Tag: University of Vermont

For most of her professional life, Tracy Arámbula Ballysingh, assistant professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs, has worked as a practitioner in jobs she thought would most positively impact the population she now dedicates her academic life to uplifting: first-generation students from low-income families trying to overcome society’s structural inequalities.

Initially skeptical of the impact she could make as an academic, Ballysingh taught pre-K through eighth grades in four states where she saw first-hand the challenges low-income students of color face. Taking a more legislative approach, she later worked as a policy analyst for the Texas State Senate’s Higher Education Committee. Eventually, she sought change as director of student success programs at The University of Texas at Austin, where she created programming to help first-generation, low-income students adjust to college.

“I’ve always been interested in how structural inequalities shape life outcomes, especially for low-income people,” says Ballysingh, who served in a key leadership role for the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education while in graduate school. “The thread of education, beginning with experiences as early as pre-K and throughout K-12, shape life outcomes because they place students on a path to higher education.”

The idea that she could positively affect student success as an academic didn’t come until the second year of her doctoral program at UT- Austin during a class on equity and access in higher education. 

“The class blew my mind and lit a fire under me,” recalls Ballysingh. “I remember telling a friend about the structural inequalities and myth of meritocracy I was learning about and said something like, ‘I’m gonna do something about it.’ He laughed at me and said, ‘Yeah, what are you gonna do Tracy?’ I was shocked by his minimizing the significance of my learning and his disbelief that I could actually make change in society through it. That was a pivotal moment for me.”

Producing positive research on Latinx students

Ever since, Ballysingh has been producing top-tier research focused on Latinx rates of college completion, the educational outcomes for boys and men of color, first-generation college students, the first-year experience in college, and the role of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in higher education. “A lot of the current literature is focused on deficit perspectives of academic success for Latinx students,” she says. “There is not enough positive framing. Even if it’s just scholars reading it, I feel as though if I highlight positive aspects of Latinx students that other people aren’t, then that’s a contribution at least for our knowledge base as a society.”

Ballysingh just finished a turn as guest editor of a special issue published by the Association of Mexican American Educators Journal titled, “Answering the Call: Hispanic-Serving Institutions as Leaders in the Quest for Access, Excellence, and Equity in American Higher Education.” In the introduction, she makes the case for more research on the increasingly critical role of HSIs as key access points for large numbers of low-income, first-generation Latinxs, and other students of color.

Ballysingh also co-authored one of the issue’s articles titled, “A Critical Look at Perspectives of Access and Mission at High Latinx Enrolling Urban Universities,” examining the commitment of administrators at four urban campuses to the fulfillment of an access- and diversity-centered mission. “Considering today’s context of higher education — whereby access and opportunities for Latinx and other marginalized populations has become increasingly stratified — this timely work seeks to foster dialogue regarding how to best uphold an access-centered mission,” writes Ballysingh.

‘My existence is resistance’ 

Ballysingh believes her background as a low-income, first-generation child of an immigrant is an essential driver of her impact on research and in the classroom as a professor. “As an under-represented faculty member in a predominantly White institution, my existence is resistance,” says Ballysingh.

Despite initial concerns about being able to continue her line of research in Vermont – a state with a Hispanic population of 1.6 percent, Ballysingh has managed to expand her focus by including the experiences of students of color at UVM. She would ultimately like to focus her efforts on the experiences of New American students in the Burlington area, who come from a broad range of countries.

“A lot of these students are refugees who are falling off the pipeline in high school and not matriculating to college like the Latino students I worked with in Texas,” she says. “My niche here in Vermont is on that broader population. Fortunately, as a Latina I cultivated a strong network of scholars in graduate school who were interested in similar issues, so I’ve also been able to continue work on Latinx educational success even though there aren’t many Latinxs in Vermont.”

This research includes a book chapter contribution to an edited volume titled, “Latinx/a/os in Higher Education: Exploring Identity, Pathways, and Success,” which hit bookstores earlier this year. 

Ballysingh has also joined College of Education and Social Services faculty members Bernice Garnett, Lance Smith and Kolby Kervick on a community action research team to address disparities in punitive discipline for both people with disabilities and persons of color in the Burlington School District. Their goal is to transform disciplinary practices from punitive and exclusionary to those grounded in a restorative justice model with the help of community partners. This includes students, teachers and administrators, as well as UVM students interested in conducting research and affecting change.

“I think I delayed entry into academia for so long because I thought I could have more of an impact as a teacher or academic advisor or by doing policy or as an administrator,” says Ballysingh. “Now I try to find a balance by producing research that improves the experience for underrepresented students and helps practitioners, and by working with students in the community like with the restorative practices research team.”

A recent thank-you email from a HESA admissions candidate thanking Ballysingh for sharing her personal journey to higher education brought her academic purpose into stark focus. “Your accidental discovery of your passion for teaching others and advocacy is something that deeply resonates with me,” wrote the student. “I rarely get the chance to hear stories about other first-generation college students.”

Source: UVM News

To help domestic students build their global networks and international students find jobs in their home counties, the University of Vermont’s Career Center has rolled out an expanded global job shadowing program for the summer of 2018.

UVM alumni in 19 international organizations in nine countries have agreed to host a total of 33 students for one or two-day shadows. UVM launched its international job shadowing program, one of the few in higher education, last year with positions in three countries. 

The deadline for students to apply is April 19. Interested students should submit a resume and short essay to Kim Ead, international career counselor in the Career Center, describing why they want to participate in the job shadowing program and why they’ve chosen a particular host.

Students who qualify will be placed in job shadows on a first-come, first-served basis.

Quality and quantity

Ead said she was pleased with the quality, as well as the quantity, of job shadowing opportunities this year. She cited positions with the World Wildlife Fund’s Pakistan office in Lahore, the global supply chain company KLG-ITM Logistics in Shanghai, the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna, the global supply chain firm Li & Fung Limited in Hong Kong and the media giant News UK in London as examples.

The program is geared both to international students seeking a shadowing experience in their home country and to domestic students who are studying abroad, said Ead.  

“In today’s interconnected world, having an international experience is valuable for all students,” she said. “It allows domestic students to build their global experience and global network. International students also have that opportunity, but if they are unable to find work in the U.S. when they finish at UVM, they are also creating a network in their home or other country that can support them in a more permanent job search.”

According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 80 percent of jobs are filled through networking.

“Reach out any time”

Ryan Brucato, a senior in the Grossman School of Business, took advantage of a two-day job shadow at Bleacher Report in London when he was studying abroad in Vienna last summer. The shadow was hosted by UVM alum Jessie Shaw, director of business development at the sports website, which has editions in multiple countries.

“I went through both days with him and looked at the tasks that he did,” Brucato said.

He also had the opportunity to talk with 20 other people in the office. “It was really interesting to see what they did, how they get this content to people all over the world.”

The chance to build his international network — with Shaw at the center, who said Brucato could reach out to him at any time — was also a positive.

“One of my concentrations in marketing is global business, so it really did help from that standpoint, too,” he said.  

For one international student: an internship and a job offer

For international student Ying Wang, a senior accounting major from Shanghai, her job shadowing experience last summer in Shanghai was doubly beneficial.

Wang spent a day observing Ruby Hsu, an international student who graduated from UVM in 2016, in the human resources department of Shanghai U-Learn Education Group, an international educational organization.

At the end of job shadow, the company offered Wang a two-month internship, which she began the next day and, more recently, a permanent position after she graduates in May. 

Before talking with Ead, Wang was “confused about what a job shadow was. I didn’t know what I should do in that day,” she says.

Today she urges all international students to learn about and experience a job shadow.

“It’s a really good opportunity to talk with someone from your home country with similar experience,” she says. “You can learn how they got their job, so you have more experience and knowledge when you want to find a job for yourself.”

International job shadows are available for the following positions in the following organizations:

• World Wildlife Fund; Lahore, Pakistan; new program coordinator
• GF Machining Solutions; Shanghai; vice president for Asia
• Shanghai U-Learn Education Group; Shanghai; recruiting and partnership director
• KLG-ITM Logistics: Shanghai, Jingan, China; business analyst
• International Atomic Energy Agency; Vienna, Austria; stakeholder involvement officer
• Lingvist; Tallinn, Estonia; chief growth officer
• News UK (Times of London, Sunday Times, The Sun), London; director of mobile video advertising sales and product strategy
• Down Under Enterprises; Sydney, Australia; director of marketing, operations
• CF Global Trading; London; CEO
• Li & Fung Ltd; Hong Kong; executive director
• McGill University; Montreal, Canada; assistant professor of neurology and neuro-surgery
• Cusanus Hochschule; Bernkastler-Kues, Germany; assistant to the president
• DFS Group LP; Kowloon, Hong Kong; vice president, brand and store planning
• Zenloop GmbH; Berlin; software engineer
• Ctrip.com; Toyko; general manager
• FactSet Research Systems; London; consultant
• Winnipeg Street Dental, Penticon, Canada; dentist
• Weber-Stephen Products UK, London, general manager 
• EF Education, Sydney, Australia; university pathways manager and ESL teacher 

Source: UVM News

Senior Caitlin Beaudet has never had a traditional spring break. Instead, she’s spent every one of these vacations engaged in community service, along with hundreds of other UVM students, as part of Alternative Spring Break, or ASB. “ASB has meant everything to me,” says Beaudet, who’s in her second year as a student director. This week, she’ll be in New York City at the nonprofit God’s Love We Deliver, preparing and delivering food to people with serious illnesses.

In total, 100 students will travel to 11 sites as far away as the St. Bernard Project in New Orleans, a nonprofit disaster relief organization. ASB is in its 27th year at UVM, and while many sites remain the same from year to year, there are new additions; for the first time, students will visit General Coffee State Park in Georgia to restore trails and assist with park maintenance.

Besides doing service, students are also asked to reflect on their experiences throughout the week. This reflection time is a big part of ASB. “I love being involved with service work, especially correlated with social justice,” says senior Kerry Breen, who’s taking a group to Nashville-based Project Cure, which sends donated medical supplies to developing countries.

While ASB lasts just a week, the impacts are lasting for many students. “This program has opened my eyes to all the opportunities to give back, and all of the social injustice within our nation. It’s really fueled my passion for service work, now and in my future,” Beaudet says, a molecular genetics major with her sights set on a career in public health.

Follow our Snapchat at uvmvermont to see Breen, Beaudet, and more student-led trips as they spend their week serving.

Follow along as students post on social media with #uvmasb:

Source: UVM News

It’s back.

A prized black rhinocerous horn that was stolen in April 2017 from the University of Vermont’s Zadock Thompson Zoological Collections in Torrey Hall has been recovered and returned to the university.

“I never thought we’d see it again,” said Bill Kilpatrick, curator of vertebrate section of the collection and a professor emeritus of biology at the university. “Needless to say, we couldn’t be happier.”

The horn, valued at $200,000 and dating from the early 1900s, is significant from a scientific standpoint because it contains genetic material that would provide insight into black rhinoceri about 100 years ago, when the genetic diversity of the species was much more robust than it is today.

There are only about 5,000 black rhinoceri in existence.

UVM Police began investigating the crime immediately after the horn was stolen, issuing a press release and a reward offered jointly by UVM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The press release resulted in a tip to UVM Police that the horn was in Ridgefield, Conn.

Given that the tip and investigation didn’t reveal enough information for police to secure a warrant to search the property of the suspect and bring criminal charges if the horn was found, investigators and proseccutors in Connecticut and Vermont determined that the best strategy was to offer the suspect immunity if the horn was returned.

“Without such an offer, the return of the property would have been unlikely,” said Tim Bilodeau, UVM’s deputy police chief. 

On March 6, the Ridgefield Police Department, working from information given to them by UVM Police, was able to successfully recover the rhinoceros horn.

This case remains open pending further information, so no information about the suspect is being released. The possibility remains that the case could result in criminal charges against individuals other than the suspect who was granted immunity.

Horn acquired by UVM in early 1900s

When it was acquired at the beginning of the last century, the rhino horn was mostly likely housed in Williams Hall, where the museum’s natural history collection the university’s Zoology Department were located. 

In about 1950, the Fleming transferred ownership of the rhino horn, and the rest of its natural history collection, to the Zoology Department. But the paperwork didn’t move with the rhino horn – so the details of the horn’s provenance are vague.

In the mid-1980s the collection and the rhino horn moved to Torrey Hall as part of the Zadock Thompson Natural History Collections.

The collections are the official research zoological collection of the State of Vermont. While the collection includes birds, amphibians, lizards, snakes, fish, mollusks, and other taxonomic groups, the historical focus has been on mammals and arthropods. The mammalian collection is strong with over 10,000 mostly local mammals, while the insect collection comprises the vast number of specimens, with over 250,000 samples. The collection is used for teaching and scholarship and is not open to the public.

 

 

Source: UVM News

A keynote address by Emmy Award-winning journalist John Quiñones, co-anchor of ABC’s “Primetime,” kicks off an especially relevant Blackboard Jungle 11 Symposium on Thursday, March 22 at 4 p.m. in the Dudley H. Davis Center.

The focus of this year’s symposium, “The University: A Sanctuary or an Arena? Fostering Inclusive and Difficult Conversations,” coincides with protests and other forms of activism on college campuses across the country focused on racial equality, diversity and justice.

A full slate of related workshops designed to support UVM faculty and staff interested in gaining skills, knowledge and a deeper understanding of diversity to support excellence in teaching, service and research is scheduled for March 23. Interested members of the UVM community can register online for the symposium, sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Human Resources, Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.

“It is important to foster environments that are intellectually challenging but also respectful, safe and rewarding for all students, staff and faculty,” said Wanda-Heading-Grant, Vice President for Human Resources, Diversity and Multicultural Affairs. “How can we talk across divides and bring about a respectful and open exchange of ideas, perspectives and beliefs? How can we honor identities and insist on freedom of expression? Can the university campus offer a model of productive discourse in a divided society? Inside and outside classrooms, these are among the central problems faced by the twenty-first century university and beyond.”

Quiñones, a 30-year veteran of ABC News, anchors the “Primetime” series “What Would You Do?” and has served as a correspondent for “20/20.” Having grown up in a poor family of migrant workers, Quiñones is expected to share his journey to becoming ABC’s first Latino correspondent and a seven-time Emmy Award-winning journalist. His keynote presentation, titled “What Should You Do? Be an Active Bystander” is free and open to the public.

OiYan Poon, assistant professor of Higher Education Leadership in the School of Education at Colorado State University, will give the Dean’s Breakfast Keynote address, titled “Asian Americans between Black and White: Racial Justice or Just Us” on March 23 at 8 a.m. in the Silver Maple Ballroom. She is co-editor of a forthcoming edited volume from Stylus Publishing titled “Difficult Subjects: Insights and Strategies for Teaching about Race, Sexuality and Gender.”

Jelani Cobb, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, will give the Luncheon Keynote address at noon, titled “The Half-Life of Freedom: Race and Justice in America Today.” An expert contributor on MSNBC, NPR and CNN, Cobb has authored two books, including “The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama & the Paradox of Progress (Bloomsbury, 2010).” He will host a conversation later that afternoon at 2 p.m., titled “Journalism, Fake News, Politics, and Race.”

A series of symposium workshops will be offered after each keynote address designed to create open spaces where all members of the campus community can participate in authentic dialogue, reflection and learning to promote inclusiveness for all individuals. A number of UVM faculty will be running the workshops along with other top academics and practitioners from across the country.

Source: UVM News

Wanda Heading-Grant, vice president of the Division of Human Resources, Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at the University of Vermont, has received an Inclusive Excellence Award in the Individual Leadership category from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE), one of only two awards the organization grants annually.

NADOHE recognized Heading-Grant at its annual conference on March 9 in Washington, D.C.

The Individual Leadership Award is presented to a NADOHE member for outstanding contributions to research, administration, practice, advocacy and/or policy, and whose work informs and advances the understanding of diversity and inclusive excellence in higher education.

“We are very proud of Wanda,” said UVM president Tom Sullivan. “She is a truly visionary leader who, for 28 years at UVM, has developed and implemented a wide variety of innovative strategies and programs on diversity and inclusion that have engaged and united both the UVM and our surrounding communities.”

“The intent of NADOHE’s Inclusive Excellence Awards is to recognize and promote innovative strategies and tactics designed to achieve inclusive excellence in higher education,” said NADOHE president, Archie W. Ervin. “We are delighted to recognize this year’s Inclusive Excellence Award recipients and their institutions for their stellar accomplishments with moving the needle toward inclusive excellence practices within American higher education.”

“Dr. Heading-Grant’s contributions as a change agent in the advancement of diversity and inclusive excellence in higher education are unparalleled,” wrote one of her nominators.  

“She has a universal ability to connect people, irrespective of issue, audience or venue, and this skill has enabled her to effectively transform the State of Vermont’s principal, and predominantly white, flagship institution.”

In her three decades of service to the University of Vermont, Heading-Grant has served in a broad range of academic and administrative roles including executive director, associate dean, associate provost, chief diversity officer and vice president. Her wealth of professional experience and volunteer service on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations and civil rights advisory committees have earned her a reputation as a cultural architect able to build and sustain real and lasting change.

Examples of her leadership include the relocation of the Mosaic Center for Students of Color from a remote part of the campus to a centrally located and larger space; the establishment of UVM’s first Interfaith Center offering space, programs for reflection, worship, and learning;  the transformation of the university’s staff performance review process which resulted in the 40 percent annual rate of participation in 2015 to an increase to over 90 percent participation in 2017; the development of the UVM’s Women’s Summit; and the launch of the Blackboard Jungle Symposium, an annual professional development event designed to support UVM faculty, staff, and all others seeking to develop skills, knowledge, and a deeper understanding of diversity that supports excellence in learning, teaching, service, research.

 

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont’s Sustainable Innovation MBA in the Grossman School of Business continues to gain international recognition by earning top-tier status in CEO Magazine’s 2018 Global MBA rankings. 

The Tier I ranking by the London-based business publication places UVM’s Sustainable Innovation MBA among the top 116 programs worldwide. It was also listed among the top 71 Top Tier programs in North America, with both rankings focusing on programs that combine exceptional quality with great return on investment.

“This is an important ranking for us because most other rankings are for MBA programs that specialize in sustainability/green business and this is a global ranking of the top MBA programs regardless of area of specialization,” said Sanjay Sharma, dean of the Grossman School of Business.

The 2018 rankings were based on 11 weighted criteria using data provided by more than 270 business schools from across North America, Europe, New Zealand, Australia and the BRICS. Quality of faculty was given the most weight (34.95 percent), followed by international diversity, class size, accreditation, faculty-student ratio, price, international exposure, work experience, professional development, gender parity and delivery methods.

“The Tier One status of the University of Vermont’s AACSB-accredited Sustainable Innovation MBA program is well deserved,” said Alexander Skinner, group editor-in-chief of CEO Magazine. “Individuals enrolling in the Grossman School of Business’s one-year MBA will benefit from small classes with other experienced professionals, great access to highly-qualified faculty, and opportunities for international travel via the program’s summer practicum project. Bringing together students and industry leaders, the program equips graduates with the knowledge, skills and experience required to directly impact positive, sustainable change, post-graduation.” 

The third consecutive Tier I ranking by CEO Magazine comes on the heels of being named the No. 1 “Best Green MBA” program in the U.S. by The Princeton Review. Corporate Knights also included the program in its top 10 “Better World MBA Ranking.”

Source: UVM News

When education startup AltSchool expanded to Brooklyn, it turned to Mara Pauker to build it from the ground up. The 2007 UVM alumna had already launched a progressive pre-school in New York City and was becoming known as an education innovator.

Despite having an established core curriculum, AltSchool – started in 2014 by a former Google executive – allowed Pauker to infuse some of her own pedagogical theories and practices – ones she learned while student teaching at UVM’s Campus Children’s School as an early childhood preK-3 major.

“The early education program is where I understood that school did not have to be designed and delivered in the traditional way, but rather it could be a place of inquiry, joy and wonder,” says Pauker. “The UVM Children’s School taught me to have profound respect for children, to listen to their words, to consider their points of view and to partner with them in their learning journey. The groundwork laid for me in my coursework and at the school paved the way for my future.”

Pauker is part of a growing number of alumni applying what they learned at the Campus Children’s School to their current positions in childcare centers, elementary schools and other educational settings. Many of them were at the UVM Alumni House recently for the school’s 80th anniversary celebration that included speakers, events and a retrospective exhibit, “Looking Back, Moving Forward: UVM Campus Children’s School 1937–2017.”

The exhibit offered a rich history of the school since its founding in 1937 by Sara Holbrook, a clinical psychologist and education professor, in a storefront on Cherry Street. Bertha Terrill, a pioneer in the home economics movement and UVM’s first female faculty member, secured funding to bring the school to Terrill Hall in the 1950s. It was moved to its current location in the Living & Learning Center in the 1970s.

Holbrook’s insistence that the school serve as a learning laboratory for undergraduates placed it among the first on-campus children’s schools in the nation that served both children and education majors. “The idea that classrooms are laboratories has always been paramount to the mission of the school,” says interim school director Barbara Burrington, who served as head teacher and lecturer from 1994-2007. “Sara Holbrook wrote a letter to the dean emphasizing that direct observation of children is important to becoming a skilled teacher, and that thread has been consistent at the children’s center and in our teacher education program throughout the 80 years.”

The school, which has helped raise more than 2,200 children over eight decades, remains the first lab placement for EDEC (birth to 3rd grade) and ECSP (early childhood special education) majors, who spend upwards of 20 hours a week at the school. Lab partnerships have been expanded to include physical therapy students conducting pediatric clinical observations; communications science majors studying speech and language acquisition; music students examining the link between literacy and music; and physical education majors.

Inspired by “the world’s best” preschool

Historically, the children’s school has drawn guidance from philosophers Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Uri Bronfenbrenner and 1879 UVM graduate John Dewey. Its social constructivist perspective places value on children’s abilities and desires to participate in meaningful inquiry. The original four-fold mission of the school has remained intact: provide high quality early education and care for the children of UVM faculty and staff; serve as a practicum site and laboratory for students in early childhood teacher programs; be a research resource for faculty; and serve as a demonstration site for early education research offering professional development opportunities for early childhood educators across the region. 

A key decision was made in 1990 to transform the school into a full-time childcare center for children ages six weeks to five years old. Burrington, Dee Smith, current pedagogical director of the school and head teacher and lecturer from 1990-2015, and Jeanne Goldhaber, associate professor emerita in early childhood education, traveled to Reggio Emilia, Italy to study municipal preschools and infant toddler centers that were being hailed as the best in the world in a Newsweek Magazine article.

“We were in for a complete shock when we went over there,” says Smith. “The intentionality, beauty, seriousness, attention to detail, aesthetics and the way they listened to children was just so impressive. They didn’t have a set philosophy, but rather a set of values that were very clear and a way of enacting them that I had definitely never seen before. It took a long time to develop something that was relevant to our own culture and context, but I feel like at this point it’s our model. We’re well known around the country as being at the forefront of infant-toddler training and for the kinds of investigations we’ve done with children.”

Driving the fledgling program was the idea that children are active researchers capable of constructing knowledge worth pursuing. “We were interested in their questions and theories,” says Goldhaber, who collaborated with undergraduates, program faculty and the Campus Children’s School teachers to develop a shared and deeper understanding of the Reggio approach between 1990 and 2014. “We might wonder why children are so compelled to learn everything about certain topics, like dinosaurs for example. We would ask what it is about dinosaurs that the child is trying to figure out. Is it about power, size, how time evolves? People aren’t typically listening to the big questions children are asking. We try to hear their questions and then offer them experiences or provocations to further or challenge their questions or theories.”

Observation-driven curriculum

The unique educational approach involved observation and documentation to understand how children comprehend the world, which in turn, drove curriculum. Consequently, various forms of media such as clay, paint, blocks, baking materials and other open-ended objects were the preferred learning tools. “Historically, American education has viewed children in terms of what they can’t do, and their future potential,” says Dale Goldhaber, associate professor emeritus and school director from 1991-2009. “We respected kids by listening and looking at what they could do right then, rather than arbitrarily deciding next week to do a unit on farm animals when there isn’t a kid in the room who could care less about cows.”

In many ways, this approach to developing curriculum benefitted the teachers, faculty and education majors as much as the children. In 1998, the Preschool-Infant Investigation was launched after a new teacher innocently asked if preschool children were allowed to visit the baby room. The next year was spent documenting the interactions between the preschool children and babies and vice versa, which generated new research and “forever changed the culture of our school in ways we could never have anticipated,” according to Burrington.

The Campus Investigation in 2000 took children out of the classroom and onto campus and Church Street to interact with college students, local residents, business owners and even dogs. Teachers also started taking children to Centennial Woods, where they seemed to thrive outside in nature. In 2009, the school began working with local sculptor Jerry Geier who also had an exhibit at the Arthouse Gallery featuring slit drums that he built. The children banged on the drums of course, but also helped sculpt heads for the drums, which still reside on the school’s playground.

Despite all of the advancements over the past 80 years, Jeanne Goldhaber says the original goal of sending education majors into the world with a “deep love and abiding respect for children” has remained. “We want our students to be able to teach children how to be critical thinkers and look at them as full of wonder and curiosity,” she says.

“I feel very fortunate that I found my way to that program as a college student,” says Nicole Mandeville ’08, owner of the Burlington Forest Preschool. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have such a strong sense of what it means to be a teacher of young children and the importance of both children and teachers being able to follow their interests. Though I’ve branched off a bit to focus more heavily on children’s experience with the natural world, my philosophy and approach to teaching is quite similar to that of the children’s school.” 

Source: UVM News

At first, Amy Trubek paid no attention to the little girl in the kitchen.

The child was clamoring for her parents to let her help them make dinner at home. Finally, her father relented, standing her on a chair at the counter and handing her a lemon to squeeze with a hand-pressed juicer.

Trubek, a University of Vermont professor of nutrition and food science, had recorded a video of the girls’ parents cooking as part of the research for her new book, “Making Modern Meals: How Americans Cook Today.” Only after she watched that video multiple times did Trubek notice the girl struggling to figure out how to extract the lemon’s juice. It took several tries and some guidance from her father.

For Trubek, it was a pivotal moment. It proved the value of her methods, which revealed details she would have missed if she had relied only on interviews with her subjects, instead of the visual record.

And that detail – a young girl learning to juice a lemon – told so much about the dynamics of home cooking for today’s American family. It gave Trubek key insight into the way culinary skills are learned, the social interactions that take place around meals and the emotional bonds that are built through food.

Trubek, who trained as both a cultural anthropologist and a chef, spent three years chronicling randomly selected people as they cooked. She asserts that cooking isn’t a simple act of executing a recipe, of blending ingredients into a dish. Cooking involves a complex stew of personal relationships, knowledge, self-confidence, technique, tradition and cultural norms. And those ingredients change over time.

“It’s multimodal,” Trubek says of cooking. “It is cognitive and technical and emotional all at the same time. That is what the book ends up really exploring is how we have to get at all those components if we want to understand what cooking is about today.”

Trubek joined a panel of culinary historians and experts March 28 at The New School in New York to discuss “The Culinary Legacy of ‘Joy of Cooking,’ ” the iconic cookbook that Trubek considers an ideal reflection of the evolution of American cooking. The tome has undergone multiple editions and provides a thread through “Making Modern Meals.”

Americans cook at home much less than they once did, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics cited in Trubek’s book. The reasons are myriad: Women started working more and worrying about their household obligations less. Domestic help diminished, while service jobs in restaurants and commercial kitchens grew. The availability of food that someone else has cooked – whether fine dining from a trained chef or a prepared platter of cold cuts from the supermarket – has skyrocketed.

Food writers such as Michael Pollan have lamented this shift and suggest that Americans should make and eat more meals at home to address a host of public health problems and societal ills. Experts tout fresh, whole ingredients, particularly fruits and vegetables, to help fight diseases. Advice on foods to consume more or to avoid is endless and ever-changing.

Trubek eschews these “didactic” instructions, arguing that one single prescription won’t solve all amid the varied approaches to cooking that her book includes. Cooks today are episodic, she says. Some evenings we dine at home; other times we order takeout. One weekend we might host a dinner party; the next Sunday we might meet a group at a restaurant for brunch.

“It’s something that is embedded in our everyday lives, and it has many layers of meaning and purpose,” Trubek says. “We need to unpack it in such a way that we really get at the heart of how we do it and what that means. Then we can start addressing how we might want to change it if we think there’s something we need to do in relationship to health or to family cohesion.”

Trubek arranged her book’s chapters around her subjects’ varied approaches to cooking. Some see it as a chore. Others treat it as an art. Many consider it a means to improve health.

The key challenge for cooks that Trubek witnessed is not a lack of skill but disorganization. People know how to heat up a pan and use a knife. But they are overwhelmed by the need to plan meals, shop for groceries and select ingredients. Many cooks misuse their kitchen space, Trubek says, and could work more efficiently with proper preparation. A young man in one video sliced an onion on a cutting board he set across the burners of his stovetop.

Trubek says she always loved to cook. She earned her doctorate in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, and trained at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in London, later working as an instructor at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier.

This book is her third in a trilogy, starting with “Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession” and followed by “The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir.”

If the current trajectory continues away from making meals ourselves and toward eating food prepared by others, cooking as an American endeavor could grow obsolete, Trubek suggests. We might forget how to cook entirely. Trubek compares it to sewing, which few people do anymore. They buy items already sewn and have tailors do any sewing repairs they need. Similarly, we could end up with others doing all the cooking for us.

Trubek doesn’t want that to happen. One trend she finds intriguing is the proliferation of meal-delivery services, which could prove a well-balanced solution for the state of cooking now.

“It appears that organization and planning, and the problem-solving around dealing with dinner, are these major barriers between people wanting to cook and actually cooking,” Trubek says. “So if there’s a system now where that is alleviated, then I think we’re onto something.”

Source: UVM News