Category: Education

Months before the coronavirus outbreak became international news, nurse practitioner Jennifer Allaire, G ‘12, and nursing graduate student Erin Leighton, Doctor of Nursing Practice ’20, began developing a telemedicine protocol for patients of Appletree Bay Primary Care in Burlington. Their trial project aimed to serve patients who miss in-clinic appointments due to mobility and transportation challenges, and to limit visits by patients who don’t need to be seen in person.

Now, with social distancing and stay-at-home orders in place around the world to curb COVID-19, primary care by video chat is everyone’s new normal.

Appletree Bay Primary Care, part of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, is an outpatient clinic that serves as a teaching site for undergraduate and graduate students. The students work side-by-side with nurse practitioners and nurses who are UVM faculty. The Appletree Bay telehealth trial, began in 2018, was Leighton’s graduate project for the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, which provides opportunities for students to identify and apply evidence related to issues of importance to nursing.

With a telemedicine system ready when the COVID-19 pandemic began unfolding, Appletree Bay quickly converted to clinic-wide remote primary care. This helps prevent potentially sick patients from spreading coronavirus, and keeps medical professionals healthy so that they can continue to do their jobs. 

“It was an amazing mobilization. Having the technology and systems in place allowed Appletree Bay Primary Care to nimbly move to telehealth during a quickly evolving pandemic,” Allaire says. “Students witnessed the clinic transition to video visits and participate in virtual patient care.” 

Almost all Appletree Bay patient visits now take place by phone or Zoom, an internet videoconferencing platform. NPs and nurses evaluate, diagnose and treat patients, answer questions about symptoms and medications and provide triage for patients unsure of what to do or where to go for help.

For routine blood tests that must be performed in person, such as blood clotting tests for patients taking blood-thinners, medical assistants wearing masks and gloves meet patients in the parking lot to do finger pricks, as patients remain in their cars.

“We have hardly any patients coming into the clinic for any reason,” says Ellen Watson, a nursing instructor and family nurse practitioner. “The technology is very manageable, and it feels like all staff and our patients are working together to make a difficult and potentially very stressful situation as good as it can be.”

Source: UVM News

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday announced that Vermont Law School will receive a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to establish the nation’s first National Center on Restorative Justice.  Leahy, the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has led a several-year effort to establish and fund the Center. Leahy also has been a leader on criminal justice reform as a leading member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Center, a collaboration with the University of Vermont, the University of San Diego, DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), and other partners, will focus on engaging criminal justice professionals, community members, educators, and social service providers with incarcerated individuals and broaden their understanding of the justice system and restorative justice. Through restorative justice practices, offenders are rehabilitated through reconciliation with victims, their communities and other means. The efforts are known to reduce recidivism, and help break the cycle of violence.

“To address the problem of mass incarceration of people in our country, we need to fundamentally rethink our approach to the justice system,” Leahy said. “By establishing a national center that will focus on engaging with the community, including our incarcerated population, we can begin to do just that.  Vermont is an incubator of sound ideas, and the approaches to restorative justice education and training at Vermont Law School and the University of Vermont make this a fitting collaboration to host this new, national center.  We want the new center to be a generator of workable solutions, and a catalyst for real change.

“The award of this grant recognizes the groundbreaking work being done at Vermont Law School – the only law school in the country that awards a master’s degree in restorative justice – and the opportunity to share this expertise nationally,” said Vermont Law School dean and president Thomas McHenry.

“As a Land-Grant university, for UVM this center aligns strongly with our commitment to our community, our state, and our nation,” said University of Vermont president Suresh Garimella. “Breaking the cycle of recidivism recognizes the potential for incarcerated individuals to turn their lives around and contribute to society in positive ways.  We’re proud that Senator Leahy, our researchers, and our colleagues at the Vermont Law School are leaders in this important effort.”

Leahy has led efforts in Congress to establish a National Center on Restorative Justice. As vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee he included funding in fiscal years 2019 and 2020 for the Department of Justice to establish the center. The new national center, based in South Royalton, will be a leading voice on educating, training, and engaging with the future leaders of the U.S. justice system.

“This grant demonstrates the commitment of the Department of Justice to research and support newly forming attitudes about punishment in the United States and the value of community-based resolutions to crime­,” said Robert Sand, founder of the Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law School and former Windsor County prosecutor. “We look forward to working with our partner institutions and OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to further the critical evolution of restorative justice efforts nationwide.”

Kathy Fox is associate dean of UVM’s College of Arts and Sciences, which will serve as the research hub for the new National Center. “Pairing the educational expertise of the Vermont Law School with the interdisciplinary research strengths of the University of Vermont’s Justice Research Initiative, we are well poised to generate data-driven change focused on restorative justice practices in the United States,” Fox said.

Source: UVM News

Dear UVM family,

I write with another update during this unprecedented time. The fast-changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to uncertainty and anxiety for all of us. As a coworker, community member, and parent, I know there are many aspects to this situation—practical and emotional—and few simple solutions.

While we make necessary, but difficult decisions, I promise to weigh carefully feedback from our community alongside the information we are receiving from government agencies, elected officials, and higher education colleagues.

I am also drawing on the expertise of our UVM researchers and faculty, who are national leaders in the areas of public health and infectious diseases. Dr. Jan Carney, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Public Health and Health Policy at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine, offers important information about ways to keep ourselves and our communities safe in this brief video message (go.uvm.edu/covid19drcarney). And Dr. Lewis First, Professor and Chair of Larner’s Department of Pediatrics, and Chief of Pediatrics at UVM’s Children’s Hospital, has wonderful advice (go.uvm.edu/covid19drfirst) on how families can help children learn and thrive during this time. I am thankful for their informative and pragmatic approach, as well as their uniquely Vermont warmth and human touch.

With this in mind, I have the following updates:

1. Remote instruction will continue for the remainder of the Spring semester. We are closely monitoring the rollout of this approach, providing support for faculty and students, and making adjustments to ensure a meaningful learning experience for our students. I greatly appreciate the Herculean efforts of our faculty, information technology experts, and other staff in creating new opportunities for learning. And I applaud and thank our students for adapting so quickly and courageously.

2. Undergraduate students who currently reside on campus in the residence halls, as well as non-local students who live off-campus, should return to their homes. It has become clear that the responsible course of action in light of the global public health challenge confronting us is to have our students leave campus. I wish there were other options, but my first priority is student safety and the safety of our communities. We understand that some students may not have viable alternatives; we will work with those who have challenging circumstances to provide emergency options for housing. On-campus residents will receive additional information from the Office of Residential Life within 24 hours.

We also strongly encourage undergraduate students who live off campus to return home as soon as possible. Many of you share close spaces in a way that presents risks to you and to your roommates. What will you do if one of you becomes ill or needs to self-quarantine? Most of you will be better off back home with your family.

Please take a moment to watch this two-minute video (http://go.uvm.edu/covid19drlahey) featuring UVM faculty member Dr. Tim Lahey, who is an infectious disease expert at the UVM Medical Center, as he offers useful information about the critical importance of young adults staying home to help fight the spread of COVID-19.

3. The University will be issuing a credit related to meals and housing. Credit for meal plans will be based on the type of plan and usage to date. A housing credit of $1,000 will be issued to students who leave their residence halls by March 30, even if their belongings remain on campus. Financial aid awards will not be impacted as a result of this housing or meal plan credit. Residential Life will be in contact with further information.

After March 30, no students, other than those approved for emergency housing, will be able to access rooms, their possessions, and associated facilities until further notice. Residential Life will provide additional instructions for when, and how, you will be able to return to collect your belongings. Information also is available via the COVID-19 call center at 802-656-HELP.

Students approved to live in the emergency housing options, and who opt to do so after March 30, will not be eligible for the housing or meals credits outlined above.

4. Commencement is unlikely to proceed as planned. We will make a final decision by the end of March, but the social-distancing measures advised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are unlikely to change in the next few weeks. Unfortunately, many of the celebratory aspects associated with our Commencement do not align with social-distancing principles.

I feel your profound disappointment. I recognize in a personal way the importance of honoring your achievements and marking this pivotal moment in each of your lives—a moment you want to share with family and with the friends you made during your journey here. As we plan for the possibility that Commencement will not proceed in its usual way in May, we want to hear from you. Upcoming graduates should watch for a survey in the coming days that seeks your thoughts on how we might best celebrate your accomplishments and provide you with a chance to reconnect in a more personal way with your classmates and faculty.

5. Summer online courses are available! I also want to emphasize that we have a robust suite of summer online courses (uvm.edu/summer). We may all be finding our “new normal,” but we can’t imagine a normal that doesn’t include the academic and professional development of our students.

Finally, I want to reiterate the need for empathy and understanding. We have an amazing community that exemplifies the very things needed for us to overcome this challenge in a way that not only preserves our values, but also strengthens them.

Please continue to keep that in mind as we press on. These are strange and unsettling times but, together, I know we’ll emerge stronger and better than ever.

Sincerely,
Suresh V. Garimella, President
 

Source: UVM News

Dear UVM community members: As we face the local, national, and international challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak (“COVID-19”), our primary focus remains on the well-being of our students, faculty and staff. In addition to monitoring the situation closely, we have continued to consult with health authorities in order to thoughtfully and appropriately refine our response plans.

Exercising an abundance of caution, the university will shift to remote methods of learning starting Wednesday, March 18, for regularly scheduled classes. In-person classes on Monday and Tuesday, March 16 and 17, will be canceled to provide additional opportunity for faculty and staff to complete preparations for moving to remote instruction.

This decisive action reflects our commitment to help slow the spread of the virus, while also promoting the academic progress of our students and protecting the health and safety of our community. Please note that this change does not apply to medical students in the Larner College of Medicine, which is developing a separate action plan centered on their unique needs.

Specific communications will soon be issued by Provost Patty Prelock to the faculty, Dean Cindy Forehand to graduate students and post-doctoral scholars, and Rafael Rodriguez, executive director of Residential Life, to our residential undergraduate students, whom we are encouraging to not return to the residence halls after Spring Break unless they need to live on campus. These messages will include links to more detailed information and resources.

Also, starting Wednesday, March 18, the university will begin implementing other measures to facilitate the social distancing recommended to slow the spread of COVID-19. The university will remain open, but events and gatherings will be limited to 25 attendees or fewer. Wherever possible, remote delivery will be implemented to support any larger meetings.

These measures will remain in effect until further notice. Given the evolving nature of the situation, and our continual reassessment, we are not in a position to address future events, such as Commencement, at this time.

In summary, I am announcing the following measures:

• In-person classes on Monday, March 16 and Tuesday, March 17 will be cancelled.
• Classes will resume on Wednesday, March 18, but will shift to remote methods of instruction.
• The university will remain open and employees will be expected to report to work.
• Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars will be expected to continue their work, as described in the communication they will receive from Dean Forehand.
• Social distancing measures, such as limiting indoor events to 25 attendees or fewer, will go into effect Wednesday, March 18.

While these changes are significant, I want to emphasize the importance of keeping our university open, and continuing our support of critically important services and activities, such as our student support, administrative functions, and research endeavors.

I recognize these measures are unprecedented and may be unsettling. With that in mind, we will continue to provide regular updates and information. The COVID-19 website (go.uvm.edu/covid19) is a resource for the latest policy decisions and other useful information and, starting today, questions may be sent to COVID19@uvm.edu or to our COVID-19 information helpline that will be staffed from 8:30-4:30 daily (and this weekend) until further notice. The helpline number is 802-656-HELP.

Thank you for your continued support and partnership. I am grateful for the dedication, teamwork, and care that defines our community.

Suresh V. Garimella
President

Source: UVM News

Bob Pepperman Taylor’s fifth floor office in the Old Mill looks out over the shoulders of Waterman Hall to Burlington, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondacks beyond. Near at hand on his desk is a neat stack of papers that represents the nearly final manuscript of his latest book Lessons from Walden: Thoreau and the Crisis of American Democracy recently published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

“I had never intended to be a Thoreau scholar—it just seemed to happen that way,” said Taylor whose previous books include The Routledge Guidebook to Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and America’s Bachelor Uncle: Henry Thoreau and the American Polity.

“In my first book on environmental ethics, Thoreau represented one of the traditions I was identifying in the American discourse about environment. Then I wrote a book about Thoreau’s political ideas.”

For a scholar who specializes in political theory, the history of American political thought and environmental ethics, perhaps it’s not surprising that Taylor’s scholarship often leads back to Thoreau, one of America’s original environmentalists and political thinkers. 

The theme for his new book developed during a sabbatical several years ago. 

“One of things I’m interested in is how democratic thinkers propose to protect democracy from its own vices,” Taylor said. “My proposal was to write a book on nature, religion, education, and populism, and how all of these have been promoted in various ways in the American tradition as protections from democracy’s pathologies. When I wrote the first chapter it became its own book about the lessons Walden gives us, the way these lessons resonate through present time in the U.S, and whether or not those lessons are useful.”

The book addresses two crises that have become especially urgent in the Trump era: threats to democratic norms and political institutions, and dangers to the environment driven by climate change.

Taylor grapples with a particular problem of democracy dating as far back as antiquity. Plato was concerned that citizens in a democracy wouldn’t have the knowledge or character for responsible self-government. The American founding fathers, Taylor says, shared the fear of the “mischief of factions.” 

“Their solution was to form a republic so no one branch of government could take over,” Taylor explains. “The language of the founders portrayed a political machine that would ‘go of itself’—they were animated by the idea that we can’t reform human beings, so we need to design a political machine to correct human imperfections.”

But Taylor notes that in Thoreau’s time, the turbulent Jacksonian period, the machine was insufficient in controlling factions, which led prominent Whigs and reformers like Horace Mann to call for comprehensive public education to insure that Americans could act and vote as disciplined, judicious citizens.

“He (Mann) wasn’t alone—the idea began to emerge that public schooling was critical for democracy,” Taylor said. “Along with the Scouting movement and the Pledge of Allegiance, a little later on, we see leaders trying to promote civil virtue in a society that wasn’t very virtuous. It reflected the degree of anxiety about leaving government in the hands of citizens.”

What would Thoreau say about the latest rise of populism and threats to the environment? Taylor notes that Thoreau, the ultimate individualist who was always distrustful of political movements and parties, wouldn’t be the loudest voice in the room.

“One of the points I make is that Walden doesn’t provide prescriptions for political crisis,” he said. “Thoreau isn’t really good for helping us think about crisis management. His contribution helps us think beyond the immediate crisis, to how we can each live as more responsible citizens.”

 

Bob Pepperman Taylor is the Elliott A. Brown Green and Gold Professor of Law, Politics and Political Behavior at UVM. His other books include The Routledge Guidebook to Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (Routledge, 2015); Horace Mann’s Troubling Legacy: The Education of Democratic Citizens (University of Kansas Press, 2010); Citizenship and Democratic Doubt: The Legacy of Progressive Thought (University of  Kansas Press, 2004); America’s Bachelor Uncle: Henry Thoreau and the American Polity (University Press of Kansas, 1996) and Our Limits Transgressed: Environmental Political Thought in America (University Press of Kansas, 1992). He received the George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Alumni Award in 2016.

Source: UVM News

Ben Ogden loves engines. “Jet engines, diesel engines, gas engines,” he says. “They’re fascinating.” Last fall, in a two-semester thermodynamics class, he studied “all the math, calculating power outputs, and a lot of theory,” the engineering major says. “But this semester it’s applied thermodynamics and we’re learning how all the math applies in the real world, to real engines—which I love.”

In another course he’s taking this spring, the Mechanics of Solids, Ogden finds himself thinking about his skis. “I can’t help but to think how they’re made. I know a lot about the construction of skis, especially skate skis, and it’s great to have a class about how different materials deform under pressure.”

This week, he’ll have another chance to test his skills in applied thermodynamics, the mechanics of skis, and what happens under pressure—skiing in the NCAA National Skiing Championships. On Thursday, in Bozeman, Montana, Ogden will represent UVM in the ten-kilometer freestyle race. And then, on Saturday, he’ll compete in one his favorite Nordic ski races: the twenty-kilometer mass start, using classic technique.

“My main goals right now are just to keep it simple and do all the little things right,” he says, “but if all goes well in the 20K, I’d like to be on a podium—top three.”

Seek the Challenge

Last week, Ogden was taking some tough exams—in Germany. He was there training and racing with the U.S. Ski Team. “I’m on the U.S. D Team—which stands for development—it’s an under-23 team,” he explains, that allows him to both compete for UVM most of the season and the national team as well. One of the academic exams was in thermodynamics—issued by his UVM professor, William Louisos, and proctored by one of Ogden’s U.S. coaches. “It was really challenging, but I did well,” he says.

“I appreciate the challenge of engineering. That’s, honestly, a major draw for me,” Ogden says. “It’s not easy and it forces me to push myself every day in school. A lot of times it’s incredibly frustrating and I have to kick myself to get through it—but then I look back at what I was doing at the beginning of the semester that was really hard and now it’s no problem—which I find immensely satisfying.”

The other test was a series of races against many of the best young skiers in the world. Ogden fared well in several individual races and was part of the men’s 4×5 kilometer relay that won gold, defending their title in the Junior Cross Country World Championships by finishing 35 seconds ahead of Canada.

“The next big test will be to come over from Germany and be able to throw down in Bozeman,” Ogden says. Like a well-trained engineer, Ogden approaches the problem with a clear goal and a flexible set of tools. “We’ve got a great UVM team and what I want to do is just ski as hard as I can and leave it all on the course—whether I feel good, bad or horrible,” he says.

Last year, in the 20K race at NCAA’s—held at Vermont’s Trapp Family Lodge—Ogden was just a freshman and he was sick. He got himself into the lead pack, but “I was hanging on for dear life!” he recalls.  Still, he stuck to the back of the front—for an eighth-place finish.

“I hope to be more in control in Bozeman, but you never know what’s going to happen,” he says, “you have to read the field.” In a mass start race—where everyone begins at the same time, instead of the solo effort of a time trial—Ogden often likes to go out aggressively and push over the top of every hill. “Think about how it works,” he said. “If I’m at the front of the pack and accelerate over a hill and into a downhill, then I only have to accelerate for maybe, like, five seconds, but someone farther back in the pack has to accelerate up the entire hill and then over the top—if they want to stay up.”

On the other hand, getting carried away too early can blow the race. “So I can totally see myself just camping out and waiting. I don’t know the Western skiers very well, so I’ll definitely want to pay close attention. I’ll mix it up at the front and maybe pull some tricks out of my sleeve. But no matter what, I just want to let the race unfold, and adjust to what the other guys are doing.” Some of Ogden’s professors might call this adaptive engineering.

Ski Vermont

Ben Ogden grew up in the village of Landgrove, Vt., population 154. His father skied for Middlebury College where his younger sister, Charlotte, is now a nationally competitive Nordic skier; his older sister Katharine is a three-time NCAA national champion in Nordic skiing for Dartmouth College. “We’re a big ski family, for sure,” Ogden says.

And Trapp Family Lodge is still one of his favorite places to ski. “Even though I have lived in Vermont my entire life, I always love seeing the sap buckets on the trees and all the maples in the woods,” Ogden says. “And the racing there is great—up and down with old-school, tight fast corners on the downhill, which keeps everybody on their toes.”

And after college? “I do want to take a crack at a professional skiing,” says Ogden, who credits UVM Nordic coach Patrick Weaver—two-time national champion and former Olympian—with helping him to build a strong training plan and to dream big. “The Olympics are coming up in two years. That’s the dream,” Ogden says. And then he seems to correct himself. “That’s the reach goal,” he says.

And beyond that? Ogden is not sure. His skis are made by Madshus and he knows another young skier, who studied engineering, that the company hired to work on new skate ski designs. “That’s the type of thing that I would love to do,” Odgen says, “to really get my hands dirty and design things.”

Source: UVM News

University of Vermont President Suresh Garimella today announced the appointment of Kirk Dombrowski as vice president for research. Dombrowski will report directly to Garimella and will be a member of the president’s senior team.

Dombrowski comes to UVM from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), where he was associate dean for research and partnerships in the College of Arts and Sciences and John Bruhn Professor of Sociology. UNL’s College of Arts and Sciences has 400 tenure-track faculty and 1,000 doctoral students.

“Dr. Dombrowski’s energy, experience and impressive background align strongly with our goals to further elevate UVM’s research enterprise,” said Garimella. “He is skilled at supporting faculty in the grant application process and has extensive experience conducting and encouraging interdisciplinary research. He is a staunch advocate of land-grant universities and the important role they play in society. We’re excited to welcome him to the UVM community.”

“I believe the opportunities to grow research at UVM are significant,” Dombrowski said. “Coupling the university’s expertise in health and medicine with its land-grant mission opens up strong possibilities for strategic research growth in many of UVM’s academic units. Similarly, the longstanding focus of UVM on research in sustainability and the environment is at the top of the nation’s—indeed the world’s—priorities. Promoting broad social science and humanities scholarship in parallel, as I’ve done at the University of Nebraska, resonates with the progressive spirit of the State of Vermont and attracts the best and brightest students. I very much look forward to joining UVM during this dynamic period of its history.”  

Dombrowski held several additional leadership positions at UNL. He was director of the university’s Rural Drug Addiction Research Center, a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence; interim director of the Nebraska Center for Virology, a 94,000-square-foot biochemistry research institute; and director of UNL’s Minority Health Disparities Initiative, a university-wide faculty, recruitment, development and community engagement initiative that he was brought to Nebraska to lead in 2013.

Prior to joining UNL, Dombrowski was a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the City University of New York’s John Jay College. He was also an associate director at New York University’s Center for Drug Use and HIV Research, a National Institutes of Health Center for Excellence.

A cultural anthropologist by training, Dombrowski is also an active researcher whose work straddles the social and behavioral health sciences, a link he has used to address issues of public concern and social good, such as HIV infection dynamics, drug and alcohol addiction, minority health disparities, and suicide prevention in Native American/First Nation communities. Dombrowski’s research has received more the $12 million in NIH IDeA funding through the COBRE program. He has conducted team-based research in a range of disciplines and received significant funding from several National Science Foundation programs. His published work has appeared in social science, computer science and health science journals.

Dombrowski will take on the role from Richard Galbraith, who was appointed vice president for research in 2014 and is now interim co-director of the University of Vermont Cancer Center. Dombrowski’s official start date is April 1.

Source: UVM News

The seeds for Nikki Khanna’s new book, Whiter: Asian American Women on Skin Color and Colorism, were planted when the UVM Sociology professor was a child growing up in suburban Atlanta.

On Saturday mornings Khanna, the daughter of an Indian father and white mother, would often shop with her parents at the local Indian grocer. At her eye level were boxes upon boxes of whitening creams with light-skinned Indian models promising “total fairness” and “complete whitening.”

“Whitening creams were everywhere and still are, and I was deeply affected by them,” she says.

Khanna’s early scholarship focused on mixed race identity, particularly among black-white biracial Americans, but she always knew she wanted to return to the topic of colorism within her own community, in part because of her childhood memories but also because the subject was so little explored.

Though colorism—defined as prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a darker skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group—affects just about every part of the non-white world, Khanna says, most research, including her own, has focused on African Americans and Latinos, with very few studies on Asian Americans.

The issue has stayed under the radar, Khanna says, because “Asian Americans, and Asians generally, are hesitant to talk about it.”

Khanna knew she wanted to bring this well kept secret out into the open by giving a voice to Asian Americans who had been affected by colorism, but how she would do it was unclear, especially since she hoped for representation from many different Asian ethnic groups. 

Social call

As with so many other things in 2020, social media offered an effective communications channel.

“I decided I would put out a call that I was working on a book and that I was really interested in hearing personal stories—particularly from women, since they tend to be the most affected by colorism,” she says. She posted to relevant Facebook groups, promoted the book among her colleagues, many of whom also posted to their networks, and used word of mouth to reach people who might not have seen the queries.

She had no idea what to expect. But then the essays started pouring in.

“I was so excited because as I was reading the essays, I felt a connection with the women,” she says. “I also realized these women have so many things in common with each other, and there aren’t a lot of spaces where you see their stories,” she says.

She picked the strongest 30 essays, with an eye to diversity. Some essayists are academics, most are not, and they range in age from 22 to 62. They or their families come from many different Asian countries, from Pakistan to Cambodia to Japan to Vietnam. Some of the women included in the book are also mixed-race, like Khanna, adding another dimension to the issue of skin color among Asian Americans.

The essays naturally grouped themselves into six themes, Khanna found, from those that examined the often unwanted privilege light skin confers, to writings on “aspirational whiteness,” to essays that focused on the anti-black attitudes common in many Asian American communities.  

All of the essays are poignant expressions of personal experiences, and many are full of hurt, recalling words Khanna heard as a child about dark-skinned Indian women: “It’s a shame. She’s going to have a hard time getting married. No one is going to want to marry her.”

in an essay from the book titled Too Dark, Miho Iwata writes, “When I was a little girl, my dark complexion was somewhat acceptable. However, having dark skin as a woman in Japan is seen as very problematic. My mom would make comments such as ‘You are already old, so you should take care of your skin’; ‘Tanning will give you more ‘aging spots’ and your face already looks dirty with shimi [a Japanese term for dark spots/freckles but it literally means ‘stains’].’ My peers would also make comments about my dark skin, and some of them tried very hard to convince me to stay out of the sun and to make sure to wear sunscreen all the time.”

What is the allure of whiteness?

“Sometimes it’s not about Caucasian-ness,” she says. “In many parts of Asia, light skin is associated with upward mobility and higher classes. The notion is that, if you have light skin, you must be wealthy or you’re successful. Darker skinned people are seen as the people work the fields.”

For others however, particularly those from post-colonial countries, whiteness is often revered. In those contexts, Khanna says, “Skin whitening cannot be completely separated from the elevated status given to white people.”

Khanna’s goals for the book go beyond the academic.

“I want to contribute academically with this research since this topic is rarely explored,” she says. “But even more, my hope is that the book sparks conversation about skin color. I don’t think this is something Asians and Asian Americans often talk openly about. I also hope that many women read the book and see themselves in it. They aren’t alone.”

Source: UVM News

As the power of extreme weather events increase with climate change, a team of scientists warn that lakes around the world may dramatically change, threatening ecosystem health and water quality.

And the international team reports that our limited understanding of how lakes—especially algae at the base of food webs—may respond to more-extreme storms represents a knowledge gap that increases the risk.

The team of 39 scientists from 20 countries on four continents investigated what is currently known about how lake ecosystems respond to extreme storm events. The scientists found they cannot confidently predict how lakes will respond to the more frequent and intense storms that are expected in a warming world.

“If extreme weather events significantly change carbon, nutrient, or energy cycling in lakes, we better figure it out quickly,” said Jason Stockwell, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Vermont who led the new research with support from the National Science Foundation, “because lakes can flip, like a lightbulb, from one healthy state to an unhealthy one—and it can be hard or impossible to flip them back again.”

The new study focused on phytoplankton—microscopic plants commonly known as algae. “Phytoplankton are of particular concern because they are the base of the food web,” said Stockwell, “and a critical driver of water quality.”

The new study, “Storm Impacts on Phytoplankton Community Dynamics in Lakes,” was published in the journal Global Change Biology on 5 March.

Algal Action

It is well known that extreme weather events damage property, infrastructure, and the environment, including freshwater resources that are critical to human health. However, lakes are especially sensitive to storm events because they experience storms directly and receive storm runoff from throughout their watersheds. Runoff includes sediments, nutrients, microplastics, and much more.

“We have a good idea of how lakes physically respond to storms: the water column mixes, water temperature changes, and sediments can be churned up from the bottom or delivered by rivers and streams to make the lake more turbid,” Stockwell said. “But the physical response of the lake is just a part of the story. The biological impact of storms on phytoplankton and other plants and animals is fundamental to how lakes behave—and, as our study reveals, poorly understood.”

In a search of thousands of scientific articles from around the world, the scientists found just 31 studies on 18 lakes that connected storms to freshwater lake conditions, and then to phytoplankton. Not only was the information sparse, but the few available findings were inconsistent. It became clear that the scientific community has a poor understanding of how phytoplankton respond to storms, or how their responses may differ by storm types, across different lakes, or even at different times of year.

Reseach Required

The scientists call for a collaborative, multi-disciplinary effort by modelers, limnologists, watershed experts and other scientists, through research coordination networks—such as the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON)—to develop and advance a research framework of storm impacts on phytoplankton.

The team of scientists suggest several research directions including integrating watershed and lake physical models with biological models to better predict phytoplankton responses to storm-induced changes to lake conditions. The scientists also recommend continued and expanded long-term lake monitoring programs, coupled with networks of electronic high-frequency sensors, to evaluate short-term changes, emergent patterns, and long-term responses of lakes and water quality to storm events.

Similar research is also required for zooplankton, tiny grazers a little smaller than a rice grain that are essential food for fish. The goal is to better understand the pathways by which storms impact watershed-scale processes and plants and animals in lakes.

“We must quickly learn more—so we can better respond to the very real and pressing threat of climate change on lakes around the world,” said Jason Stockwell, Director of UVM’s Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory and a member of a program looking at resiliency to extreme events in the Lake Champlain Basin through VT EPSCoR. “Without healthy lakes, we are sunk,” he said.

Source: UVM News