Tag: University of Vermont

Starting at UVM’s first summer camp for children who stutter four years ago, 13 year-old Madison Denton has grown to be a nationally recognized advocate for her peers. The project that helped spark it all: creating a pamphlet, alongside other campers, for Ben & Jerry’s employees that explained how best to interact with customers who stutter. Recently, Denton was named the 2017 National Stuttering Association Kid of the Year.

Denton served as a mentor at this year’s fourth annual summer camp offered through UVM’s Eleanor M. Luse Center for Communication. The camp provides children ages 7-12 the opportunity to interact with other children who stutter – in some cases for the first time – and to learn therapy-based self-empowerment activities like drawing pictures that represent their stuttering and characters that can defeat it. 

“The camp has been inspirational for me because you learn a lot about stuttering and interact with other people who stutter,” says Denton, whose letter writing campaign to American Girl Doll contributed to the creation of a doll who stutters named Gabriela. “Some people don’t understand stuttering and can kind of judge you, so I try to educate them because I feel like if people learn more about stuttering they won’t be as critical.”

This year’s campers created a Back-to-School Survival Guide for Kids/Students Who Stutter that the National Stuttering Association plans to distribute nationwide. In previous years, campers designed a “Stutter!” board game with questions about stuttering that was distributed to local school districts and a movie titled “Stuttercraft” based on characters from the video game “Minecraft.”

UVM students learn from campers

Danra Kazenski, clinical assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders, started the UVM camp when she arrived four years ago, also establishing the Burlington chapter of the National Stuttering Association, to increase opportunities for the approximately 6,000 Vermonters who stutter. “The goal was to help kiddos build self-acceptance,” she says. “The camp automatically shows them that they are not alone.”

Kazenski also saw the camp as an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students in Communication Sciences and Disorders to learn first-hand what it’s like to navigate the world as a child who stutters. “I tell students that the best way to learn is to listen and really pay attention to what the kiddos are saying and be open and genuinely curious,” says Kazenski, an expert on the clinical supervision and education of students working with children and adults who stutter. “You always learn something by just hearing their stories.”

Junior Elizabeth O’Donnell, who had never worked with children who stutter prior to the camp, was struck by how much confidence campers gained just by spending time with other children who stutter. “I learned a lot about social interactions, like what you do when someone interrupts you or asks ‘why do you talk like that?’” says O’Donnell, who hopes to work with a stuttering support group in the fall. “Seeing the children gain confidence during the camp and realizing that stuttering is not something they should be embarrassed about was an amazing experience.”

Morgan Bailey, a graduate student in UVM’s speech-language pathology program, says she learned a lot about the common mistakes people make when talking with someone who stutters like trying to finish their sentences for them or nervously interrupting to break an awkward silence. “One of the biggest takeaways for me was seeing that some kids are okay with stuttering or don’t realize it, while others are very insecure about it,” says Bailey. “Because it’s very different for each child, you have to establish a baseline and figure out where they are at, and then go on from there.”

UVM’s outreach efforts continue to expand

UVM’s Stuttering Summer Camp is part of an increasing number of support options offered by the Eleanor M. Luse Center, which provides audiology and speech language services, as well as treatment for stuttering in children and adults throughout greater New England. The Center also serves as the primary training site for students in the Master of Science communication sciences and disorders.

Professor Barry Guitar, one of the world’s leading experts on stuttering, has led an adult stuttering support group for more than two decades at the clinic. The new local National Stuttering Association chapter co-founded by Kazenski hosts three support groups for kids/parents, teens, and adults, which meet monthly at UVM .

“Madison learned that she is not alone, that it’s okay to stutter,” says Sara Denton of her daughter’s camp experiences. “Now her drive is to really raise awareness about it because she thinks that people who make judgements about stuttering don’t understand it versus knowing what stuttering really means.”

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont is one of only 24 universities nationwide to make the Princeton Review’s “Green Rating Honor Roll” in recognition of sustainability-related practices, policies and academic offerings.

“The schools on our Green Rating Honor Roll demonstrated a truly exceptional commitment to sustainability across critical areas we looked at — from course offerings and recycling programs to plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Robert Franek, the Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief. “We salute their administrators, faculty and students for their collective efforts to protect and preserve our environment.”

Franek noted the increasing interest among students in attending “green” colleges. Among nearly 10,500 college applicants the Princeton Review surveyed in 2017 for its College Hopes & Worries Survey, 64 percent said having information about a college’s commitment to the environment would impact their decision to apply to or attend a school.

“UVM’s status as a green school is a core part of our identity and definitely contributes to our appeal for prospective students,” said Stacey Kostell, vice president for enrollment management. “The Princeton Review Honor Roll designation is a confirmation of what those of us who are part of the university see every day.”  

Criteria for Green Rating

Green Rating scores are based on data obtained in 2016-17 from colleges responding to the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS). Earlier this year, UVM earned a STARS Gold rating. 

UVM earned a top score for its achievements, which included the following:

• Its offering of multiple sustainability-focused degrees, including Environmental Studies, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Sustainable Innovation MBA, and Community Development & Applied Economics.
• Its alternative transportation options, including free transit passes and a bicycle-sharing program with bike storage, shower facilities, and lockers for bicycle commuters.
• Its waste practices and policies. Forty-five percent of UVM’s solid waste was diverted from landfills through reuse, recycling, and composting.
• Its commitment to “real food.” 21 percent of UVM’s food was certified as local, organic, fair trade or humanely raised.
• Its public greenhouse gas emissions inventory and climate action plan.

UVM’s Office of Sustainability keeps track of sustainability data and oversees UVM’s Eco-Reps program. The Eco-Reps program cultivates environmental responsibility by training student leaders to promote sustainable practices (like the daily experiences of recycling, using active transportation, eating local/organic food, and contributing to energy efficiency) at the university and encourage environmentally responsible behaviors among peers.

Gioia Thompson, director of the Office of Sustainability, gives credit to the UVM community for the Princeton Review designation.

“UVM’s Green Rating scores show the results of our individual and collective decisions to live more sustainably,” she said. “The interviews of students show how strongly students identify UVM as a place where people act in support of sustainability locally and globally.”

Source: UVM News

With all the new buildings sprouting up on UVM’s central campus, it’s easy to overlook the university’s new chiller plant (pictured below), which opened in July. 

The chiller – a 7,500 ft. addition that juts out from the old Central Heating and Cooling Plant behind Royall Tyler Theatre – is certainly less glamorous than, say, the Discovery Building in the STEM complex, which opened in June, or the first-year residence hall that opens later this month.   

But without it, those buildings would be considerably less suave between May and October.

Constructed over an 18-month period at a cost of $11 million, the chiller significantly expands the university’s air-conditioning capacity, cooling to 42 degrees a steady stream of water – 1,500 tons worth – and circulating it through a two-mile network of underground pipes to both new buildings, as well as to the new connector that attaches the res hall to the Bailey/Howe library.

When they’re completed, the new chiller will also serve the Innovation Building in the STEM complex, the Grossman School’s Ifshin Hall and the renovated Billings Library.

The casual passerby might overlook the new chiller plant completely. Its brick walls, arched doorway and gently sloped roof are so evocative of the architectural style of the circa 1900 Central Heating and Cooling Plant, it could easily be mistaken for its historic predecessor.  

Inside the addition, though, it’s all 21^st century. The chiller itself is a complex of two gray steel cylinders resting on their sides like oversize pontoons, which anchor a graceful weave of pipes called a compressor on top of the apparatus. The compressor re-refrigerates the flowing reservoir of water (which returns to the chiller at 54 degrees after snaking through the buildings it cools) so it’s ready for redistribution.

New bus

The new chiller is UVM’s third. The first two, completed in 2007, served the last generation of new buildings with 2,700 tons of chilled water. But they had reached capacity.

“In 2007, we bought the equivalent of a 25-passenger bus,” says Sal Chiarelli, UVM’s physical plant director. “Initially, we had just the bus driver and a few passengers: the Davis Center, Old Mill/Lafayette, Bailey/Howe, Marsh Life Science, and Royall Tyler Theatre.” But as the years went by, more and more buildings climbed on board: the Health Science Research Facility, Given, Votey, Kalkin, Jeffords, the Aiken Center and Terrill.

“We needed another bus,” Chiarelli says.

The new and old chillers are part of system for heating and cooling the university that is centralized rather than distributed over campus, building by building.

Efficiency is one key advantage of the centralized model. For safety reasons, all HVAC systems need redundant capability. The centralized version does that once; with a local system, each building would need to replicate aspects of its system. 

“You’d be installing 75 percent more capacity than you need,” Chiarelli says.

Maintenance is also easier, and local noise is eliminated.

With everything in one place, the centralized system has another plus: human oversight. Network operator Dan Treadway, who’s stationed at a computer monitor in the Central Heating and Cooling Plant’s control room, can take advantage of 70,000 sensors studded throughout the university’s buildings to spot trouble when it arises and dispatch help.

Whenever it’s necessary to make additions to the heating and cooling system, Chiarelli and his team cast an eye to the future.

In 2007, for instance, they anticipated that both Billings and Williams Hall would one day need air conditioning, so installed inlet and outlet pipes in both – which will soon be connected to the new chiller.

That’s true this time around, too. The new addition includes a slot for another chiller, in anticipation of yet more new development, and the piping system has been designed to accept it.

In addition to the health and wellness of UVM’s physical plant, Chiarelli has another cause he’s devoted to: gaining recognition for the 180 staff in his department whose work, though crucial to the operation of the university, often goes unnoticed.

To that end, he invited the campus to a grand opening tour of the chiller plant in early August. About 190 UVM’ers showed, along with a smattering of off campus dignitaries.

“It’s just expected that everything works,” Chiarelli says, including air conditioning on a scorching summer day. “I want to give people an understanding of what these people do here around the clock, seven days a week.”  

Source: UVM News

Sea stars are an iconic symbol of the ocean. But in recent years, their existence on North America’s west coast has come under threat. Melissa Pespeni, an assistant professor of biology at UVM, is one of a small number of researchers looking for answers as to why the mysterious sea star wasting disease turns some species to goo. Here, she explains how this research is vital to understanding our oceans, our world, and our future.

Read more about The Pespeni Lab’s research.

About Faculty Feature:

What makes our faculty members tick? In this video series, get up close and personal with our professors. Hear them talk about their passions, their paths to UVM and why they love what they study, from the mysteries of Lake Champlain’s sculpin to the stories of homeless children in Pakistan. 

Source: UVM News

On Friday, Aug. 25, one of the largest, most academically talented and diverse classes in university history will arrive on campus, ready to begin their journey as Catamounts.

 

The Class of 2021, more than 2,600 students, at a glance:

• Along with last year’s record-breaking class, the Class of 2021 boasts the highest average combined SAT scores and average GPA in school history.  
• Thirteen percent of the incoming class are students of color — the second highest percentage in any UVM class.
• The percentage of students of color who said yes to UVM is the highest in UVM history. Seventeen percent of the students of color admitted to the university have joined the class. That’s up from 12.4 percent last year.
• A record number of Green & Gold scholarship recipients (awarded to top rising seniors at 68 Vermont high schools) have said yes to UVM. Forty-one Green & Gold scholars have joined the Class of 2021.
• The Class of 2021 includes more limited-income Vermonters than ever before. Since the Catamount Commitment program was launched this past fall, which covers tuition and comprehensive fees for Pell-eligible Vermonters, this population in the incoming class has grown by 22 percent. The inaugural Catamount Commitment students, who will also benefit from a mentoring program and other services, includes approximately 170 students.
• Fourteen percent of the incoming class are first-generation college students.
• The Class of 2021 hails from 47 states and 25 countries. Twenty-two percent of the class are Vermonters, and 8 students are Vermont New Americans.

“This class is proof of the University of Vermont’s commitment to expanding access to higher education for underrepresented students,” says Stacey Kostell, vice president for enrollment management. “The high caliber of the class’ academic profile and accomplishments is a testament to the exciting advances we see on our campus, and we’re thrilled that these exceptional students have said yes to UVM.”

STEM Complex, New residence hall open

Among those advances are several new building projects that will transform the academic and student life experience. Two components of the university’s new STEM Complex have come on line: Discovery Hall, home to state-of-the art teaching and research facilities, and a renovation of Votey Hall that includes a bridge connecting the engineering building to Discovery. Construction continues on the STEM Complex, with the dismantling of Cook Physical Sciences to make way for Innovation Hall, scheduled for completion in 2019.

Next door to the STEM Complex is the 695-bed Central Campus Residence Hall, the primary home this year to the residential component of UVM’s Wellness Environment, a national model for healthy living grounded in neuroscience. The new residence hall features a fitness center, a dining hall, and a bridge connecting it directly to Bailey/Howe Library.

Events celebrating the opening of these projects are planned for the fall semester:

• Central Campus Residence Hall: Friday, September 15, 3 – 5 p.m.
• Library bridge and first floor renovation: Thursday, August 31, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• Discovery Hall, Thursday, October 5, 4-6 p.m.

Additionally, a new headquarters for UVM Rescue, the student-run organization that provides advanced life support services to campus and Chittenden County, will open this fall. An opening event is planned for Saturday, October 7, from 4- 5 p.m.

Learn more about ongoing construction projects on campus, including Ifshin Hall, an expansion of the Grossman School of Business’ Kalkin Hall, and a renovation of Billings Library, on the Building UVM website.

Move-in day Friday kicks off Opening Weekend, an annual program that helps acquaint new students with college life. The weekend culminates in a convocation ceremony, Sunday, Aug. 27 at 6:30 p.m. in Patrick Gymnasium, to celebrate the opening of the new academic year. Following convocation, the UVM community will process down Main Street to the University Green, where the Class of 2021 will participate in a twilight induction ceremony.

Classes begin for all undergraduates Monday, Aug. 29.

Notable fall events

On Monday, September 25, the author of A Deadly Wandering, the book all incoming first-year students read over the summer, will give a talk in Ira Allen Chapel.

On Wednesday, September 27, UVM and the Vermont Humanities Council will co-host a talk by journalist and author Calvin Trillin, at 5:30 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel.

On Wednesday, November 1, Michael Moss, author of SALT SUGAR FAT: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, will give the Aiken Lecture at 5:30 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel.

Source: UVM News

Campus hummed Aug. 25, as the Class of 2021 arrived to begin their UVM journey. Among the largest, most academically talented, and diverse classes in UVM history, the students were greeted, as always, by the UVM Welcome Crew – faculty, staff and fellow students who help make the moving part of move-in day a little easier on families.

 

As students settled into their new homes – including UVM’s brand new Central Campus Residence Hall – we met up with a few of them to learn a little more about the Class of 2021. Read their stories:

8:30 a.m. Coolidge Hall.

Soybeans, wheat, sunflowers, corn—these are some of the crops that Elias Whitney’s family grows on the 4,000 acre farm in Necochea, Argentina, where he grew up. Now he’s a first-year student at UVM, “and I hope to study ecological agriculture,” he says. He’s brought with him several large sacks of yerba mate, a traditional tea-like drink of his nation. “Argentina has a huge problem with industrial crops, with tons of herbicides and pesticides,” he says, “I came to UVM because of all of the great courses in environmental sciences—and I really like hiking.” He drinks several thermoses of mate “every day,” pouring hot water over the dried plants and sipping it with a metal straw. After college, he plans to return to his farm, “to use what I’ve learned.”

 

9 a.m. Central Campus Residence Hall.

Ask Sean Hanke about their major and the answer is quick and definitive — linguistic anthropology, possible French minor. Love of language has been a constant in their life, study of Chinese, French, American Sign Language. A gap year before enrolling in UVM this semester took them across most of Europe, Sweden to Italy. On the road for some fourteen weeks in all, their travel budget was built upon jobs working at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant and a local movie theater in hometown Amherst, Mass. Now happily at home in the Wellness Environment, Central Campus Residence Hall, there’s one thing they really miss from home. Hanke shows us the screensaver on their phone, beloved dog Cleat.

 

9:45 a.m. University Heights North.

Indira Kulkarni’s room in the Honors College at University Heights North is still spare and mostly without decoration as she awaits the arrival of her roommate. There’s a post-Wilderness-TREK-soaked bag of clothes and boots on the floor that Kulkarni jokes is “quarantined” until she can get them in the wash. Her TREK group hiked the Long Trail from Camel’s Hump to Lincoln Gap, spending a memorable night in the Stark’s Nest Hut when a storm blew through. Kulkarni, who will major in neuroscience, says she was drawn to UVM by the Honors College community and opportunities to deepen her studies via experience at the UVM Medical Center. Kulkarni’s parents, a nurse and a doctor in the Poughkeepsie, New York, area have sudden-onset empty nest this week as Indira leaves UVM a week after her twin brother enrolled at Bucknell. “I think mom is OK. She cried it out when she dropped me off for TREK,” Kulkarni says.

10 a.m. Harris-Millis  

Arianne Conde likes to help her mom in the garden, read sci-fi novels (Red Rising and Inkheart are favs), and “I love to draw and sketch; I’m into watercolor now,” she says. She once thought about being an astronomer, but now her academic interests have returned to Earth: “I’m going to study environmental engineering,” she says. Her senior project last year explored “eco-friendly houses in Vermont,” she says. “I’d like to have job to make houses more sustainable. There are a lot of buildings in the world that could be more green.” The top student at Whitcomb High School, in Bethel, Vermont, Conde received a Green & Gold Scholarship—a full-tuition award to attend UVM. “My friends all call me wide-eyed and weird,” she says with a smile, donning an eponymous hat, “but it turns out everybody is little weird.”

 

10:20 a.m. Central Campus Residence Hall.

Shortly before Tom and Leslie Sullivan crossed campus to meet and greet new students on Friday morning, President Sullivan wrote an email reply to David Saltzman, the father of an incoming student who had written him with kind words regarding the president’s comments on Vermont Public Radio, heard as the family drove into town with daughter Penny. Lo and behold, as the Sullivans walked the halls of the new residence hall welcoming new students they came upon… wait for it… Penny Saltzman. Surprise and laughter at the coincidence led to Penny offering to call her father: “Hey, Dad, I have to tell you something.” She then put her father David, mom Stacey, and sister Jolie on Facetime with the Sullivans. “Thank you for sharing your family with our UVM family,” President Sullivan said. “We’ll take real good care of her.” As they parted ways, the president let Penny know that they live right on campus, “if there’s anything we can do, let us know.”

 

10:35 a.m. Williams Hall.

Move-in day for Mallory McFarland happened earlier this summer, when the Manhattan native relocated with her mom to Burlington. She’ll live at home this year, in a place close to campus. “We were ready for a change,” she says about leaving New York City. “The grass, trees, lake and mountains here are so wonderful.” It was the reputation of the Chinese program that drew McFarland to UVM. She’s studying the language as both a way to honor her roots and prepare for the future, knowing that the skill will be helpful for a number of careers she might pursue. McFarland’s also pursuing a dance minor — a passion she took time to explore after high school, performing and teaching with arts organizations in NYC. And she’s looking forward to creative writing classes, a hobby for the four-time-finisher of National Novel Writing Month. The genre of her four unpublished novels? Fantasy, mostly, she says. She’ll be one of the many fans gathering to watch the Game of Thrones finale at the Davis Center Sunday.

 

10:40 a.m. Harris-Millis  

Zach Harris first traveled to Haiti when he was 10. Since then, the Colorado native has been back more than twenty times — as the founder and director of a youth orchestra with 150 members. Now an incoming first-year student at UVM, Harris is majoring in Community Entrepreneurship. “UVM is a great fit for me,” he says, “I aim to make this orchestra, and my love of community service, into a profitable, sustainable career.” In the wake of Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, Zach’s family adopted two Haitian babies—now among his eight siblings.  As a kid, he wanted to help the people of Haiti by starting a soccer team. “But one of my friends there said, ‘We’ve got soccer. What we need is an orchestra,’” he says. So Harris  —  who plays piano, double bass, electric bass, and other instruments — started raising money and has been leading the orchestra (including trips to the U.S.) for the last five years. “We’re just starting a second orchestra in Port-au-Prince now,” he says. When Harris received his letter of admission from UVM earlier this year, he was so excited that he commissioned an artist-friend in Haiti to make a traditional piece of street art out of cut and pounded pieces of steel drum — shaped into the UVM logo.

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont’s much anticipated Central Campus Residence and Dining Hall, under construction for two years, will open on August 26 when students return to campus.

The dining hall portion of the new building is one of the most innovative in American higher education, designed to promote student engagement with open kitchen formats, live demonstrations and digital screens that provide nutrition advice and tell the story of UVM’s commitment to local food.

At the heart of the dining hall space is the Discovery Kitchen and Exploration Station, which provides experiential culinary education for students.

“Our vision is to transform students into lifelong learners who make informed choices within our complex food system,” said Melissa Zelazny, director of UVM Dining. 

“The new dining hall and teaching space will allow us to do that. The Discovery Kitchen is focused on engaging students in the three key areas of health, culture, and sustainability and answering their questions about about where their food comes from and how to prepare it.”

“Students might learn how to pickle, make a base sauce or prepare their own dinner with ingredients from the Intervale Food Hub.,” said Susan Cathrall, operations manager for the new dining hall.

The culinary team for the new Central Campus Dining Hall is led by Brandon Williams, campus executive chef.

Williams, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, joined UVM Dining in 2015. He started his professional path at the Beacon Restaurant in New York City and Fog Island Café in Nantucket, Massachusetts, later moving to his home state of Vermont, where he worked at the Bristol Bakery and the Inn at Essex, also teaching classes there. Williams’ passion and energy are an inspiration for his team, and his creativity led UVM Dining to surpass its Real Food Challenge goal – of 20 percent real food by 2020 – three years early. His ultimate goal is to convey his passion for food to the students so they will try new things and truly appreciate their food experience.

Chef Sarah Langan, a graduate of Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and L’Ecole de Cuisine Francaise in Littlington, East Sussex, England, will work directly with students in the new dining facility. A native of Syracuse, Langan joined the UVM Dining team in 2016 as the executive chef for the Davis Center. She is known in the community for her work running the South End Kitchen and as a chef instructor at New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier for more than 20 years.

Joseph Perrella, executive chef in the Central Campus Dining Hall, joined the UVM Dining team in 2016 as the chef for Cook Commons Dining Hall.  Perrella started his career in his family’s restaurant, and some of his earliest memories are picking fresh herbs and learning family recipes from his grandmother. His travels through Europe ignited a passion for seasonal ingredients, and, in 2005, he returned to his home state of Vermont to continue his career. Perrella is excited to produce authentic, creative cuisine and to inspire students to try new menu items. 

The dining hall will be open from 7 a.m. to  9:30 p.m. on Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Source: UVM News

Picture a Vermont farmer. Does a grizzled, seventh generation dairyman come to mind, Holsteins and silo in the background?

A new $180,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to a consortium that includes the University of Vermont and three partners aims to complicate that image.

“We tend to use one brush to paint the picture of farming in Vermont,” said Linda Berlin, director of UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the grant’s lead partner. “Historically that may have worked, but today it’s more complex.”

While dairy farming remains an important part of the state’s economy and landscape, contemporary Vermont farmers are an increasingly diverse lot, says UVM anthropology professor Luis Vivanco, co-director of the university’s Humanities Center, another partner on the grant.

“Many are female; they vary in age, ethnicity and race; and they produce a wide range of agricultural products,” he said. “The goal of the grant is to tell the story of this changing dynamic in an engaging way that brings people together.”

The other partners are the Vermont Historical Society, the Vermont Folklife Center and the Vermont Farm to School Network.

The group received a $90,000 grant from the NEH. As part of its Challenge Grant program, the agency requires the partners to raise a matching amount. 

Eight Vermont farmers, comics and digital videos

The three-year grant program sets out a thoughtful process for developing and telling the story of contemporary farming in Vermont, one that draws on the expertise of all the partners.

To begin the project, an advisory panel drawn from the grant partners and supplemented by humanities scholars and farmers in the state will select eight Vermont farmers from diverse geographic, gender, cultural and racial backgrounds, different farming sectors, and varying ages, and invite them to document their stories through oral history.

The themes and stories embedded in the oral histories – identified by UVM humanities faculty and other experts in a three-day “humanities charrette” – will then be expressed in comic books, a proven tool for promoting engaged learning, and digital stories, multi-media videos drawing on photographs and audio files in the collections of the Vermont Historical Society and the Vermont Folklife Center.

The comics and digital stories will in turn form a curriculum for a group of Vermont middle schools, supported by a teacher discussion guide the grant will fund, and designed to spur further discussion about contemporary Vermont farming in each school’s community.

Expertise, contacts and infrastructure developed by the Farm to School Network will help the partners embed the curriculum in the target schools.

Better decisions, closer community

Having a deeper grasp of who is farming in contemporary Vermont “will enable us to bring a fuller understanding to whatever agriculture-related decisions we make,” said Berlin, “whether at the legislative level or in what we honor and prioritize in our communities. We make better decisions about things we understand.”

While the partnership model makes it more likely that the project will yield quality products, it is also an end in itself, Vivanco said. Part of the NEH’s goal is creating “humanities communities, the more unlikely, the better” in ways that, in Vermont’s case, help build strong communities and connections in the state’s cities, towns and villages.

The effort to raise private funds to match the National Endowment for the Humanities grant is underway. Those interested in donating to the program should contact Kurt Reichelt at the University of Vermont Foundation at Kurt.Reichelt@uvm.edu.  

Source: UVM News

Memories of the Kenyan refugee camp where Madina Haji spent the first nine years of her life are never far from her mind. They have motivated the UVM senior to work toward a degree in middle-level education so she can one day teach in Somalia. In the meantime, she is building a reputation as a leading advocate for refugees in Vermont.

Haji’s passion to help new refugees started not long after she arrived here in 2004 with her mom, four younger siblings and a few handbags with all their possessions. She started reaching out to refugee students in her high school, and later helped them apply to college while a student at the Community College of Vermont. At UVM, she has taught at a local elementary school and worked on a major study focused on how to strengthen the partnership between refugee families and the Winooski School District.

Haji’s latest endeavor, however, as a Civil Rights Intake Specialist for the Vermont District of the U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office may be her most impactful. The part-time contractor position has taken Haji around the state to community events, public meetings and other places where refugees gather to listen to their concerns and explain how the U.S. Department of Justice can assist them.

“I love going out into the community and talking to people about civil rights and what they can do if they find themselves in a situation where they think their rights have been violated,” says Haji, whose parents fled to Kenya from war-torn Somalia before she was born. “A lot of people don’t know that they even have rights, so letting them know what they are and what they can do when they are mistreated is very rewarding.”

Helping refugees through service and research

Haji’s outreach efforts are often based on experiences she went through as a new refugee. At CCV, for example, she worked with Parents for Change to help refugee students at her former high school navigate the college application process. “A lot of them didn’t know anything about the process,” says Haji, who received inaccurate advice that prevented her from enrolling at UVM. “I was the only youth involved in the project and I think students liked being with someone they knew who was around their age.”

After transferring to UVM, Haji’s goal was to become a nurse and help people in Somalia. After realizing nursing wasn’t a good fit, she turned her focus to education. “I have a weak system and found that I couldn’t witness people suffering so much,” says Haji. “Now I want to work in schools, because Somalia needs big help. I want to do whatever I can to make it safe and livable and free again.”

In addition to being a fulltime student and working 35 hours a week at Sears, Haji has worked for the Burlington Parks & Recreation Summer Nutrition Program and as a substitute teacher at the Integrated Arts Academy. These experiences have made her a valuable member of a UVM research team led by Assistant Professor Shana Haines and Associate Professor Cynthia Reyes in the College of Education and Social Sciences.

Haji, who speaks Mai Mai and is a devout Muslim, arranges interviews with Somali-Bantu families during which she serves as an interpreter and cultural liaison for the study focused on improving partnerships with refugee families and local school systems. She works alongside doctoral students Achraf Alamatouri of Syria and Hemant Ghising from Bhutan, who are also conducting similar studies for their dissertations in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program. 

“We wanted to engage students who have had the same experiences as the people in the communities in which we’re doing the research to help guide the process and be our leaders and cultural brokers,” says Reyes. “I can’t overstate how much help it has been to be able to talk with Hemmet, Achraf and Madina about the experiences of the people we interview and what it means, especially later when we debrief,” adds Hayes.

The not-so-easy path to becoming a U.S. citizen

Haji’s path to becoming a U.S. citizen in March of 2017 was not easy. As a teenager, she wanted to return to Kenya after enduring racists comments from classmates. Over time, though, she grew confident in her abilities to help refugees overcome similar obstacles, and started to thrive. “Thinking back, there were situations where it was wrong for those people to have acted in those ways to me,” says Haji. “I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know it was a violation of my rights. Now I can let people know that they have resources available to them.”

The signing of an executive order by President Trump limiting access to refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries has Haji concerned about her future plans. Wherever she lands, the people living there will undoubtedly benefit from her passion and expertise. 

“I would like to travel back and forth to help in Somalia, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to considering all that has happened recently with our government,” says Haji, whose relatives were prevented from traveling to the U.S. during the initial ban. “But I’ve grown to love America and would really like to continue on this path if that’s how to works out.”

Source: UVM News