to pay attention to every single word.” His ultimate goal as an author is not that readers merely walk away with a story that is factually correct. “I want them to be haunted. I want the words that I’ve chosen and the ways that I’ve organized them to haunt readers long after they’ve stopped reading.”

Late in the conversation, before turning to several student questions, Jackson posed a question that went to the heart of Coates’s book, what it is and what it is not. “Why does the country need to hear optimism out of the mouths of black people?” Jackson asked.

Noting that because he wasn’t raised in the Christian tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. or James Baldwin, Coates said he is not inclined to preach the power of love. “Most things don’t end up well,” he said. “The moment in which there is black progress is when a critical mass of white people has decided it is in their interest.” Coates walked through some American history: Lincoln was assassinated by a racist; King was wire-tapped and harassed by the FBI, then assassinated as well; the light of Barack Obama’s presidency was followed by the retrenchment of Donald Trump’s. “As a writer, I want to be respectful to all of you,” Coates said. “It would be wrong of me to read a bedtime story to you. It would be deeply disrespectful.”

Before the audience headed home for an evening of nervously watching election returns, one student asked Coates to reflect on the significance of voting in the day’s midterm elections. The author admitted, with some embarrassment, that his first vote was cast at age 33, in 2008 for Barack Obama. A sense that the whole system was corrupt and voting was participation in that corruption kept him away from the polls, Coates said — “That was a radical, but limited view.” He said his perspective shifted when a friend suggested that even though a vote might be for “a lesser evil. I’m for less evil.”

Likening voting to taking out the trash — a chore and a duty, the neglect of which has tangible consequences — Coates added, “But voting is not the end of your political engagement. We need to do all of that other work, so that when we fill out the ballot we aren’t just trying to forestall evil.”

Source: UVM News

November 1, 2018November 1, 2018

UVM Extension Plays Key Role in Launching International Culinary Trail

In the spring of 2017, early in his tenure as director of UVM Extension, Chuck Ross got a long voicemail message from a farmer and culinary tourism advocate in Pontiac, Quebec named David Gillespie. Did Vermont have any interest, Gillespie wanted to know, in being part of an international culinary trail he was helping create that connected Quebec, Ontario and the Adirondack region of New York State?

“I didn’t know David from Adam,” Ross said, “but I returned the call.”

An hour-and-a-half later, Ross could not have been more sold on the tourism opportunity represented by a culinary route dotted with high quality food producers, vineyards, farms, farm-to-table restaurants and farmers’ markets that wound its way through famously scenic areas in two states, including the Champlain Valley region of Vermont, and two provinces.

After a follow-up meeting with Gillespie and other partners in Quebec, Ross and Lisa Chase, Extension’s agritourism expert, brought the tour idea to other key stakeholders in Vermont – including the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, the Department of Tourism and Marketing and the Vermont Fresh Network – who were equally intrigued and soon signed on as co-sponsors.

Major step

Last week, after a year of meetings and calls to work out logistics, the trail took a major step forward with a bus tour of the Canadian leg of the trail that was part a get-to-know-you exercise and part pilot. About 40 representatives – including agriculture and tourism officials from Vermont and New York State and food producers in both states – participated.

The two-day tour featured stops at seven vineyard/wineries, fromageries, farms, inns and farmers’ markets that spanned south central Quebec to Ottawa to eastern Ontario. The group also stopped at Parliament Hill in Ottawa to talk up the trail with legislators.

The tour exceeded even his high expectation, Ross said, underscoring “the quality of the products and the passion of the producers and operators in this region.”

Chase was similarly impressed. “The hospitality that the Canadians showed us was pretty incredible at every stop,” she said.

A worldwide destination

Though each of the four areas on the culinary tour have individual strengths as tourism destinations, combining them into one multi-faceted, international trail significantly magnifies their appeal, Ross says.

“It amplifies what’s here, gives us a bigger presence, and enables us to put this area on the map as a global destination to see beautiful landscapes, engage with value-added farming operations, and enjoy the incredible culinary products that we generate in this region,” he said.

Gillespie needs no convincing, “Because of its length” – it clocks in at over 900 miles, perhaps the longest culinary trail in the world – and the variety and quality of the stops along the ways, “it can be a worldwide attraction,” he said.

Though eastern New York, western Vermont, southern Quebec and eastern Ontario are normally thought of as distinct, they constitute a true region, according to Ross.

“The geography of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Ottawa River are part of the same watershed, the people share common history and common ancestry, whether Francophone or English speaking,” Ross said. “And they have a similar climate and similar products.”

From Cornwall to Swanton

Vermont’s leg of the trail, called the Lake Champlain Tasting Trail, extends from Cornwall to Swanton in the Champlain Valley and encompasses 50 stops, including well known destinations like Boyer’s Orchard and Cider Mill, Shelburne Farms, Hen of the Wood, the Charlotte Berry Farm, the Champlain Islands Farmers’ Market, Green Mountain Blue Cheese and Boucher Family Farm and the Boston Post Dairy.

New York State is contributing six separate interlocking culinary trails to the effort.

Much remains to be done before the international trail can formally open, said Chase, who has played a major role in pushing the logistics forward.

“We need a name for the international trail and cohesive branding that would include a website with the trails in all four regions so visitors can create customized tours,” she said. “We also need to deal with biosecurity issues, both for tourists and farms.” A committee with representatives from all four regions is hard at work addressing these challenges, Chase said.

An event next week will provide an opportunity to both market the tour internationally and pick up information that could help it succeed. Chase and Gillespie will make a joint presentation on the trail at the 1st World Congress on Agritourism in Bolzano, Italy, November 7-9.

The project has been a gratifying one for Ross.

“The collaborative spirit was really profound, and any issues that existed between our countries were not present,” he said. “I certainly try to make it clear in all my remarks that we recognize Canada as the United States’ best friend and great collaborative partner to the north.”

Ross expects the international trail to formally launch in 2019.

Source: UVM News

October 30, 2018October 30, 2018

Q&A: The Renaming of UVM’s Library

Last week, the University of Vermont Board of Trustees voted to remove the name of Guy W. Bailey, UVM’s 13^th president, from the main university library. The official name for the building, previously Guy W. Bailey/David W. Howe Memorial Library, is now David W. Howe Memorial Library.

This decision was reached following recommendation by the university’s Renaming Advisory Committee, established in March of this year. Composed of faculty, alumni and students, the committee followed a process and set of principles developed at Yale University, which includes the opportunity for members of the community to comment.

The proposal to remove Bailey’s name, submitted by associate professor Jackie Weinstock and signed by more than 100 members of the UVM faculty, cites Bailey’s involvement with the Vermont eugenics movement of the 1920s and 30s as grounds for revoking the naming honor.

After review of the proposal and subsequent research, the committee concluded that Bailey was significantly involved in promoting eugenics, which led to involuntary sterilizations of poor women, darker-skinned French Canadians and Native Americans. Because this legacy is at odds with the mission of the university and because the building in question plays a substantial role in forming community on campus – two of the principles that guide the renaming committee – a recommendation was made to the board to remove Bailey’s name.

UVM Today connected with Ron Lumbra, chair of the committee, alumnus and trustee, to learn more about this decision and the work behind it:

Communities around the country are debating the role of monuments and memorials and the legacy of those we’ve honored in the past. What advice would you give to others making decisions like this one?

A couple pieces of advice come to mind.

First, it’s ok to use existing frameworks to guide your decision making. We found Yale University’s criteria and process to be clear and compelling and an appropriate one for us to use at UVM.

Second, engage your community in the decision. Here, that began with our students, and it continued by appointing capable representation on our committee, including scholars from relevant disciplines. We also made sure to create opportunities for all at UVM to share their thoughts.

The criteria you used are quite nuanced in the way they ask you to consider the issue over time. In this case, you needed to research and discuss whether eugenics was widely contested and/or at odds with the mission of the university a) during Bailey’s time b) during the time of the naming and c) today. You also needed to consider how central the library is to UVM’s community. Tell us about that process.

Two of these principles most strongly contributed to our recommendation. Eugenics is sharply at odds with the mission of the University of Vermont today. We also know the library to be central to forming community on the campus. Additionally, we found another of Bailey’s legacies—the serious financial mismanagement of the university—to be fundamentally at odds with our mission. These conclusions led to our unanimous recommendation to remove Bailey’s name.

How widely eugenics was contested during Bailey’s time and at the time of naming, 19 years after his death, was not really a factor in our recommendation due to a lack of information. As the report notes, eugenics was considered by many “an intellectually progressive idea built on a foundation of science” in the 20s and early 30s. That’s a cautionary tale for every generation moving forward.

Beyond renaming, the committee also recommended that the university establish “a lasting educational effort” on the history and impact of eugenics and UVM’s role in it. Tell us more about this recommendation.

As an institution of higher education, we should take meaningful steps to document and understand the past and educate current and future generations. This could take the form of seminars, exhibits (such as the one currently in the Library), public art or monuments, or other ideas.

Topics like eugenics—at the intersection of medicine, technology, identity, ethics and justice—continue to be relevant today, and institutions like UVM must confront the role they have played in the past and should play in the future.

Source: UVM News

October 29, 2018October 29, 2018

UVM’s Phi Beta Kappa Chapter Featured on Cover of National Magazine

The University of Vermont’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter, celebrating its 170th anniversary this year, is featured on the cover of the fall issue of the Key Reporter, the national Phi Beta Kappa magazine.

Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most prestigious academic honor society in the United States. Only about 10 percent of U.S. colleges and universities have academic programs in the liberal arts and sciences that are rigorous enough to house a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

“It’s an honor to be selected to be on the cover of the Key Reporter and a great way to celebrate our anniversary,” said Meredith Niles, president of the UVM Phi Beta Kappa chapter and an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences. “Phi Beta Kappa has a vibrant history at UVM, and we’re still going strong in 2018.”

Chartered in 1848, the 11th in the country, UVM’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter was the first to extend membership to women, in 1875, and the first to admit an African-American, in 1877.

Every year, about 75 new UVM students are inducted. Students admitted for the 2017/18 academic year will be announced later in the fall semester.

Since 1848, approximately 4,200 UVM students have been inducted to Phi Beta Kappa.

Source: UVM News

October 26, 2018October 26, 2018

UVM Trustees Committee Approves Removal of Bailey’s Name from Bailey/Howe Library

The University of Vermont Board of Trustees Committee of the Whole today voted to remove the name of Guy W. Bailey, UVM’s 13^th president, from the main university library. The resolution is still subject to formal action by the Board at its meeting tomorrow morning. Upon Board approval, the official name for the building, previously Guy W. Bailey/David W. Howe Memorial Library, will be David W. Howe Memorial Library.

This decision was reached following a recommendation by the university’s Renaming Advisory Committee, established in March of this year. Composed of current, emeriti and student trustees (some UVM alumni), and faculty members, the committee followed a process and set of principles developed at Yale University, which includes the opportunity for members of the community to comment.

After review of the proposal and subsequent research, the committee concluded that Bailey was significantly involved as president of the University in promoting eugenics, which ultimately led in Vermont to involuntary sterilizations of poor women, darker-skinned French Canadians and Native Americans. The committee also learned through its research of fiscal mismanagement during the Bailey presidency. Because this legacy is at odds with the mission of the university and because the building in question plays a substantial role in forming community on campus – two of the principles that guide the renaming committee – a recommendation was made to the board to remove Bailey’s name.

“We reached our recommendation based primarily on the fact that Bailey’s active involvement as president of the University in supporting and promoting the Eugenics Survey of Vermont is fundamentally at odds with the University’s mission. We also considered Bailey’s mismanagement of University financial resources,” said trustee and committee chair Ron Lumbra.

UVM President Tom Sullivan offered praise for the process and committee’s work.

“I applaud and appreciate the careful, thoughtful, serious work of the Trustee Renaming Advisory Committee, under the able leadership of Trustee Ron Lumbra. The Committee’s report is clear and well-reasoned. It is a testament to the fair and deliberative process we have implemented to consider proposals to remove names from UVM facilities. I fully support the Committee’s recommendation to remove the Bailey name from the Library.”

While no other proposal has been submitted for the committee’s consideration, Lumbra said the same process will be used in the future.

“I think the process we have set in place to consider de-naming proposals worked very well, and it is one that will serve the University well should other proposals be submitted in the future,” said Lumbra. “This is a task that the committee took very seriously. Our committee members dove deeply into the research, thoughtfully considered all the information available, deliberated and debated all the key aspects carefully, and with open minds arrived at what we think is the right recommendation. I want to give a big thanks to everybody in the committee and supporting staff. This process was conducted thoughtfully, deliberately, and efficiently.”

Source: UVM News

October 26, 2018October 26, 2018

UVM Board of Trustees Committees Pass Resolutions for Proposed Multi-Purpose Facility

On Friday afternoon two University of Vermont Board of Trustees committees passed resolutions that lay out a specific financial plan for the Athletic Department’s Multi-Purpose Facility project and pave the way for construction to begin as early as this winter, pending receipt of all the necessary permits.

The resolutions must still be approved Saturday morning by the full Board of Trustees and require that all fundraising goals be met prior to groundbreaking. While fundraising for the project will continue up to and through construction, several critical milestones have been met which provided the board confidence to move the project forward.

The much-anticipated project includes major upgrades to health, wellness and recreation, a transformational renovation of historic Gutterson Fieldhouse and the construction of a new events center that will serve as the home for the Catamount men’s and women’s basketball teams while also hosting a variety of campus and public events. The project is scheduled to be completed in various stages throughout the 2020-21 academic year.

“The passage of these resolutions by the full Board of Trustees will represent the most significant step forward in the long history of our vision, consideration, planning, and, at long last, construction of this critical project,” said UVM President Tom Sullivan. “Once approved, our board will be making a strong and official commitment of University resources to get this done, which is an essential component of the finances needed to move forward. This opens the door for this multi-purpose project to break ground as planned this winter, as we complete the final phase of philanthropic fundraising. As I have stated before, ‘It’s time.’ And now, I can report that we are all in with this clear commitment to get this project done.”

The total project cost is anticipated to be $95 million which will be funded through a combination of private philanthropic gifts and other institutional sources.

“I’m incredibly encouraged by today’s action and want to thank our generous donors and members of the board for their unwavering commitment to this project,” stated Director of Athletics Jeff Schulman. “The multi-purpose facility that we are poised to begin will dramatically enhance student health, wellness and recreation while also positioning our varsity athletic programs for long-term, sustained competitive excellence. It’s a project that perfectly fits our campus and will be enjoyed by UVM students, our teams, Catamount fans and the entire community for generations to come.”

“We’ve reached this important milestone thanks to our amazing donors’ dedication and investment,” noted Shane Jacobson, the president and CEO of the UVM Foundation. “Their belief in this project has been a source of constant inspiration. With the trustee’s decision today, I believe we have the final piece necessary to meet our fundraising goal. We now turn to alumni, parents, fans and friends who have not yet participated with a request – please join us to make this vision a reality. Now is the time!”

UVM Board of Trustees Chairman David Daigle concluded, “It is essential that we complete this needed and long-awaited project for the benefit of the entire UVM Community. At this board meeting we are approving all of the financial and programmatic pieces to make this project a reality.”

To learn more about how you can support the Multi-Purpose Facility project including naming opportunities visit go.uvm.edu/itstime or contact the Director of Major Gifts for Athletics Chris Bernier at Chris.Bernier@uvm.edu or (802) 656-3910.

The Multi-Purpose Facility project is a part of the University’s comprehensive Move Mountains campaign, which was launched in 2011. Thanks to gifts from more than 70,000 alumni, parents, community members and friends over $500 million has been raised to benefit the entire University including its academic programs, students, faculty and a wide range of programs and initiatives to enhance the educational experience at UVM.

Source: UVM News

October 25, 2018October 25, 2018

UVM Event Makes a Mash of Art and Technology

Virtual reality artist Siuan McGaha’s new work, “The Dreadful Imminency of Another,” is distinctly unsettling.

Inside a virtual world visible through a VR headset, a wash of water shimmers on the floor of a brightly wallpapered room, then rises imperceptibly. As the water fills the space, gradually enveloping the VR viewer’s legs, waste, neck and head before meeting the ceiling, leaving behind a dizzily swaying underwater view of the room, barely audible women’s voices in the background sound increasingly agitated and aggrieved.

It’s not quite T.S. Elliot …

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea …

Till human voices wake us, and we drown

… but it’s uncomfortably close.

McGaha was showing her work at a UVM-sponsored event called Sector Mash, held October 15 at the Burlington makerspace Generator, whose purpose was to bring artists and technologists together to learn what each had to offer the other. The event kicked off Innovation Week, sponsored by the local non-profit BTV Ignite.

McGaha is a fan of the new possibilities emerging technologies like VR bring to creative expression.

“I think it’s great to show people what other mediums are out there that they might not know are available or how something can be presented in that form,” McGaha said.

That sentiment is exactly what Richard Galbraith, UVM’s vice president for research, hoped the event – co-sponsored by his office and two local non-profits, Code for BTV and Big Heavy World – would convey.

“My office is involved in trying to foster the activities of the faculty, not just in research, but in scholarship and the creative arts,” he said. “If we can demonstrate how technology is helping stimulate creative artists’ imagination and expose them to new media to work with that they hadn’t thought of before, then I’m doing my job.”

From flocking algorithms to iPhones

In all the event had 11 art/tech demonstrations. In addition to the VR installation, they ranged from shape-shifting bursts of tiny colored particles projected on a wall created using a flocking algorithm, designed by Champlain College faculty member Terry Sehr, to a dance of wheel-like geometric shapes projected on another wall, created by Jenn Karson, a lecturer in digital arts at UVM.

Karson’s work, created in collaboration with UVM lecturer and IBM guru John Cohn, is at heart a trick. It looks like the geometric projections are shadows cast on the wall. But they actually result from “a sensor communicating with a computer that’s running code taking readings and moving a 3D model,” she says.

Mixing art and technology as she does – “I love the fact that people haven’t always been able to separate the technology from the art,” she says – makes for good creative work. It’s also strategic for the higher ed sector, Karson says.

“From the perspective of being at the University of Vermont, almost all of our students are coming in with an iPhone or some sort of smart phone, which itself is an incredible mix of art and technology.” Students expect to see these worlds blended, not siloed, when they arrive on campus, she says.

The event was a true mutual admiration society. For every artist who saw the benefit of using technology to push boundaries, there were technologists like Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, the director of UVM’s Spatial Analysis Lab.

For O’Neil-Dunne and his colleagues at the SAL, art and artists are essential to making their work, which frequently involves satellite or drone photography, impactful and effective.

“People are inundated with information, and if you can’t condense what you’re trying to get across into something that’s easily digestible, that makes sense, that resonates with someone, you’re not going to get your message across,” he says. “The folks that have those keen eyes for design and presentation are just as in demand as the computer science people.”

Bash of bashes

In addition to providing a forum for mutual exploration by artists and technologists, Sector Mash was a networking bash to end all networking bashes.

During a round of lightening talks, the representatives of close to 20 arts, technology, economic development, venture financing and community groups – ranging from Girl Develop It to the Vermont Arts Council to the Champlain Maker Fair to the Burlington Code Academy – made brief pitches to the assembled crowd of about 200.

According to Nick Floersh of Code for BTV, a pro-bono digital agency that works with non-profits, the diverse array of presenters was intentional.

“We find that there’s so many organizations and groups within the various sectors, they often didn’t even know about each other,” he said. The event was in part a way to “get it all just out there, and see if you can to try to initiate the bridge building.”

To get the point across that the arts and technology sectors have much to gain from synergistic collaboration, Galbraith points to the example of the laser.

When they were first discovered, “lasers didn’t do anything except shine a bright light,” he says. “Yet lasers have permeated themselves though high tech, through medicine, through the arts, so this technology became adapted to multiple different things.”

McGaha’s VR piece, both in its dialog, composed from snippets of overheard conversation, and in the water build-up, was about “the slow, subtle, insidious gradual building of our ideas about gender,” she said.

The VR presentation gave that theme a psychological punch that it’s hard to imagine a more conventional medium delivering.

New to the area and relatively new to VR, McGaha said the Sector Mash “was a great thing. I would’ve loved to come to an event like this before I knew what I was doing.”

Source: UVM News

October 23, 2018October 25, 2018

UVM Cuba Effort Helps End ‘Academic Embargo’

It was 2013, and University of Vermont professor Joe Roman wanted to organize a class in Cuba. The island nation offered a compelling case study for growing crops without heavy machines or chemical fertilizer. Roman saw an opportunity to learn from Cuba’s approach and observe its impacts on land and sea.

The seminar quickly filled with students. But diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba had yet to thaw, and travel restrictions and legal questions loomed.

“The university was understandably nervous, like, ‘It’s a sanctioned country, can you bring students there?’” recalled Roman, a conservation biologist at UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment and Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.

It turned out the answer was yes – and Roman’s doggedness in bringing UVM students to Cuba would ultimately help to break down larger barriers, which had hindered collaboration between American and Cuban scholars, and prevented Cubans from publishing in a leading U.S. academic journal.

On the bus

Despite the initial uncertainty, Cuba has become a key region in UVM’s global research efforts, which span seven continents, from Greenland’s ice sheets and the Brazilian Amazon, to the South Pacific’s coral reefs and elephants in Africa, and many more far flung locales.

Roman’s first contact in Cuba was Patricia González-Díaz, director of the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research.

Together, they travelled by bus with their graduate students studying the impacts of farm runoff on Cuba’s largely pristine coral reefs. The trips around the island offered time to get acquainted. “Having that time together is so important for collaborators,” says Roman. “It’s key to understanding each other and building trust.”

On the bus, González-Díaz mentioned that her PhD dissertation had been rejected without review by a leading marine science journal, the Florida-based Bulletin of Marine Science.

“That was shocking to me,” Roman says. He knew that the 1962 embargo barred economic cooperation between the two nations, but had thought that science was largely immune.

The Bulletin of Marine Science is a key source for research on Caribbean ecosystems, but had been bound by a reading of a U.S. Treasury Department policy that effectively restricted its editorial team from working with Cuban scholars.

Technically, the journal could publish research papers by Cubans, but editing or peer reviews were considered as economic assistance, which the editorial and legal team believed was forbidden by U.S. policy.

“That basically rendered every submission impossible to accept,” says Rafael Araujo, managing editor of the Bulletin of Marine Science, which is based at the University of Miami.

For Cuban professors like González-Díaz, now a Global Affiliate of UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment, the rejection was confusing and ultimately stifling. “We didn’t realize this kind of thing happened in science,” she says. “Especially in the marine sciences, where we share the common sea.”

Roman focus typically is on endangered species, not international sanctions. His research on whales has helped strengthen global anti-whaling standards. He created a program on biodiversity and human health at the Environmental Protection Agency, studies the impacts of invasive species, and has held visiting positions at Harvard University and Duke University’s Marine Lab.

Perhaps his best-known Cuba project was a 2016 proposal in Science Magazine, calling for the U.S. to turn the Guantanamo Bay military prison into a marine research institution and peace park.

Yet González-Díaz’s rejection and the Bulletin’s apparent ban on Cuban scholarship stuck with Roman. “We all get rejected,” he says. “But we get rejected with review: you submit your paper, it gets peer reviewed, and if they reject it, that’s the way it works.”

“But if you’ve got journals that are off limits to you due to nationality, that is very concerning. That affects your ability to convey your knowledge to the broader scientific community and to policy makers. It can also affect people’s lives,” Roman added, noting the importance of publications in academic careers.

Chance encounter

It was on another trip to Cuba that Roman found himself sharing an airport shuttle with the Bulletin’s assistant editor Geoffrey Shideler. When Shideler noticed a turtle on Roman’s luggage tag and struck up a conversation, Roman raised the Bulletin’s rejection of Cuban scientists.

“We were very clear we didn’t want to do this,” Shideler recalled. “But we were following U.S. law and this is what we had to do.”

Unsatisfied, Roman reached out to lawyer Dan Whittle, an Environmental Defense Fund colleague who works in Cuba. “Some U.S. journals chose to ignore the restriction and published Cuban research. Others did not, and interpreted the regulation more conservatively,” says Whittle.

EDF found an updated Treasury Department policy that they believed allowed the editing and publication of non-government scientists in American journals. The University of Miami’s legal council agreed and in 2016 the Bulletin of Marine Science began accepting Cuban submissions for the first time in decades.

At the urging of Gund Institute for Environment director Taylor Ricketts, Roman pitched the Bulletin the idea of a special edition dedicated to Cuban marine science.

The journal agreed, naming Roman and González-Díaz as guest co-editors. The historic edition appeared this spring. It features dozens of Cuban scholars, including some previously rejected by the journal without review. Last week (October 16), the key players gathered to celebrate the issue at the MarCuba marine science symposium in Havana.

Shideler says he is grateful to Roman for pressing the issue, noting that it’s difficult for small academic journals to stay abreast of arcane economic sanctions policies.

While Cuban scholars have found homes for years in journals overseen by Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pittsburgh, Shideler hopes the Bulletin’s Cuba edition will show other small journals that it is legal to edit and publish such work.

A needed change

One thing that everyone involved in the edition agrees on is how important scientific collaboration between the U.S. and Cuba is. With 90 miles of ocean between them, the proximity of the two nations means cooperation is essential to understand shared risks facing endangered species and ecosystems.

The special issue of the Bulletin, featuring an introduction by Roman, offers a snapshot of Cuba’s coastal ecosystems under pressure from climate change and tourism.

Research topics include: how fishing, pollution, and climate change have affected the coral reefs off Havana; conservation of marine turtles and manatees; marine protected areas in Cuba; the movements of female silky sharks, and how Cuban land use and conservation efforts have affected coral reefs (the latter led by Gund researcher Gillian Galford).

Another highlight is a study of Cuba’s commercial fisheries, which used new scientific tools to quantify fish populations, concluding that several species are highly susceptible to overfishing.

“This Bulletin of Marine Science edition is a proud moment for UVM, the Gund Institute for Environment and our collaborative efforts in Cuba,” says Taylor Ricketts, director of the Gund Institute. “It shows how international research and education can start to strengthen bonds between nations.”

Providing a broad analysis to an international audience is crucial for the creation and maintenance of successful marine conservation, says Roman, who is currently working on a Fulbright-NSF Arctic research grant in Iceland.

“Fish, manatees, sea turtles – they don’t know boundaries, they freely cross between the United States and Cuba all the time,” Roman says. “You can’t manage the oceans simply by managing your own coastlines.”

Source: UVM News

October 22, 2018October 24, 2018

Reef fish become less aggressive after coral bleaching

A research team, including UVM scientist Nate Sanders, found that when water temperatures heat up for corals, fish “tempers” cool down, providing the first clear evidence that coral bleaching can trigger rapid change in the behavior of reef fish.This study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, was covered by a range of global media including UPI (United Press International), Earth, Science Daily, and AZoCleantech.

Source: UVM News