University of Vermont

February 22, 2019February 22, 2019

UVM’s ROTC Program Ranked Among Top Eight Nationwide

The U.S. Army Cadet Command announced this week that the University of Vermont is one of eight winners of the MacArthur Awards for the school year 2017-2018. The award recognizes the eight schools, selected from among the 275 senior Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) units nationwide, as the top programs in the country.  

The awards, presented by Cadet Command and the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation, recognize the ideals of “duty, honor and country” as advocated by MacArthur.

The award is based on a combination of the achievement of the school’s commissioning mission, its cadets’ performance and standing on the command’s National Order of Merit List and its cadet retention rate.  

Cadet Command and the MacArthur Foundation have given the awards each year since 1989. 

The 2017-2018 awardees of the General Douglas MacArthur Award, selected by their brigade commanders as the top performing program, are:  

Virginia Military Institute, which represents Cadet Command’s 1st Brigade.
University of Vermont, which represents 2nd Brigade.
Saint John’s University, which represents 3rd Brigade.
University of Virginia, which represents 4th Brigade.
University of Texas at Austin, which represents 5th Brigade.
Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, which represents 6th Brigade.
Ohio State University, which represents 7th Brigade.
Pacific Lutheran University, which represents for 8th Brigade.

Source: UVM News

February 22, 2019February 22, 2019

Suresh Garimella to Become Next University of Vermont President

The University of Vermont Board of Trustees announced today that Dr. Suresh Garimella will become the University’s 27th president. His appointment will be effective July 1, 2019.

“The Board is very excited about Dr. Garimella becoming our next president,” said Board Chair David Daigle. “He clearly emerged as the most capable candidate for this position. We are confident that we have selected an exceptional individual who will inspire our University to reach even greater levels of excellence.”

Garimella, who is currently Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships and the Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, said, “I am deeply honored to be selected the University of Vermont’s next president. I appreciate the Board’s confidence and trust, and am eager to begin our important work together.

“I am impressed by UVM ’s academic profile and the high quality of its students, faculty and staff. The University is well positioned to compete in a rapidly changing higher education environment, while fulfilling its important land-grant mission and positively impacting the lives of students and Vermonters. I look forward to listening to and engaging with the entire campus community, as well as the state and region, as we collectively identify the vision, strategies and creative approaches that will propel UVM into the next decade and beyond. Above all, we must emphasize our considerable strengths, while seeking opportunities for deliberate innovation designed to increase the accessibility to UVM’s learning, discovery, and engagement missions, and their impact.”

As Purdue’s executive vice president, Garimella leads a world-changing, $660 million per year research enterprise and oversees Discovery Park, a unique set of facilities and institutes, where disciplines converge to solve global challenges related to health and life sciences, sustainability, food, energy and defense and security. He is responsible for Purdue’s international programs and its global and corporate partnership endeavors, focused on strengthening relationships to advance innovation, research, and education.

Under his leadership, Purdue has experienced consecutive record years in research funding and established significant new partnerships around the world. Garimella conceived and implemented an ambitious Life Sciences Initiative, establishing two new institutes that bring together faculty from dozens of disciplines to study integrative neuroscience and inflammation, immunology and infectious disease, to complement signature efforts in the plant sciences and drug discovery. Additionally, partnering with Purdue’s Provost, he initiated the Integrative Data Science Initiative, which focuses on applying data science research to pressing fundamental and socially relevant issues. The initiative also establishes an educational ecosystem that prepares students for the rapidly expanding future of a data-driven, knowledge economy. Garimella’s previous administrative experience at Purdue University includes appointments as the Chief Global Affairs Officer and as the Associate Vice President for Engagement.

Garimella has a long list of honors and awards, including his 2018 appointment as a member of the National Science Board. In 2010, the U.S. Department of State appointed him as a Jefferson Science Fellow to serve as a Science Advisor in the International Energy Office. He also served for six years as a Senior Fellow in the State Department’s Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, and as the State Department delegate to the International Energy Agency. He is co- author of over 500 publications and 13 patents.

Garimella earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, his M.S. from The Ohio State University and his bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

For additional information about Garimella, please visit the Presidential Search website or Garimella’s current website at Purdue University.

“Dr. Garimella clearly possesses the intellect, vision, leadership skills and academic credentials to be a highly successful president at UVM,” said Daigle. “He is a passionate educator, a highly accomplished researcher, an effective relationship builder and a gifted administrative leader. He has a well demonstrated ability to attract external investment and support, and he has a deep and abiding passion for the land-grant mission. Importantly, Dr. Garimella is sharply focused on the quality of the student educational experience as well as student success during and after college.”

The search for a new UVM president began formally in September. More than 90 outstanding candidates applied for the position. The search committee personally interviewed 10 of the most highly qualified candidates in December. Candidate confidentiality requirements necessitated that the University not identify publicly the outstanding finalists who emerged from the process. However, faculty members, administrative and academic leaders, and students played a key role in the search process. The Board of Trustees was briefed about their feedback and the results of comprehensive reference checking before Garimella was invited to campus for the public vetting stage. On Feb. 14, Garimella participated in a series of meetings with constituency groups across the University and interacted with campus community members in a large open forum. The Board was again briefed on campus feedback during its Feb. 15 meeting, after which they unanimously authorized the Chair to conduct negotiations and finalize an agreement with Garimella.

Garimella will succeed President Tom Sullivan, who has successfully led the University on a mission to enhance its academic and financial profile, while keeping a UVM education accessible to and affordable for all students.

“President Sullivan has led with a passion for students and higher education, with reasoned and thoughtful decision-making, and with unwavering integrity,” said Daigle. “Our University is unequivocally stronger as a result of his efforts and accomplishments. From the resounding success of our ambitious capital campaign, to the progress achieved on our major academic initiatives, to the positive transformation of our physical campus, we have made tremendous and lasting progress in advancing UVM’s mission under President Sullivan’s leadership. I am very proud of all UVM has accomplished over the past few years and I look forward to future advancements with President Garimella at the helm.”

Source: UVM News

February 21, 2019February 25, 2019

Is the Most Effective Weight-Loss Strategy Really That Hard?

If you want to lose weight, research shows, the single best predictor of success is monitoring and recording your calorie and fat intake throughout the day — to “write it when you bite it.”

But dietary self-monitoring is commonly viewed as so unpleasant and time-consuming, many would-be weight-losers can’t muster the will power to do it.

New research to be published in the March issue of Obesity suggests that the reality of dietary self-monitoring may be far less disagreeable than the perception.

After six months of monitoring their dietary intake, the most successful participants in an online behavioral weight-loss program spent an average of just 14.6 minutes per day on the activity. Program participants recorded the calories and fat for all foods and beverages they consumed, as well as the portion sizes and the preparation methods.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Vermont and the University of South Carolina, is the first to quantify the amount of time that dietary self-monitoring actually takes for those who successfully lose weight.

“People hate it; they think it’s onerous and awful, but the question we had was: How much time does dietary self-monitoring really take?” said Jean Harvey, chair of the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the University of Vermont and the lead author of the study. “The answer is, not very much.”

Harvey and her colleagues looked at the dietary self-monitoring habits of 142 participants in an online behavioral weight control intervention. For 24 weeks, participants met weekly for an online group session led by a trained dietician.

They also logged their daily food intake online, in the process leaving behind a record of how much time they spent on the activity and how often they logged in – information the researchers mined for the new study.

Participants who lost 10 percent of their body weight – the most successful members of the cohort – spent an average of 23.2 minutes per day on self-monitoring in the first month of the program. By the sixth month, the time had dropped to 14.6 minutes.

Brief but frequent

What was most predictive of weight-loss success was not the time spent monitoring – those who took more time and included more detail did not have better outcomes – but the frequency of log-ins, confirming the conclusions of earlier studies.

“Those who self-monitored three or more time per day, and were consistent day after day, were the most successful,” Harvey said. “It seems to be the act of self-monitoring itself that makes the difference – not the time spent or the details included.”

Harvey attributes the decrease in time needed for self-monitoring to participants’ increasing efficiency in recording data and to the web program’s progressive ability to complete words and phrases automatically after just a few letters were entered.

The study’s most important contribution, Harvey said, may be in helping prospective weight-losers set behavioral targets.

“We know people do better when they have the right expectations,” Harvey said. “We’ve been able to tell them that they should exercise 200 minutes per week. But when we asked them to write down all their foods, we could never say how long it would take. Now we can.”

With online dietary monitoring apps like LoseIt, Calorie King and My Fitness Pal widely available, Harvey hopes the study results motivate more people to adopt dietary self-monitoring as a weight-loss strategy.

“It’s highly effective, and it’s not as hard as people think,” she said.

The stakes are high. The latest federal data show that nearly 40 percent of American adults were obese in 2015–16, up from 34 percent in 2007–08. Obesity is linked to chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, hyperlipidemia, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and cancer and accounts for 18 percent of deaths among Americans ages 40 to 85, according to a 2013 study.

Source: UVM News

February 26, 2019February 26, 2019

Graduating into the Freshman Class

Many seniors in college wonder what they’ll do after they graduate. When Lucy Rogers ’18 was a senior at UVM, she decided to try to become a freshman again — by running for a seat in the Vermont state legislature.

In the spring semester of 2018, Rogers was completing a major in biology (with a double minor in Chinese and mathematics) — and writing an honors thesis (on bear conservation) in the geography department. She’d given a cello recital. She was training to run the Vermont City Marathon. So when Rogers told her advisor and friend, geography professor Cheryl Morse, that, “in her free time,” she was preparing a campaign to run for public office, representing her home district of Cambridge and Waterville in the Vermont State House, “I just started to laugh,” Morse recalls.

But Morse was not skeptical, she was amazed. “I didn’t laugh because it was a bad idea,” Morse says. “I laughed because it was a perfect fit for Lucy.”

In high school, Rogers got up every morning at 4 a.m. to hand-milk her cow, Zalia, and graduated at the top of her class from Lamoille Union High School. Then she went out west to help with two conservation projects, trapping and radio-collaring grizzly bears in Canada. Next, she worked on a beef cattle ranch and made birch syrup in Alaska. She came back east to enroll at Harvard, but after one year there she transferred to UVM. “There was a culture of fear of failure at Harvard — but at UVM there was a lot more freedom to be creative,” Rogers says.

“Lucy works very hard—but mostly she just leads with her earnestness,” Cheryl Morse says. “There’s no guile in anything that Lucy does. She’s genuine. And I think people sense that.”

Duel becomes Duet

Which helps explain what happened on October 10, 2018, at the public library in Jeffersonville, Vermont. There, Rogers, 23, and Zac Mayo, 29, the two candidates for the Lamoille-3 house seat in the state legislature, were holding a debate. Standard fare for election season. But after the talking was over, they did something unexpected and perhaps unprecedented: they pushed the tables apart, and Rogers got out her cello, while Mayo picked up his guitar.

“Then we played a duet,” Rogers says—of Jerry Hannan’s tune “Society.” It was an expression of both candidates’ desire to uphold the unfashionable value of civility in politics. Rogers went on to win, securing 1,273 votes over Mayo’s 882. But not before the camera trucks from CBS Evening News arrived to cover the story.

Rogers was a bit nervous about being interviewed for national television—largely because she worried about what romanticized tale might be told about her rural community. “I love my town and my neighbors,” she says, looking out the window of Room 45 at the Vermont State House in Montpelier where she now sits on the House Committee on Health Care.

And her upbringing does seem to glow with bucolic charms: She was born and raised in an off-the-grid and solar-powered house in Waterville, Vt., a handsome village of 700 people, complete with covered bridge. In high school, she took over her family’s small maple syrup operation. “We did about 300 trees and have a garden and we raised turkeys for Thanksgiving,” she says. It might seem Rogers is woven into a tapestry of ideal rural life.

Rogers plays her cello on the floor of the State House. (Photo: Glenn Russell)

Good not Ideal

But, this fierce winter morning, as the snow hisses against the State House walls, she’s listening to hours of expert testimony about the byzantine complexities of how the U.S. pharmaceutical industry sets drug prices. And worrying about the older people in her district who have a hard time driving an hour to access healthcare let alone pay for medications. Rogers chafes at the way rural life “gets flattened,” she says, whether in the narratives of the urban evening news or in the way state legislation can “undervalue local control,” she says. “Five jobs in the city may not matter much, but in a small town they’re crucial,” she says.

“Life here is good, but not ideal,” Rogers says, reflecting some of the lessons she learned in Cheryl Morse’s geography course, “People & Nature in Rural Places.” She rejects the binary myth that “either you go to the rural places to be spiritually healed and then you return to your real problems in New York City,” Rogers says, “or there’s the anti-ideal which is the ax murderer in the horror film.” Instead, Lucy Rogers wants to be sure the real-world complexity and gifts of her rural community—the people and land of Waterville and Cambridge, Vt.—are taken seriously and represented accurately.

“What did I most want to do after I graduated from UVM?” she says. “I wanted to go back to work in my hometown.”

Source: UVM News

February 22, 2019February 27, 2019

Hollywood’s Cat Connection

UVM Film and Television Studies Professor Sarah Nilsen took a dozen UVM students to Los Angeles for four jam-packed days over the winter break as a capstone experience for a course on the movie industry. Nilsen was the chief instructor, but she had at least a dozen unofficial “adjuncts” in LA, all UVM alumni who work in the film industry as actors, producers, directors and marketing executives.

The course examines the Hollywood studio system which has dominated the global film market since the 1920s, and the social and cultural impacts of film on American society.

“We study the history of the studios which includes the Hollywood style of filmmaking and the industry structure,” Nilsen explained. “Then we travel to LA and meet some of the people who make it all work. And there’s a tremendous amount of UVM talent there.”

For Chloe Chaobal ’20, the trip dispelled many preconceived notions about “La-La Land.”

“We all hear negative things about LA—the pollution, the smog. When I got there I was honestly surprised at how beautiful it was. Instead of being self-absorbed, the people we met were really open and generous.”

Chaobal is an anthropology major interested in writing and media studies—she produces podcasts for UVM’s student newspaper the Vermont Cynic and worked as an intern for author and UVM alumna Gail Sheehy last summer.

She was especially impressed by a meeting with Katie Elmore Mota ’04, founder and executive producer of Wise Entertainment.

“I loved how she was creating her own niche, doing work that’s really cutting-edge and socially relevant,” Chaobal said.

Mota and her husband Mauricio produced “East Los High,” a drama series that debuted on Hulu in 2013. The series has earned five Emmy nominations for its portrayal of inner-city Latino high school students—it was the first English-language television show with all-Latino cast members, creators, and writers.

“Our goal is to create things that people love and that make them say, ‘I’m seeing myself for the first time on TV,’” Mota said recently in an interview with UVM’s Vermont Quarterly magazine.

Career Connections

Students also met with Mike Ridgewell, vice-president of creative media and digital marketing for Fandango, the online movie ticketing company. Ridgewell, a father of a current UVM student, arranged for a tour of Fandango offices and hosted a two-hour sit down that included several Fandango employees.

There’s a big career outreach component to the course, and Nilsen advised the students to thoroughly research the people they would be visiting and the companies they represented. She encouraged them to create a LinkedIn page if they hadn’t already done do, and connect with their hosts online.

“Mike came up to me right after the meeting and gave me a list of names of students who had done their homework and really impressed him with their questions,” Nilsen said. “It was great experience for students looking for opportunities in the industry. Having connections is vital to getting your foot in the door.”

Jay Roth ’68, who recently retired as national executive director of the Directors Guild of America, gave the class a tour of guild headquarters on Sunset Boulevard. After a career in labor law, Roth was hired for the top SGA job in 1995 and has led the guild’s collective bargaining agreements ever since—Daily Vanity called Roth the “showbiz point person on making a deal to ensure Hollywood’s labor peace.”

Students met several alumni on the creative end of the business, including actor Tim Griffin. He played Ronny O’Malley on Grey’s Anatomy and his lengthy list of film credits include roles in The Bourne Supremacy, Leatherheads, The Men Who Stare at Goats, A Better Life and American Sniper. Griffin’s friend and UVM alumnus Josh Stroberg, a director and writer (he directed the award-winning film Life Coach), dropped by for what turned into a two-and-a-half hour discussion and dinner.

Another highlight was meeting with Patrick Starr ‘98, senior vice president of creative advertising at Universal Pictures. Starr, who studied English at UVM, took time to meet with the students in his building’s jaw-dropping conference room, and included several of his Universal colleagues. One of them was Sean Zabik ‘16, now a creative coordinator for Universal who creates movie trailers, produces digital content, and develops TV spots and movie posters—”just about everything involved in promotion of big productions,” he said.

Zabik worked as a research assistant for Nilsen, and with the help of UVM faculty he landed summer internship at Sharp Entertainment in New York City. That led to a gig job shadowing for Starr, and Zabic was hired full-time at Universal in 2017.

Film student Jordan Mitchell ’21 felt grateful for the time these busy professionals gave the group.

“They were really generous with their advice—not just about how the business works but basic things like ‘how do you move to a new city? Where’s the best place to live? Do you need a car?’”

She believes the four-day experience not only oriented her to the city, but set expectation levels for being successful in the industry. Ridgewell told the group that skills and commitment are important, but that working respectfully and collaboratively are essential. When he makes a hire, he makes it a practice to check with the garage attendant and office receptionist about how they were treated by each candidate during the interview process.

Nilsen is gratified the students met many young UVM alumni like Zabik and Sadie Holliday ’14, who worked at UVM’s radio station WRUV as a student, and now works as manager of the Montreal-based band Homeshake.

“Our students can begin to imagine themselves in these positions, doing these jobs. And it also makes me proud to think our school here on the opposite coast has produced all these successful people in the industry.”

Source: UVM News

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019

New PI Portal Will Vastly Simplify Financial Management for Principal Investigators

Two urgent administrative questions preoccupy many principal investigators as they work their way through funded research projects: How much money is left on my grant? Have my graduate students and post-docs been paid?

In the past, faculty without a large support staff needed expert knowledge of PeopleSoft, a pair of reading glasses to contend with the small type on multi-page PDFs and a free afternoon to answer them.

With the launch in early March of a new accounting tool called PI Portal, comprehensive, up-to-the-minute, well organized financial data will be available to faculty researchers two clicks and a net ID log-in from the UVM homepage.

“What used to takes me a few hours will now take a few minutes,” said Adrian Del Maestro, associate professor of Physics and director of UVM’s Vermont Advanced Computing Core. “In an age where we’re used to having our banking software on our phone, this is exactly that.”

Brian Prindle, executive director for research administration and integrity at UVM, conceived of the PI Portal project and spearheaded its development over a full year.

“Faculty write grant applications, win grants, do research and then have to shoulder the responsibility of managing the sponsored project funds,” he said. “The new portal gives them a tool to quickly, efficiently and accurately monitor their spending, so they can keep tabs on where they are and plan effectively for the future.”

The development and testing work of the PI Portal was done as a partnership between the Sponsored Project Administration and Enterprise Technology Systems. Lana Metayer of SPA and Susan Skalka of ETS collectively used their backgrounds in sponsored projects and PeopleSoft to extract the necessary data and to assemble it into intuitive, user-friendly pages. PI Portal is simple to navigate and does not require special training or user guides.

During January and February Prindle, Metayer and Skalka gave over a dozen demonstrations of the PI Portal to more than 40 faculty.

“The reception was very positive and the feedback was great,” Metayer said. Prindle said faculty suggestions have already been incorporated into the portal.

Del Maestro couldn’t be happier. “The PI Portal allows PIs to spend less time focusing on the financial details in the administration of the grant and more time doing science — and that’s a good thing,” he said.

Faculty reaction like that is music to Prindle’s ears. “Providing a Sponsored Project accounting tool that allows our investigators to focus on what they do best, their research, tells me we did something right, we hit the sweet spot.”

The portal was created for investigators, Metayer said, but it will also be useful for unit administrators who support faculty research activities.

For more information, visit the PI Portal webpage and watch for the Go Live announcement in early March.

Source: UVM News

March 4, 2019March 4, 2019

In the Starting Gate

Six team national titles and fifty-seven individual national champs, not to mention 371 All-Americans, the University of Vermont’s long history as a force in collegiate skiing will be on display Wednesday, March 6, to Saturday, March 9, as UVM hosts the NCAA Championships in Stowe. The Catamounts enter nationals after a strong Eastern collegiate carnival circuit with multiple team victories and a second-place finish, just behind Dartmouth, at the EISA Championships. Apart from the collegiate scene, several Vermont skiers have also excelled in international competitions this season.

Here’s a look at some of the Catamounts competing this week and a look back at their predecessors.

Paula Moltzan represented, with a V-Cat decal up front and center on her black helmet, in World Cup races early this winter. And Vermont teammate Laurence St. Germain, a member of Canada’s 2018 Olympic team, was right there with her as the two standouts skied with the world’s best. St. Germain took sixth and Moltzan was 18th in slalom at the 2019 FIS Alpine World Championships in Sweden. Back on U.S. snow for the Eastern Championships, St. Germain won the slalom and Moltzan joined her on the podium with a third-place finish.

Bill Harmeyer’s 2019 season has included four individual victories, including winning the EISA Championship in the 20K classic. The Catamounts took three of the top four spots in that race with Ben Ogden and Finn O’Connell following him across the line in second and fourth. Harmeyer, a nursing major, is from South Burlington, and his twin brother, Henry, is also on the UVM ski team. (Photo: Steve Fuller)

Alpine skier Max Roeisland brings solid NCAA Championship experience to the mountain this week. The senior business administration major from Oslo, Norway earned first-team NCAA All-American status in 2017 and 2018, and he was the EISA Men’s Alpine Rookie of the Year in 2016. (Photo: Steve Fuller)

Over the course of the EISA season, sophomore Lina Sutro won six races, including the Eastern Championship in the 5K skate. She also competed in Finland as a member of the United States U23 team. The 2019 NCAAs will be Sutro’s second time skiing in the championships for the Catamounts. (Photo: Brian Jenkins)

Ben Ogden (center) won races on the Eastern collegiate circuit and took second in the 20K classic race at the EISA Championships, but the major highlight of his season happened far from New England, at the Nordic Junior World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland. Ogden, a freshman in mechanical engineering, was on the U.S. team that skied to a gold medal in the 4×5-kilometer relay. (Photo: Brian Jenkins)

The Catamounts’ most recent NCAA team championship came in 2012. Competing in Bozeman, Montana, Vermont had a dominant performance, setting records for points scored and margin of victory over second place, the crowning moment of a season in which the Cats swept the Eastern Ski Carnival circuit. UVM has also won the national championship in 1994, 1992, 1990, 1989, and 1980. Pictured: UVM’s Amy Glen edged Dartmouth’s Sophie Caldwell for the 2012 NCAA Championship in the 15K classic race. (Photo: Brett Wilhelm)

After graduation, scores of Catamount skiers have risen to the top ranks of their sport with Olympic gold medals, world and national championships. Competing in the 1956 Olympics, Nordic skier Larry Damon ’55 (pictured) kicked off a streak of winter sports Catamounts competing in every edition of the Games since. Peak performances by alumni include Barbara Ann Cochran’s 1972 Olympic gold in slalom and Lowell Bailey’s 2017 World Championship in biathlon.

UVM skiers competing at 2019 NCAA Championships:

Women’s Nordic: Anna Bizyukova, Margie Freed, Lina Sutro

Men’s Nordic: Bill Harmeyer, Finn O’Connell, Ben Ogden

Women’s Alpine: Mille Graesdal, Paula Moltzan, Laurence St. Germain

Men’s Alpine: Patrick McConville, Max Roeisland

NCAA Championship Nordic events are Wednesday and Friday at Trapp Family Lodge; Alpine events, Thursday and Saturday at Stowe Mountain Resort. See NCAA Championship details.

Source: UVM News

March 6, 2019March 6, 2019

Public Communication Concentrations Launched

Public communication careers can take many forms. Graduates of UVM’s public communication program have landed jobs in government, corporate communications, brand management, advertising, music, nonprofits and everything in between.

New this spring, students majoring in the discipline can hone their skills by choosing one of three new concentrations being offered by the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE): Strategic Communication, Communication Design, or Community Media and Journalism.

“The concentrations help students find their way within the general field of communication and help them be more focused in their future job search,” said Jane Kolodinsky, CDAE professor and chair of the department.

Public communication is one of the fastest growing majors in UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Over the past ten years, growing demand has led to increased course offerings in strategic communication, community media, community journalism and communication design. The courses have been designed in response to faculty members’ areas of expertise, students’ career goals and the continually evolving landscape of communications as a professional field.

While faculty members have long been advising students how to strategically pick electives to cluster around sub-disciplines, the new concentrations make it easier for students to make informed choices about their academic journey and set career goals more clearly.

“We have always been passionate about teaching students how to be responsible, relevant and creative communicators,” said CDAE associate professor Sarah Heiss, who was involved in developing the concentrations. “Now, we can accelerate that growth by focusing students’ experiences and helping them gain depth in a particular area of public communication. This strengthens their ability to secure internships and launch into rewarding careers.”

The concentrations offer students the ability to enhance their resumes with more targeted skills employers are seeking for specific communications jobs.

“I’m excited the PCOM major is making it so easy for me to gain the real-world skills and experiences I need to be a public relations specialist,” said junior Rosey Lambert who recently declared a concentration in strategic communication.

Beginning this fall, all new public communication majors will be required to select a concentration, which will help guide their academic experience at UVM.

Current public communication students interested in adding a formal concentration should talk with their advisor to determine whether a concentration is right for them. Non-majors considering a public communication major with a concentration area are encouraged to set up a meeting with one of CDAE’s academic advisors.

Source: UVM News

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019

UVM Wins Gold Workplace Wellness Award

The University of Vermont has won a Governor’s Excellence in Workplace Wellness Gold Award from the Vermont Department of Health. The Workplace Wellness Award program recognizes Vermont organizations that have demonstrated an established wellness strategy promoting healthy environments and supporting the well-being of their employees.

The department has offered Workplace Wellness Awards in the past, which UVM has won, but this is the first year it is offering awards at Rising Star, Bronze, Silver and Gold levels.

“It’s an honor to be included in a group of Vermont employers who’ve made it a priority to promote employee wellness,” said Wanda Heading Grant, vice president of UVM’s Division of Human Resources, Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.

“We’ve always offered a wide range of wellness programing at UVM,” she said. “But in the past few years we’ve put new emphasis on making employees aware of these many options and making it easy for them to access them. This award, and the ones before it, show we’re on the right track.”

Over the past two years, UVM developed and launched a comprehensive Employee Wellnesss website, hired a dedicated wellness staff person, Britta MacApline, and put in place a Wellness Ambassadors program of over 70 staff and faculty ambassadors who are charged with keeping their departments informed of new and existing wellness initiatives.

The new website organizes the university’s offerings into seven types of wellness programs: emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual and itemizes the available programming and community partners for each category.

“Making wellness a priority is a true win-win for UVM,” said Heading-Grant. “Research shows that employees who participate in wellness programs are happier, healthier and more productive. That’s a benefit to both the employee and the university.”

This Vermont Department of Health and Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports will present the awards on March 21 at the 2019 Worksite Wellness conference at the DoubleTree Hilton in Burlington.

For more information about UVM’s wellness programs, visit Employee Wellness.

Source: UVM News

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Catamount Hoops Alumni: Where are they now?

As March Madness approaches, we reached out to a circle of Vermont basketball alumni to catch up on where life has taken them and reflect on their days in green-and-gold.

Taylor Coppenrath ’05

A home-state hero from West Barnet, Coppenrath went on to a successful international career in basketball across a decade playing in Europe, primarily in Spain. After retiring as a player, he returned to Vermont, where he teaches ninth grade math and coaches girls’ varsity basketball at Missisquoi Valley Union High School. “Math is always a challenging subject,” Coppenrath says. “Then to add the fourteen-to-fifteen year-old mindset and hormones, it can be quite interesting and challenging at times.” But it’s a worthy challenge. Coppenrath adds that it’s his hope to “influence students to be good people, succeed in life, and believe in themselves.”

Catamount Highlight: The NCAA first round shocker over Syracuse, of course. Teammate Germain Mopa Njila’s very big game (24 points) and T.J. Sorrentine’s very big shot (that three “from the parking lot”) stand out in Coppenrath’s memory.

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: Coppenrath rattles off a long list of what he learned as a varsity athlete—family, hard work, communication, pride, humility, and a growth mindset, to name a few.

Dr. Karalyn Church ’00 MD’06

One of Vermont’s all-time basketball greats, Church was a two-time America East Player of the Year, two-time Catamount MVP, and the first UVM women’s basketball player to earn an invitation to the WNBA Pre-Draft Camp. The native of Canada now lives in London, Ontario, where she is an emergency physician, assistant professor at Western University, and also travels to rural and under-served hospitals in the province. “The challenges are the same things that make my job fulfilling,” Church says. “No two days are ever the same. I care for people ages 0 to over 100 and almost all are in a state of fear, pain, anxiety or concern when they arrive. Creating a bond and providing the right care for this wide range of patients is always a different dance day after day.”

Catamount Highlight: Win over Maine in the 2000 America East Championship game. “I remember the feeling when I realized that all systems were go, every single player on the team was in full form, and I knew we were going to crush them. Patrick Gym was packed, my teammates were on fire, and I felt like I had the front row seat on a fully loaded locomotive.”

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: “Blood, sweat and tears is not just an expression,” Church says. “You learn so much about yourself and about your teammates when you commit to a common goal. It is the same in sport as it is in life.”

Maurice Joseph ’09

A two-time captain for the Cats, Joseph’s on-court leadership skills now play out from the bench, as head coach for George Washington University. He’s the youngest coach in a Top 10 RPI conference, now in his third season in the top job with the Atlantic 10’s Colonials. “Obviously, I’m very passionate about the game of basketball,” Joseph says. “But I believe that as a coach I’m also an educator, and I can teach these guys life lessons through the game of basketball. I have an impact on what type of employee or employer they are going to become one day, what kind of husband, what kind of father… That’s not a job that I take for granted.” Fellow UVM basketball alumnus Chris Holm ’07 is one of Joseph’s assistant coaches.

Catamount Highlight: 2010 America East Championship victory over Boston University at Patrick Gym. Joseph says, “My teammate Evan Fjeld had just lost his mother. So, it was tough on our team; obviously, very tough on Evan. So to be able to win that championship in Patrick Gym and win it for him, that was one of the most special things that I’ve ever experienced in my life.” Joseph adds that the day he received his UVM bachelor’s in psychology, the first in his family to earn a college degree, was also a lifetime moment.

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: The importance of relationships, Joseph says. “Whether you’re a teammate or a coach, you’re striving for something together, sacrificing your own needs for the greater good of the group.”

May Kotsopoulos ’10

A team captain for two seasons and MVP for the Catamounts in 2009, Kotsopoulos helped lead Vermont to post-season appearances in the NCAA Tournament and WNIT. Also a dean’s list student all four years, she says the stature of the business school was among UVM’s attractions when she made her college choice. She now lives and works in Toronto as a senior account executive for Salesforce, a cloud-based software company that specializes in customer relationship management tools.

Catamount Highlight: Victory over seventh-seeded Wisconsin in the first round of the 2010 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, the Vermont program’s first win of all time in the tourney. “Growing up in Canada, I used to watch March Madness but never imagined being able to actually be involved, let alone win a game,” she says.

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: Kotsopolous says that her professional style grows from what she learned as a student-athlete — discipline, coachability, an even-keel perspective. She recalls how, after a strong start to her first Vermont season, one poor performance in a December game shook her confidence. On her sister’s advice, she began working with sports psychologist Sheila Stawinski. “Over the next four years, I worked on tactics and tools to handle stress and pressure, perspective on wins and losses, and how to manage both personal and athletic tough times,” Kotsopoulos says.

Aaron Yantzi Dickie ’04

Dickie (Yantzi during her playing days) was a three-time America East All-Conference player and one of the top scorers in school history. A psychology major at UVM, she later earned her teaching certification at St. Michael’s College and has taught third grade at Grand Isle Elementary School for the past six years. Building relationships, helping children grow, she rates teaching as one of the best jobs in the world. “There is a lot of new content that the kids are expected to learn each year, and I am always amazed and so proud of what they are able to accomplish,” she says. “But they are still only eight- and nine-year-olds who like to have fun. It’s that youthful energy that I try to use to tap into their interests whenever possible.”

Catamount Highlight: Sophomore season, a run to the quarterfinals of the WNIT that included a pair of home wins in front of the Vermont faithful in Patrick Gym.

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: Teamwork and time management. “My ‘teammates’ no longer wear jerseys, but I still deal with that same dynamic when working with those around me. The better we can work together, the more successful our students will be.” Dickie adds that balancing academics and athletics provided a four-year course in perseverance. “There were many times playing basketball when I was tired, both mentally and physically, but you have to tell yourself to push through it and that same theory applies to many aspects of life.”

Luke Apfeld ’13

A power forward for the Catamounts, Apfeld was a two-time captain who helped lead the team to regular season and conference tournament championships during his years in a Vermont uniform. A double-major in English and sociology, he was a member of UVM’s Honors College. Law school at Cal-Berkeley followed UVM, and Apfeld is now a lawyer living in Brooklyn and working for Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr., a U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of New York. He says that the work presents the challenge, and fulfillment, of navigating the vastness of the legal field “to wrestle with new and foreign concepts on a daily basis.”

Catamount Highlight: America East Tournament Championship game victory on Stony Brook’s home court. “The environment was electric and deafening — the culmination of a difficult season and journey as a team.”

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: Apfeld mentions the abilities to push past limits, work as a team, and adds the valuable life lesson of dealing with defeat. “We are all going to lose at times in our lives, and that loss may manifest itself in a number of ways. Being a collegiate athlete teaches you that a loss isn’t the end; it allows you to refocus and channel your energy to improve and continue on having learned from the past,” he says.

Sandro Carissimo ’14

A standout guard for the Catamounts, Carissimo (left, with then-roommate Luke Apfeld) was a leader for Vermont teams that earned conference championships and trips to the post-season in both the NCAA and NIT tournaments. A graduate of the Grossman School of Business, focused on finance and accounting, Carissimo lives in New York City and works for Brigade Capital, a multi-strategy investment management firm. You sense his hoops background in his response to what is fulfilling about the work: “I enjoy the competition aspect, working with the team at Brigade to try and see things in businesses that the broader market may be missing.” (Fun fact: in 2015, Business Insider included Carissimo, who played professionally in Spain after his UVM career, on their lineup of “The 32 Best Basketball Players on Wall Street.”)

Catamount Highlight: Playing in the NCAA Tournament in 2012. The Cats won a First Four round match-up against Lamar, then took on #1 seeded North Carolina. Playing in Greensboro, N.C., Vermont fell 77-58.

A Student-Athlete’s Lessons: Carissimo shares fundamental court wisdom that seems especially apt for the investment world: “Never let yourself get too high or too low in any situation, so you are able to make thought-out decisions based on work you have done rather than making emotional reactions.”

Lauren Buschmann ’13

One of a number of talented Canadian women’s basketball players who took their talents to Burlington for their college careers, Buschmann developed into a top post player in America East. These days, she’s back home north of the border, living and working in Toronto, where she’s a sports scientist, focused on the women’s national basketball team, with the Canadian Sport Institute. Buschmann, who majored in exercise and movement science, says the rapid evolution of her field requires constant learning. “In order to gain a competitive advantage over the other countries, it is imperative that I know the latest trends and research in order to best prepare our athletes. When competing against the top athletes in the world, every advantage is crucial to our team’s success.”

Catamount Highlight: The 2010 post-season, when Buschmann and her teammates made a run through the America East Championship Tournament, then pulled off a first-round NCAA Tournament upset win over Wisconsin.

A Student-Athlete’s Lesson: Time management and finding life balance are core challenges for a college varsity athlete, Buschmann says. Wisdom gained from that experience informs training programs she designs for athletes today, with a mind to balancing hard work and recovery.

Jen MacAulay ’02

As a player, MacAulay was one of Vermont’s career leaders in three-pointers and assists, helping lead the Catamounts to two America East regular season championships and post-season appearances in the NCAA Tournament and WNIT. Today, she is an assistant basketball coach at Smith College. At Smith, and during six years as an assistant at UMass-Amherst, recruiting has been a key focus for MacAulay. “I feel very fortunate to have developed so many amazing relationships with student athletes. These relationships are formed in the recruiting process, grow over their four years as a student athlete and continue after they graduate.”

Catamount Highlight: Second round WNIT win over St. Joe’s, MacAulay’s final game in Patrick Gym. “I got to experience it with teammates who are still some of my best friends today and in front of the most amazing fans in women’s college basketball. Thinking back to playing in front of a sold-out crowd at Patrick Gym still brings me goosebumps. I have coached and played in a lot of other gyms across the country, but there is something so special about Patrick.”

A Student Athlete’s Lessons: A business administration major at UVM, MacAulay boils it down to discipline, time management, and relationship skills. “Being a student athlete at the college level forces you to work with a lot of different types of people so closely and be able to navigate those relationships, some more easily than others,” she says.

Source: UVM News