Tag: University of Vermont

It was a scene you don’t often see in academia.

Clustered around computer screens in a classroom in Jeffords Hall were small groups of faculty in widely divergent disciplines – Psychiatry, Business, Ecology, Community Entrepreneurship and Engineering – engaged in animated conversation.

The disciplinary mash-up, and the engaged dialog, were exactly the point of the get-together, the latest meet-up – held last May – of UVM’s Faculty Activity Network, or FAN, says Richard Galbraith, the university’s vice president for research, who created the program in 2015. 

“Everyone is so busy, everyone is working so hard, there’s no time” for faculty to venture outside their disciplinary bubbles to see what’s going on in other parts of the university, Galbraith says, despite the fact that they know funders favor interdisciplinary research and complex contemporary problems usually benefit from it.

“The idea of FAN is to make that time.”     

Research gameified

The time was being well spent in the Jeffords Hall. 

The host of the session was the Social Ecological Gaming and Simulation, or SEGS, Lab, located down the hall in Jeffords, where a group of faculty and students have developed a suite of computer games that simulate real world challenges. When a large sample of people play the games, their collective choices reveal otherwise hard-to-get-at behavioral tendencies and attitudes, a research methodology UVM is pioneering.

Several of those games were on display on the computer screens at the FAN, including one – developed with part of a $7.4 million USDA grant the university received in 2015 – set on a farm that gave players varying incentives to take more or less risky steps to protect livestock from the threat of disease. PLOS ONE recently published a paper on the findings. SEGS managing director Scott Merrill was the lead author.

For Chris Koliba, co-director of the lab, FAN presents a unique opportunity to find collaborators in different disciplines.

“The goal of our FAN is to seed these simulation tools into other domains,” he says. “We’ve got a  high functioning team here, and we’re looking to collaborate with colleagues across the campus who are working in research areas that we’re not in currently, who might be interested in the methods that are being shared today.”

That message hit home for Diann Gaalema, an associate professor of Psychiatry, whose current work uses a variety of methods, from analyzing survey data to conducting clinical trials, to gauge the consequences for smokers, some unintended, of a proposed FDA regulation reducing the amount nicotine in cigarettes.          

“This is a different modality for modeling,” she says. “One of the students (involved in the SEGS lab) was saying, playing a game seems more interesting than taking a survey. If you could gamify surveys, that would not be a bad thing.”

From FAN to Network

For Geography associate professor Pablo Bose, a FAN session he helped host in 2016 has been a game-changer. When Bose arrived at UVM, he soon realized that UVM faculty in a variety of disciplines were working with Burlington’s refugee population, as he was. 

“When the first FAN announcement came out, I thought, wow, this is great,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to actually get people together, to find out who else is doing this kind of work and to figure out what would we do as a network.”

The FAN meeting happened, and it led to others. “We had people in education, in medicine, in CALS, as well as Arts & Sciences. We came together, we talked about the research we were doing and the different things we kind of wanted to do.”

One outcome was a website listing all UVM faculty doing research with refugees, with thumbnail descriptions of their work – essentially a menu for potential collaboration.

The network, and the collaborations, also helped Bose win a Carnegie Foundation grant to build the capacity of the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, a non-profit many UVM faculty work with. Bose is also in conversation with the Ford Foundation to establish a Center for Refugee and Immigration Studies, building on the work of the UVM faculty network.

Long game

While the long-range goal of the FAN program is to help promote a faculty research culture of interdisciplinary collaboration, Galbraith likes to stay relaxed about the short-term, which could yield any number of outcomes he’d be happy with.

“They could range from ‘That was really interesting, and I need to get back to work,’ to ‘Yeah, I knew something about this and now I know a lot more and I’m better informed,’ all the way to ‘We need to talk more because maybe we could do something together,’” he says.     

The program also comes with a perk: a lunch in Waterman Manor after the lab session with Galbraith, whose only cost is for participants is to weather the friendly interrogation the research vice president launches at his lunch companions.

“I want to know, ‘What did you learn? What surprised you? What was interesting to you? What do you think you might want to follow up on?’” he says.

Participants can also apply for a $1,000 grant to further any collaborations that came out of the FAN. About one-third of the 27 FANS that have taken place over the years have inspired grant applications, including the one Bose organized.

Creating an environment where interdisciplinary research is the norm at UVM will take time, Galbraith says.

“FAN is a very conscious effort, but it’s just step one in a long process, whereby maybe people open themselves up more to what else is going on. We’re playing the long game.” 

To propose a FAN session, visit this website.

Source: UVM News

As far back as she can remember, Alexandria Hall ’15 considered herself a poet.

“Even before I could write I was creating these little books of stories that I just wrote for myself,” she recalls. 

Her work is now receiving much wider attention – just four years removed from UVM, she has been named one of five winners of the prestigious 2019 National Poetry Series Open Competition for her collection titled Field Music, which will be published by Ecco, an imprint of Harper-Collins.

Hall grew up in Vergennes, Vt., where every destination seemed to be within walking distance –“I didn’t have a driver’s license when I was in high school,” she said.

She attended Vergennes High School and participated in the school’s Walden Project, an alternative program that emphasizes writing, philosophy and environmental studies in an outdoor setting. 

After participating in an American Field Service Program for a year in Ecuador she attended Emerson College. She left after a year, moving home to work and play music. She had learned piano as a child, and music was one gateway to the rhythm of language.

“Later I found my way around the guitar and the bass, and I also sing,” she said. “My focus now is playing electronic music with synthesizers and my computer. Musical elements of language always interested me, but I also liked the way you could use words to create something out of nothing.”

When she was ready to go back to school, Hall enrolled as an English major at UVM and found a nurturing environment for her development as an artist. She cites professors Dan Fogel and Eric Lindstrom as especially influential—“their classes just moved me forward”—along with poet and professor Major Jackson.

“He played a big role in my kind of figuring out what I was doing, testing different boundaries, helping me find my voice and then questioning that voice. He was very supportive, but at the same time he really challenged me.” 

Jackson remembers Hall as an especially gifted student. “It was quite apparent that Alexandria possessed a level of artistry and sensitivity that announced her as a serious student of poetry and a truly authentic voice,” he said. “I was startled by her imagination, her ability as Emily Dickinson informs us, ‘to tell it slant.’  I learned, too, that she was a musician! I did not want to merely offer up excessive applause. I wanted to take her commitment as an emergent poet as seriously as she took her writing . . . She could have quickly become bored and eventually begun to dial it in. It occurred to me: ‘Oh! I will treat her and her writing like I would approach any graduate student who has made such a forceful show of ambition and talent.’ I could be more severe and demanding, yet also, nurturing. It was the only way to honor her gifts.”

After leaving UVM, Hall attended New York University where she completed her MFA in 2018. She took an extra semester to work on her thesis abroad in Berlin with the support of an NYU graduate research fellowship. 

Hall was recently accepted into the University of Southern California English literature and creative writing PhD program. She moved to Los Angeles earlier this month—she found out about the award just before her departure.

“It still hasn’t really sunk in yet,” she said.  

Hall has been a finalist or semi-finalist for several book prizes before landing the National Poetry Series, so she’s already familiar with the competitive side of the publishing world where many poems are submitted but very few are chosen for publication. 

“My method is to submit things that I really care about instead of sending a million things and not caring,” she said. “Then I put it behind me and forget I sent it in. It’s a nice surprise when something is accepted.” 

Hall’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, BOAAT, The Bennington Review, Foundry, and Memorious. She recently published a short story “Inheritance,” Cosmonauts Avenue 2018 Fiction Prize shortlist, published July 2019.

Source: UVM News

Every year since 2012, adjunct faculty member Stuart White has shared his deep knowledge of the Ecuadorean highlands with UVM students. His course, “Ecuador: Reading Grass Páramo–The High Andes Underfoot,” gives students a first-hand glimpse at this high-elevation savanna and how humans have shaped its ecology for millennia.

In 2019, Nicho Ader, a Narrative Communications & Media major, used the experience — and the dramatic landscape — to hone his videography skills. Watch his video for a sense of what this international experience means to the students who participate in it.

Learn more about this course and other travel-study opportunities with UVM faculty, or explore study abroad at UVM.

Source: UVM News

We remember and honor all of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, including the following UVM alumni.

Carlton W. Bartels G’85

“was not afraid of life, was passionate about it and lived every minute of it,” a family member told the Staten Island Advance. Bartels, who earned his MBA at the University of Vermont, was a partner at Cantor Fitzgerald and was CEO of his own dot-com company, CO2E.com, which helped other companies and governments reduce emissions worldwide. “Carlton was one of the top five people in the world in his industry,” said his wife, Jane Bartels. He had a strong sense of fun, was an avid outdoorsman and cook, and was devoted to his family life with Jane and their two daughters, Melina and Eva. 

Brandon Buchanan ’99

grew up in the countryside of western New York, but was drawn to the business world and the pace of New York City. He took a job as an equity trader with Cantor Fitzgerald after earning his degree at UVM. Twelve hour days were standard, as was the good life of a young man in New York City. His father notes that Buchanan often had plans to see the Knicks or the Yankees play. Following the September 11 tragedy, several of Buchanan’s friends from his days at UVM headed to Manhattan, where they joined in the search, passing photos around, and scouring hospitals for their friend and fellow alum.

Paul Cascio ’99

was on the 84th floor of Tower 2 when he and a co-worker went to the aid of a man in distress, Cascio’s aunt Diane Regan Stuart reported. “That is something Paul would do. His instinct was always to help others. He is a hero in the truest sense of the word,” Stuart said. She added that Cascio’s years at UVM were “some of the happiest in his brief but full life.” 

Robert Lawrence, Jr. ’82

was remembered as a big-hearted man who had put family at the center of his life. “We have a very large extended family, and Bob was kind of the glue,” cousin David Lawrence told the New Jersey Star-Ledger. “The most important thing to him was his daughter, son, and his wife. And all the rest of his family.” Lawrence was married to fellow UVM alum Suzanne Burns ’82. He had just started a new job with investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners, with offices in the World Trade Center, on September 10. 

Rajesh Mirpuri

transferred to New York University after beginning his studies at the University of Vermont. Though he was on campus for just one year, Mirpuri made many friends in Burlington and is fondly remembered by those who came to know him. Mirpuri worked in midtown Manhattan, where he was vice president of sales for the financial software firm Data Synapse, but was attending a financial technology conference at the World Trade Center the morning of September 11. Friends described Mirpuri as a man who loved the Manhattan nightlife and fine dining, but who was also devoted to his family, his Hindu faith, and volunteer work to benefit the elderly and homeless.

Cesar Murillo ’91

called his wife, Alyson Becker ’92, as he tried to escape from the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. Fleeing down the stairwell, he told his wife that he loved her. The couple had been married just short of one year, and their October 2000 ceremony had included many of their friends from undergraduate days at UVM. Murillo, who worked as an equity salesman for Cantor Fitzgerald, studied political science at the university and was a member of Sigma Phi fraternity. A native of Colombia, Murillo was also very active in building community for students of color at UVM, and was a founding member of the Alianza Latina student group.

Martin Niederer ’99

came to UVM with a passion for basketball and left focused on a career in the business world. A sophomore-year field trip to the New York City financial markets inspired Niederer to study business, and after graduation he quickly landed a job right where he wanted to be — working on Wall Street. A year ago, Niederer was recruited to work for Cantor Fitzgerald and he was at his desk early, as usual, on September 11 when Tower 1 was hit. Former Catamount coaches and teammates numbered among the many at a memorial service held in Niederer’s hometown of Annandale, N.J.

Joshua Piver ’00

loved to take friends visiting New York City up to the deck atop the World Trade Center, five floors above his office. He was in his office at Cantor Fitzgerald when the first airliner hit the north tower. Attending a candlelight prayer service held at a local church in Piver’s hometown of Stonington, Conn., his friend Leah Dann told a New York Times reporter, “He’s the most easy-going, fun-loving guy. Everyone got along with him. I’ve never known him to argue with anyone, even raise his voice. He’s just the best.” Piver earned his UVM bachelor’s degree in economics and started work at Cantor Fitzgerald shortly after graduation.

Eric Ropiteau ’00

was hired by TradeSpark, a division of Cantor Fitzgerald, as a broker’s assistant in June. The art major had moved to New York two months following graduation with hopes of working as a professional model. When that path didn’t appear to be opening, Ropiteau, who also studied economics at UVM, had begun the transition to the financial industry. His classmate Joshua Piver had helped Ropiteau land the job at Cantor Fitzgerald, and both members of the Class of 2000 were on the 105th floor of Tower 1 on the morning of September 11.

Matthew Sellitto ’00

worked in Cantor Fitzgerald’s offices on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center. Shortly after one of the hijacked planes hit the tower, Sellitto called his father. “Matthew will be remembered as full of faith and full of love with a strength that led him in his final moments to call his father to say, ‘I love you all,’” said the Rev. Anthony Carrozzo at a Mass held for Sellitto in Harding Township, N.J. In a tribute to his older brother, Jonathan Sellitto dedicated the song “Brokedown Palace,” by the Grateful Dead, one of Matthew’s favorite bands. “Fare you well, fare you well/I love you more than words can tell/Listen to the river sing sweet songs/to rock my soul.”

John W. Wright, Jr. ’89

was a managing director for investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners, where he had worked for five years. He was in his office on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower 2 on the morning of September 11. His wife, Martha Oliverio Wright (also a member of UVM’s Class of 1989), said that her husband called her after the first WTC attack and minutes prior to the plane hitting his building. “His voice was calm and he told me that he was all right. He said that he would call me back later, but I never did get to speak to him again.” Wright lived in Rockville Centre, N.Y. with his wife, and their three children, Emily, Robert, and John W. III, who was three weeks old in September 2001. Martha Wright said that in addition to spending time with his family, her husband enjoyed boating, fishing, and skiing.

 

This story originally appeared in Vermont Quarterly, Winter 2002.

Source: UVM News

Lia Cravedi, senior lecturer in the Department of Education in the College of Education and Social Services, has won the Outstanding Faculty Advising Award for the 2018/19 academic year. 

 

The Outstanding Faculty Advising Award, jointly sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Student Government Association, recognizes a faculty member who exemplifies excellence in undergraduate academic advising. Recipients receive an achievement placard and their choice of a $2,500 cash award or $2,500 in professional development funds. Recipients are listed in a display in the Waterman Building in recognition of their outstanding contributions as academic faculty advisors.

 

“Lia Cravedi epitomizes just the kind of outstanding faculty advising this award is meant to honor,” said Patty Prelock, UVM provost. “She has long had a reputation for offering excellent, individualized advice to her advisees and providing them with strong support when they need it. She couldn’t be more deserving of this recognition.” 

 

Cravedi received multiple nominations from students, faculty, staff and administrators, who praised her for her dedication to students, her holistic approach, and her “advising acumen.” They noted how Cravedi sees her advisees not just as students, but as people with unique needs, goals and aspirations.  All agreed that she helps students to succeed both academically and in life. 

 

Cravedi will be formally acknowledged as the recipient of this honor at the Faculty Awards Ceremony in November. 

Source: UVM News

The Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences announced that it will induct five new fellows for 2019, including two from the University of Vermont: art historian Janie Cohen, director of UVM’s Fleming Museum, and Catherine Donnelly, professor of Nutrition and Food Sciences. 

The VAAS annually recognizes a selection of individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the arts, humanities, sciences, or education in Vermont, or whose work in these fields has made a significant impact in Vermont. VAAS Fellows have accrued significant and longstanding accomplishments and are considered to be exemplary within their professions.  

The other new Fellows are Francois Clemmons, Middlebury musician and emeritus artist-in-residence at Middlebury College; Garret Keizer, writer and essayist; and Arthur Westing, forester and environmentalist.

The new fellows will be formally inducted at the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences’ luncheon at noon on Saturday, September 21, at Fire & Ice Restaurant in Middlebury.  

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont announces that over 75,000 donors gave more than $581 million to UVM and the University of Vermont Medical Center during Move Mountains: The Campaign for the University of Vermont, which concluded on June 30, 2019.  The eight-year fundraising campaign—the most ambitious in the University’s history—was publicly launched in October 2015 with a goal of $500 million.  Donors broke fundraising records throughout the campaign and surpassed its goal eleven months ahead of schedule.  The final tally of gifts was completed last month. 

“I am so grateful to our amazing donors,” said the University’s new president, Suresh Garimella.  “The Move Mountains campaign has had—and will continue to have—a transformative impact on UVM’s students, faculty, and staff.  Our donors have touched every corner of campus, and the benefits of their generosity will be felt throughout the state of Vermont, across our region, and around the world.  UVM is a premier public research and teaching university thanks to the support of the UVM family.”

President Garimella, who assumed his office on July 1, also expressed appreciation to his predecessor, Tom Sullivan.  “President Sullivan’s leadership and vision throughout Move Mountains inspired many unprecedented gifts to UVM and fostered a culture of engagement with our community that is the foundation for future success.  He leaves a robust legacy here, including a strong partnership with the UVM Medical Center.”

“The goal of Move Mountains was to help equip the University, its students, and its faculty with the resources they need to address the most critical challenges facing our global society,” noted Shane Jacobson, President and CEO of the University of Vermont Foundation.  “Thanks to the generosity, dedication, and hard work of our alumni, friends, volunteers, and staff members that goal has been achieved.  I am profoundly grateful to our donors for their extraordinary encouragement and support.”

Many generations of students and patients will benefit from the $581 million in philanthropic investments made by Move Mountains donors, and the campaign’s impact is already being felt at the University and UVM Medical Center.  The Larner College of Medicine, the Grossman School of Business, and the Gund Institute for Environment were all named during the campaign in recognition of donors’ transformative philanthropic investments.  In the latter two cases, these donors are still actively inspiring others to join them in their support by offering matching gift challenges in these areas.

Donors recognized the importance of attracting the best students to UVM, and gave more than $83.7 million to support undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.  While doing so, they created 291 new permanent endowed funds that will benefit thousands of learners.  In addition, alumni, family, and friends gave $66.9 million for endowed faculty positions—forever strengthening the ranks of UVM’s outstanding teachers, scholars, and clinicians.  Donors exceeded campaign goals by establishing 69 new endowed faculty chairs and professorships, more than doubling the University’s pre-campaign total.  Endowed funds like these are permanently invested and will provide steady support to these teacher-scholars for generations to come.

Hundreds of academic, athletic, research, student, and patient programs were created, expanded, or strengthened thanks to over $331 million in gifts from supporters.  Preeminent among these is the $100 million lifetime philanthropy of Helen and Robert Larner ’39, MD’42 (nearly all given during the campaign) that has helped secure the College of Medicine as a national leader in lecture-free, team-based learning. Other notable highlights include the MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, the Humanities Center, the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, the UVM Cancer Center, and the University’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives.

Donors have also transformed the fabric of campus, greatly enhancing many teaching, research, clinical and extracurricular spaces.  Gifts totaling $99.8 million helped construct or renovate at least twenty key facilities during the campaign, including Cohen Hall for the Integrative Creative Arts (the former Taft School), Ifshin Hall, Billings Library, and the UVM Alumni House.  Significantly, Catamounts fans gave $32 million toward the transformation of the Patrick-Forbush-Gutterson Athletic Complex, including the largest capital gift in UVM history to name the new Tarrant Center.

As long-standing partners, UVM and the UVM Medical Center worked collaboratively throughout the Move Mountains campaign, particularly in areas related to health care education, medical research, and patient care.  Donors from the local community in particular rallied behind the UVM Medical Center in unprecedented ways, demonstrating their commitment to supporting world-class health care in the region.  The Medical Center received the largest contribution in its history with Bob and Holly Miller’s gift to support construction of a state-of-the-art new inpatient facility.  The Robert E. and Holly D. Miller Building creates a better healing environment for patients and a better research and learning environment for UVM scientists and students. It overlooks UVM’s central campus and opened to patients on June 1, 2019.

The Move Mountains campaign inspired an unprecedented number of donors and gifts, with more than 75,000 alumni, parents, students, and friends making in excess of 205,000 commitments.  Nearly 39,000 donors made their first gift to UVM during the campaign.  Parents and grandparents of UVM students accounted for more than a quarter of all donors, including almost 3,800 who are themselves UVM graduates.  Close to 400 donors documented planned gifts to the University during the campaign—including bequests, annuities, and charitable trusts—that will help ensure the University’s financial health in the future.  Vermonters accounted for 35% of donors to UVM during the campaign.

“The real triumph of Move Mountains is the relationships that we’ve built that engage and harness the power of the UVM family,” observed Jacobson.  “It’s been incredible to see tens of thousands of people—from all around the world and at all gift levels—step forward and contribute to making UVM even better.  Our donors’ generosity will have far-reaching impacts in Vermont and beyond for many, many years to come.  They have our heartfelt thanks for being part of this team effort.”

“Our students are the heart of UVM,” reflected Garimella, “and this campaign has done wonderful things for them.  As we move ahead, I look forward to working with supporters to ensure that UVM is an ever greater university for these students.  Increasing affordability and accessibility, improving student outcomes, enhancing our teaching and research—our alumni and friends all have important roles to play in these crucial areas.  I’m inspired to know that they are up to the challenge.”

 

Source: UVM News

Growing up in Chicago, the daughter of Filipino immigrants, Cynthia Reyes remembers telling her parents that she wanted them to speak to her only in English, not their native Tagalog. Years later, deep regret over that choice would shape the academic focus of the UVM College of Education and Social Services professor. 

“There wasn’t a push to value their heritage and their culture,” she says. “There’s a sadness about it. I consider it a loss. I really felt that during my graduate school years and when I began taking classes in education and when I began studying in the teacher education program. I just thought more and more about the experiences that students—particularly immigrant students—have when they enter the school and they want to learn how to speak English but it’s really hard to maintain the language of their parents. There’s a lot that can’t be exchanged through a second language. It’s definitely an asset—it’s a resource—and when you lose it, there’s something really profound about that.”

A UVM faculty member since 2003, Professor Reyes has made language, literacy, and its impact on identity a central focus of her work as a researcher and teacher. The UVM Alumni Association honors her with the 2019 George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award, which recognizes “excellence in teaching and extraordinary contributions to the enrichment of campus life.” On Monday, Sept. 23, Reyes will deliver the annual Kidder Lecture. Her focus: “When Caring is not Enough: Reaffirming Pedagogy for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students.” The talk, followed by reception is at 5 p.m. in Alumni House, Silver Pavilion. 

Across the years, Reyes’s work has directly influenced the lives of students in local school districts with diverse populations of new American students, many of whom have come to the area through the Vermont Refugee Resettlement. Partnering with fellow CESS faculty Shana Haines and Barri Tinkler, Reyes has also led the development of an undergraduate minor in education for cultural and linguistic diversity. 

“We need to open up conversation in schools so there are no misunderstandings,” Reyes says. “There are so many issues and racial inequities—especially about children and families who speak another language other than English. When the mantra out there is ‘build that wall,’ it’s just so unwelcoming, and it’s really threatening in many ways to families. So, I feel like when I’m speaking up about the work, it’s really the families and children we want to highlight—not as a burden or as deficits, but as assets.”

As Reyes prepares for her Kidder Lecture, she anticipates including a strong plug for building the ranks at the front of classrooms in Vermont and nationwide. “I’m definitely going to extol the virtues of teaching!” she says. “As a field, it doesn’t receive enough positive recognition, and I want to get into why people should go into teaching—it is a vocation.”

Source: UVM News

In 1980, 14-year-old Jacques Bailly received an impressive trophy for winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Last evening, approximately 39 years later, he collected a second trophy from Scripps—a special award in recognition of his service as chief “pronouncer” of the national spelling bee now televised live each year on ESPN.

UVM Classics Chair John Franklin presented the trophy in a surprise presentation at the department’s fall semester get-together at Oakledge Park in Burlington.

“This trophy is just beautiful,” said an admiring Bailly of the ceramic award specially created by Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati. “Actually it’s a lot nicer than the trophy I got as a 14-year-old.” 

Bailly, associate professor of classics at UVM and director of graduate studies in the department, is a lifelong lover of words. His father came to the United States from France in 1948, and he spent time as a child studying French and visiting his relatives overseas.

After graduating from Brown, Bailly travelled to Switzerland on a Fulbright scholarship and picked up German. Later he studied ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic and Chinese while on his way to a doctorate in ancient philosophy from Cornell. Bailly moved to Vermont in 1997 to teach Greek and Roman philosophy, Latin, and etymology at UVM. He took over as Scripps’ official pronouncer in 2003.

Bailly is something of a celebrity in spelling-bee circles, though the buzz is more muted on campus. 

“For one week in the year, I have the most fantastic fan club,” he says of the annual runup to the national bee held outside Washington, D.C. “The spelling bee kids are so excited to meet me and it’s totally mutual—I love interacting with them. When I’m back at UVM, someone might say ‘hey, that guy has a Wikipedia page. He’s the spelling bee guy.’ And it spreads through the class and students start asking a few questions.”

Last year Rookwood Pottery, designer and supplier of the winning trophy for the Scripps Spelling Bee, was in the national news for having to produce eight trophies for multiple winners of the event. Bailly notes that elite spellers today are better prepared than ever.

“They (they competitors) just weren’t missing any words. The top competitors in bee are getting better and better,” he said.

In honor of Bailly, Scripts issued this citation with the trophy: “Dr. Bailly is more than the voice of the Bee. He is the face, heart and soul of the Bee. We thank him for his years of dedication to the program and the millions of spellers who are inspired by his voice and his encouragement.”

See Channel 22 news coverage of the event.

Source: UVM News