Vermont Quarterly Summer 2013 by University of Vermont

VERMONT

THE UNIVERSITY OF

Q U A R T E R LY

EAT

THINK

SUMMER 2013

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

GROW

SUMMER | 2013

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

VQ THE GREEN

Wynton Marsalis heralds the Class of 2013; Kidder Faculty Award: Professor Richard Foote; 3 Questions on advancing climate change policy; and more.

CATAMOUNT SPORTS A photographic look back at UVM athletes in action.

LIVE & LEARN With a fresh class of undergraduates moving onto campus each fall, residential learning is an ever-evolving experiment with a deep history at UVM.

Faculty and alumni are helping develop food systems that are healthy for local economies, the land, and ourselves.

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

BY JOSHUA BROWN, MEGAN CAMP ’84, LEE ANN COX, JON REIDEL ’06, AMANDA WAITE ’02 G’04, JEFF WAKEFIELD, THOMAS WEAVER, DAVID ZUCKERMAN ’95

Burlington’s Intervale, acres of farmland and community supported agricultural ventures, is just a few blocks from campus. Cover and contents photographs by Sally McCay

BY JON REIDEL G’06

14 16

LESSONS OF A LONG, LONG DRIVE

BY JAY M. TAYLOR ’10

ALUMNI CONNECTION

A young alumnus navigates coast-to-coast highways and post-grad life decisions with a little help from his student government friends.

Dr. Ivers Rifkin ’49 supports scholarship to “help deserving students get their degrees with a little less worry.”

BY THOMAS WEAVER

20 WAYS TO GROW, THINK ABOUT, AND EAT FOOD

UVM PEOPLE

Howard Averill ’85 has ridden his love of numbers and knowledge of operations to top executive posts in media.

CLASS NOTES EXTRA CREDIT Eric Schwarz ’85: Everyday Hero

37 41 64

SUMMER 2008

P R E S I D E N T’ S

PERSPECTIVE

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

s I enter my second year as president, I am pleased to report that the University of Vermont continues to thrive. Our Commencement festivities on May 19th demonstrated the academic excellence and vibrancy of our institution. The Class of 2013 boasted several Fulbright finalists and Truman and Goldwater Scholars and included many exemplary students who completed capstone projects, wrote senior theses, studied abroad, and participated in service learning and community service. One of the world’s most renowned musicians, Wynton Marsalis, who received an honorary degree during the ceremony, concluded his heartfelt remarks with an exhilarating rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” This past year, we have made significant progress toward our four strategic action goals. Our first strategic goal is to promote affordability and financial access to our students, which we accomplished by means of a historically low tuition increase. Several weeks ago, the Board of Trustees approved a 2.9 percent increase in tuition, the lowest since 1977. In addition, we will use all of this year’s $1.2 million increase in state appropriations to create grants and financial aid for in-state students, fully offsetting the rise in their tuition. This measure will further decrease the cost of tuition for Vermonters and encourage more of the top students in the state to choose UVM. Our second strategic goal is to promote a culture of advancing academic excellence and cultivating talent. This goal was furthered by the hiring of seventy-five new faculty members representing the best and the brightest scholars from across the country. Many have been drawn to our campus because of our interdisciplinary priorities. To cite one example, James Bagrow, a computational social scientist and previously a visiting researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University, left his position at Northwestern University to come to UVM to join our Complex Systems initiative. We are fortunate to have garnered so many talented new faculty members. Our third strategic goal is to identify necessary investments to ensure a bright future. As part of the new general education core requirements, we have approved

a new writing and informational literacy requirement. Beginning in the fall of 2014, all firstyear, first-time students will be required to take a three-credit foundational writing and informational literacy course that will provide our students with the necessary writing and research skills to enhance their progress in their courses across the curriculum. We have also implemented some new career counseling services to further ensure the success of our graduates. They include the creation of the Career Services Office on the lower level of the Davis Center, the expansion of industry-specific internships, and the addition of advisors to help students develop their career plans, build skills, and connect their academic interests to professional networks. Finally, our fourth strategic goal is to instill an institutional commitment to efficiency and effectiveness that optimizes the use of facilities, technology, assets, and shared services. To this end, we have begun a substantial reorganization of our central administrative offices including the appointment of a new provost, a new dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, an interim dean of the Graduate College, and an interim Vice President for Research. We plan to increase our academic offerings and to move to a three-semester curriculum in order to make year-round use of our facilities. We will expand our web-based education to supplement the curriculum. Further, we plan to offer more professional and terminal masters degrees. For example, we now offer a Master’s Degree in Food Systems, a cutting edge field in which UVM is a national leader, and a dual Master’s in Environmental Law and Science in Natural Resources, offered jointly by UVM’s Rubenstein School and Vermont Law School. These new graduate degrees will enhance our research capabilities in interdisciplinary fields that we have identified as key strengths and advantages of the University. I am inspired by the high aspirations of the UVM community and pleased by the excellent progress we have made in such a brief time. I extend my thanks to everyone in the UVM family who made this a spectacular first year for Leslie and me. —Tom Sullivan SALLY MCCAY

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

VQ EDITOR

Thomas Weaver

ART DIRECTOR

Elise Whittemore-Hill CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Kathleen Laramee ’00

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Carla Beecher, Joshua Brown, Lee Ann Cox, Jay Goyette, Megan Camp ’84, Jon Reidel G’06, Jay M. Taylor ’10, Amanda Waite’02, G’04, Jeff Wakefield, David Zuckerman ’95 PHOTOGRAPHY

Joshua Brown, Rajan Chawla, Andy Duback, Alex Edelman, Alfred Goldberg ’50, Sabin Gratz ’98, Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist, Brian Jenkins, Sally McCay, Paul Mobley, Mario Morgado, Kevin Remington, Jay M. Taylor ’10

JULY 2013

VQEXTRAuvm.edu/vq Beyond the print content in this issue, you’ll also find more articles and multimedia pieces at uvm.edu/vq. Several of the stories below were included in the May edition of VQExtra. If you aren’t currently receiving an email when this online edition is posted between our print issues and would like to be alerted, let us know and we’ll add you to the list. Also, write us a note if you’d prefer to no longer receive the print edition and instead get an email notice when each issue is available online. uvmvq@uvm.edu FINE FOOD IN THE FRAT With top-flight Italian chef Antonino Di Ruocco in the kitchen, life is very good at Alpha Gamma Rho.

ILLUSTRATION

Rosemary Mosco G’10 ADVERTISING SALES

Theresa Miller Vermont Quarterly 86 South Williams Street Burlington, VT 05401 (802) 656-1100, theresa.miller@uvm.edu ADDRESS CHANGES

UVM Foundation 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 (802) 656-9662, alumni@uvm.edu CLASS NOTES

Sarah S. Wasilko G’11 (802) 656-2010 classnote@uvm.edu

FOLLOWING THE MELODY Jay Nash ’98 has a new recording out and is touring the country, the latest steps in his career as a singer/songwriter.

FULBRIGHT TO FILM Alumna Nilima Abrams’ film project documents family-based Indian school.

CORRESPONDENCE

Editor, Vermont Quarterly 86 South Williams Street Burlington, VT 05401 (802) 656-2005 thomas.weaver@uvm.edu VERMONT QUARTERLY

publishes March 1, July 1, November 1.

PRINTED IN VERMONT

Issue No. 66, July 2013

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The University of Vermont 86 South Williams Street Burlington, VT 05401

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are leaders of San Francisco’s Pop Nation, a popsicle venture that couples innovative flavors with nostalgia on a stick.

WORLD OF WORK Helping lead President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton’s landmark visits to Burma are the latest achievements in alumnus Patrick Murphy’s distinguished diplomatic career.

FA L L 2 0 1 1

@uvmvermont

POP STAR Timothy Stewart ’09 and his business partners

GREEN THE

GATHERING NEWS & VIEWS OF LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

Alumni honor Foote with Kidder Award

he word beautiful is as likely to come up in conversation with a mathematician as with a painter, poet, or musician. For professor of mathematics Richard Foote, finding and sharing beauty is at the core of a philosophy that makes him one of the university’s finest teachers

and this year’s recipient of the UVM Alumni Association’s Kidder Faculty Award. Sitting in his office, Foote describes the grounding of his approach to every class, whether it’s pre-calculus or the highest-level graduate seminar. “I look at the stuff, and I say, ‘There’s something here which is really beauti-

ful that you can get excited about.’ You look at the quadratic formula”—Foote hops out of his chair and erases space on a blackboard scrawled to the edges. Chalk rapping on the board as he writes out the classic equation (which stirs some Mariana Trench-deep recess in the mind of an English major), Foote says, “You can go in and say, ‘Well, it’s a formula; it does the job.’ Or

you can go in and say, ‘This is really pretty. It says something about the behavior of conic sections. It is the top of this enormous iceberg that says for these kinds of equations there’s this fundamental symmetry.’” Foote brings that same passion to his pursuits as a scholar, which have made him one of UVM’s most distinguished faculty members, recognized internationally SALLY MCCAY

LEFT: BOB HANDELMAN; RIGHT: SALLY MCCAY

another likens to Yoda. Hy Ginsberg G’07 ’10, a professor at Worcester State University, vividly recalls Foote’s words after describing a daunting research problem: “But these are the kinds of problems that great minds like yours cut their teeth on.” Ginsberg says, “We are all geniuses in his eyes, or at least made to feel so, and after speaking with Richard Foote I always felt that no mathematical feat was beyond my abilities.”

VQ: BLOG ON FOUND LITERATURE

APRIL 17, 2013 BY UVMEDITOR | EDIT I find Jacques Paul Marton, Davis Center custodian, on his lunch break in the wide-open space of the building’s atrium. It’s a bustling campus crossroad lined with tables offering bake sales and plant sales; music plays as salsa dance club members show off their moves to recruit

JP Marton talks with alumnus author Douglas Smith ’85 as he signs a copy of his latest work, Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy, for The Book Nook collection.

new students from the ranks walking past. Though JP, as he’s known to most, has a prime comfy chair and people-watching spot, he’s someplace entirely different—in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, imagination immersed in a second-hand copy of Leo Tolstoy’s The Cossacks. Marton, a sturdy guy wearing clear sport-shield glasses, is a lover of reading. More specifically, he’s a lover of books, the printed word. Better yet, a well-worn book with a few miles [ENGLISH]

GUGGENHEIM HONORS UVM POET, PROFESSOR

ajor Jackson, poet and Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor of English, has been selected for a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship. The prestigious fellowship supports Jackson’s proposal to pursue the intriguing story of Edmonia Lewis, an AfricanAmerican woman who studied at Oberlin College before the Civil War, stood trial for the

on it. But he doesn’t mind being interrupted from his Tolstoy. He’s thrilled, actually, to leave comrades Lukasha and Olenin, even the enchanting peasant girl Marishka, behind and jump up out of his chair to talk about another of his book-related passions—sharing them. Marton, who joined the Davis Center staff in 2007, is the man behind “The Book Nook,” a quiet corner of Brennan’s Pub on the DC’s first floor. About three years ago a small set of shelves appeared near the pub’s stage. Seeing them empty day after day, Marton took it upon himself to start filling the lonely shelves up with books from his own home library. Read more about The Book Nook and how you can contribute your own volume to the growing collection.

vermontquarterly.wordpress.com (April 17 post)

SUMMER 2013

for contributions to his field. Foote’s work was considered critical to “the classification of the finite simple groups,” widely regarded as one of the foremost achievements of twentieth-century mathematics. Abstract Algebra, which Foote co-authored with close UVM colleague and friend Professor David Dummit, is a text that mathematicians speak of with reverence, even deep affection. Not all scholars immersed in pushing their fields forward also have the skills to gracefully share that knowledge from the front of the classroom. The Kidder Award celebrates the ability to do just that—to teach and advise in a way that not only educates but inspires, influencing alumni far beyond their years on campus. Catherine Bliss G’00, a current UVM doctoral candidate who returned to the university after nine years of teaching, led the charge to nominate Foote for the Kidder. She notes the particular influence he had on her as a female striving to find her place in the often male-centric world of mathematics. That sense of support and helping to instill belief in themselves is something many former students emphasize about the professor that one colleague calls “an ethical touchstone” and

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

THEGREEN

alleged poisoning of her roommates, was acquitted, and went on to become an internationally acclaimed sculptor, living most of her life in Rome. It’s a story with many twists and unknowns, of a woman who, in many ways, transcended her race given the time in which she lived, and in others, even in a progressive place like Oberlin, could not. “She didn’t respect the

boundaries between races,” Jackson says, and she was kidnapped, brutally beaten and left in a field after she was accused. Her lawyer, John Mercer Langston—great uncle of the poet Langston Hughes—provides the primary source for her story. Jackson’s ambition is to write a verse play about her trial, placed within history yet using modern techniques to appeal

to a contemporary audience. Jackson is the author of three collections of poetry: Holding Company, Hoops and Leaving Saturn, which was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. As for the Guggenheim honor, Jackson says: “It is good to follow in the long tradition of poets I’ve admired who have also

been awarded a Guggenheim. It is fortifying and affirming.” [ E D U C AT I O N ]

WHAT GUITAR HERO CAN TEACH US

or her most recent book, Fayneese Miller, dean of the College of Education and Social Services, called on a number of members of her faculty to tackle a wide range of critical RAJAN CHAWLA

STUDENT FOCUS

alking through Dewey Hall one day, Tracie

competitive and have the intention of earning a

Ebalu ’13 passed by Karen Fondacaro’s

doctoral degree.)

open door and glimpsed a clock on the

Despite Ebalu’s intellectual strength, it’s not

wall in the shape of Africa. Ebalu, born in the

the only thing that makes people effusive. “Her

United States of Nigerian parents and raised in

mind is constantly going but really and truly,”

both Africa and New York City, stopped short and

says Candace Taylor, coordinator of programming

had a closer look. Fondacaro, clinical professor of

and leadership development at the university’s

psychology and director of the Behavior Therapy

Women’s Center, “what I connect most with Tracie

and Psychotherapy Center (BTPC), invited her in.

is this guiding moral compass, this heart... She is

“She started looking around,” Fondacaro recalls,

constantly thinking about how she can give back,

“and she said, ’I feel like I’m home, what do you

I think it really is the lens through which she walks

do?’ And we just had this immediate connection

this world.”

to each other. That was it.”

Part of that giving back has included spear-

Fondacaro explained that the clock and other

heading a coat drive that collected some five

African influences were related to her work direct-

hundred coats and other winter wear for the local

ing Connecting Cultures through BTPC, a program

refugee community this year. Staff members like

providing mental health services to refugees.

Taylor and Beverly Colston, director of the ALANA

Ebalu was in from that moment, pouring herself

Center, have joined with Fondacaro in being key

into projects in the New American community

guiding influences for Ebalu during her UVM

through academics and personal service, all the

years.

while solidifying a focus for her long-term career goals in clinical psychology.

According to Colston, Ebalu has always sought out leadership roles, even ones that may have

Named a McNair research fellow in 2012, Ebalu,

been a bit beyond her at the time. “But the truth

under Fondacaro’s guidance, has studied the

is,” Colston says, “she just soaked up those experi-

relationship between post-migration stressors

ences and used them to get wise and go to the

such as unemployment, lack of social support,

next level.”

language and education barriers and their impact on mental health outcomes in refugee populations. (The McNair program supports work by

In the not-too-distant future, that next level will likely be pursuing graduate degrees. “I tell my mom I’m really certain I’m going to

first-generation, limited-income and/or underrep-

get a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and one day my

resented undergraduates who are academically

name is going to be Dr. Tracie Ebalu.”

answers that lie within the pages of Transforming Learning Environments: Strategies to Shape the Next Generation (Emerald Books, 2013) focus on online learning, technology, leadership, curriculum innovation, and English language learners to show the challenges facing traditional educational practices and the ways learning environments are respond-

ing to the new reality of globalization. “The chapters are a spectrum of what is going on in the world of higher education at this critical juncture in our history,” Miller says. “If those in higher education are not amenable to change, as imposed by the outside world, they could be rendering themselves obsolete. As John Dewey

SUMMER 2013

issues facing education. The book’s overarching question: What is needed within systems of education to prepare the next generation of leaders for a competitive global environment? Miller, who wrote the introduction and served as editor of the book, reached out to eighteen experts, including ten from UVM, to contribute chapters. The

states, ‘knowledge and habits have to be modified to meet the new conditions,’ so do the authors of the chapters in this volume.” A chapter by Laurie Gelles, director of technology and communication in CESS, titled “From Pong to PS3: How Video Games Enhance Our Capacity to Learn and Build Community,” offers an interesting perspective on this brave new world. Gelles focuses on ways technology can help build capacity for learning, in both traditional and non-traditional settings. She teaches about this concept in a UVM course titled “Video Games and Learning Theory” that focuses on conducting new research related to multisensory learning environments. “There has been a huge push to integrate technology into learning environments in order to replicate the way that people most regularly experience and interact with information,” Gelles says. “The real trick is figuring out why we are so drawn to interactive technologies in the first place.” Her most recent study made use of the video game Guitar Hero II in an attempt to measure the effects of multisensory learning. Following John Dewey’s ideas around rich learning environments and making meaning through experience, Gelles explains that technology allows for the simulation of real-life experience and

THEGREEN VQ EXTRA

MESSAGES TO MAUDE

A brown binder full of century-old postcards, intriguing in their humbleness, are among the treasures of UVM Special Collections. The cards are the work of Lauren Pomeroy, who began his studies at UVM in 1908, and faithfully mailed the postcards to his girlfriend and future wife, Maude, back home in Enosburg, Vermont. Watch a slideshow featuring this collection, which was donated to the library by Brooks

Buxton ’56.

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

uvm.edu/vq

provides people with ways to mimic sensory environments that would otherwise be unavailable. “Video game designers have figured out how to create sensoryrich environments that don’t overload our cognitive abilities,” she says. “Cognitive load theory talks about the importance of balancing the way that we process information. Taxing one area with too much information can slow the learning process. Our next steps should be applying these types of ‘gamification’ strategies to our curriculum design and learning environments. By doing this, we can enhance both our capacity to reach our students, and perhaps their capacity to learn.” [STUDENT LIFE]

PIONEERING CHINESE STUDENTS GRADUATE

n the summer of 2010, twenty-eight Chinese students came to UVM to pursue bachelor’s degrees through a newly adopted U.S. Sino‐Pathway Program (USPP). When they came, the university enrolled just one Chinese national undergraduate, and she had attended high school in the United States. The USPP students prepared for UVM over just nine months

Sherry (Si Wei) Zhao ’13

at private education centers in China, concentrating on English speaking and writing skills, American history and culture. Few had traveled outside of Asia and nearly all were single children at the center of families from cities with populations of ten million plus. When they came to Burlington, they gave up proximity to doting parents, favorite festivals and foods, familiar currency and language—even their given names—to immerse in American university life.    Ten of these USPP pioneers graduated in May as members of the UVM Class of 2013 with degrees in engineering, business, and film and television studies. Sherry (Si Wei) Zhao, the lone liberal arts major among the USPP graduates, is clear about her reasons for coming to Vermont. “It is so beautiful. And there were very few Chinese students at UVM, so I knew my English would improve,” Zhao says. “Also,

I’m not strong in math or physics or chemistry, so the Chinese education system is not as good for me. Coming to the U.S. gave me more choice to follow my interests.” For Zhao that is television and film studies. She has also been a photographer for the Vermont Cynic and a member of the Lawrence Debate Union.    After graduation, she returned to Shanghai. “I miss my mom and home a lot,” she says. “And working in the media industry is tough. I need to go where I have connections.” Zhao will knock on doors at companies like International Channel Shanghai, where she had an internship last summer. Looking back, Zhao is quick to say, “This is the most valuable three years that have happened in my last twenty years. And there are many things I am going to miss, like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and definitely continued on page 10 SALLY MCCAY

COMMENCEMENT 2013

When the grads go marching in Wynton Marsalis addresses Class of 2013

Heralding the passage of a college graduation, it’s a happy circumstance to have one of the world’s foremost trumpeters in the house. A crowd of approximately ten thousand gathered on the UVM Green May 19 to celebrate the achievements of more than three thousand UVM students receiving diplomas and passing from the ranks of students to alumni. Musician Wynton Marsalis helped them mark the moment, delivering the University of Vermont 2013 commencement address with a heartfelt talk that was wise, wry, musical, and throughout—appropriately enough for the father of Simeon Marsalis, UVM Class of 2013—fatherly. Then the New Orleans native picked up his trumpet and played “When the Saints Go Marching In,” the crowd clapping time. As Marsalis directly addressed his son Simeon and, on behalf of all of the parents in the crowd, all of the graduates, his voice wavered with emotion. “From every changed diaper to every sickness to every shoulder ride…” Marsalis said and paused to gather himself as the crowd applauded. “And every bedtime story, every fight with a curfew, over home, over habits. It’s hard, all of the triumphs and depth to our lives and so many good times. We are so proud of you all and we fear for you. We fear because part of us is not ready to accept that you are grown. But you are. Still, to us, you will always be our baby. You will always be our child.”

SALLY MCCAY

SUMMER 2013

the failures rolled up into one. All of us, we thank you. All of you give meaning and

THEGREEN

‘‘ ’’ [ QUOTE UNQUOTE ]

The challenge of the short story is that it invites perfection, and the challenge of the novel is that it can never be perfect.

Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winning writer in a campus talk. For more on Diaz’s UVM appearance, see the April 23 blog post at vermontquarterly.wordpress.com.

[ DEP’T. OF CORRECTIONS ]

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

A couple of readers called us to task for using the misleading colloquial name “fisher cat” rather than the proper “fisher” in the spring issue’s “Catamount Chronology” cartoon. We asked Rosemary Mosco G’10 to help us set the record straight.

my American friends.”   Other USPP graduates echo Zhao’s feelings about UVM and about going home. However, return to China will not be as immediate or direct for them. Daniel (Xie-Cheng) Yuan, a business major also from Shanghai, accepted a stockbroker position with Scottrade in the United States. Yuan interned with the company, a twentyhour per week commitment, while taking a full course load during the past year. “I’ll definitely go home to China at some point, when I want to settle down,” Yuan

says. “Right now the U.S. corporate culture is appealing because of the diversity I’ll get. I’m young,” he adds. “I still want to explore—see other parts of the country. There is too much stuff I don’t want to miss.”   In total, there are 185 fulltime international undergraduate students currently enrolled at UVM. Eighty-five are USPP students; twentythree more will arrive on campus this summer. In addition, there are forty-four international undergraduate exchange students. [POLITICAL SCIENCE]

DOCUMENTING LEADERSHIP IN TROUBLED TIMES

eorge Marshall was U.S. secretary of state during the volatile late 1940s. The United States and its Soviet ally split and the Cold War began, triggering the European Recov-

ery Program (Marshall Plan) and other key foreign policy initiatives—the Truman Doctrine, the Containment policy, the creation of West Germany, and the formation of NATO. Also on Marshall’s watch: Chinese and Greek civil wars; the partition of and wars in Palestine and India, leading to the creation of Israel, India, and Pakistan; the creation of such other states as Indonesia out of former European colonies; and a redefinition of U.S. relations with Latin America. It would be difficult to find a more apt title for the latest volume of George Catlett Marshall’s papers than The Whole World Hangs in the Balance. And it might be just as challenging to find a scholar better qualified to edit the latest volume than Mark Stoler, professor emeritus of political science.

continued on page 12 ROSEMARY MOSCO G’10

JUST 3 QUESTIONS ASIM ZIA

International efforts to deal with climate change have been—many experts argue—a spectacular failure. United Nations treaties, including the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that the United States chose not to ratify, form a very leaky bucket for catching greenhouse gases. A new book, Post-Kyoto Climate Governance (Routledge), by Asim Zia, assistant professor in Community Development and Applied Economics and fellow in the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, ranges across several disciplines, looking for the causes of failure in international climate policy and searching for solutions. These may require dramatic new approaches, like global taxes, new forms of organized confrontation, and a willingness to reconsider reflexive attachments, he argues, like a belief in the benefits of free trade. Q. Free trade is the quasi-religion of countries around the world. How does advocating for limits on free trade fit into real politics?

A. That’s really the problem here. I call

it, in my book, the politics of ideology. There’s a free-market, free-trade ideology that is dominating the discourse in an institutional setting. Or take the carbon tax. In the EU, the carbon tax has been aligned with certain green parties or some left-wing parties, so there is a radicalization of the discourse. But if you look at it rationally, if you look at all the analysis, these coupled human/natural system computer simulation models will tell you that the carbon tax and trade tax have low transaction costs, and they would stimulate local markets. This approach could revitalize local communities that are losing their vitality to grow, for example, local organic food. And this kind of food production is an important piece in this picture for reducing methane emissions and reducing carbon emissions from agro-industrial systems. Then there are energy implications. Decentralized energy systems could be promoted, like solar and wind

JOSHUA BROWN

and community-based energy systems, through taxes and institutional reforms. But that is not being talked about. Whenever somebody mentions international carbon taxes someone else says, “Oh, that’s not politically feasible.” Well, why is that? It’s not really feasible because those lobbies have been able to hijack the discourse. Q. What is it going to take for governments to change and adopt new approaches to climate?

A. This is a democracy. So there are

always checks and balances, and that is one of the challenges in climate change. Historically, policy changes are incremental unless you look at revolutions like the Stalinistic revolution or the Iranian revolution. And the climate change challenge is that we need fast change, radical change, within existing institutions. A carbon tax, an international trade tax: these are radical changes. Q. What are your personal hopes and fears about climate change?

A. I, myself, come from a developing

country. Pakistan is very vulnerable. Both Pakistan and India are very vul-

nerable to climate change—and they have done the least to cause it, but they would suffer the most in the first fifty years or so. I have been working there in setting up early warning systems, dealing with climate-refugee problems. The massive flooding in 2010 was part of the trend of more and more flooding during the monsoon season. If you look at the last sixty years of data, you can see that this is caused by climate change. So we are trying to understand the planning regime in Pakistan so that we don’t have more development in those regions which would be affected by floods or droughts. That is very personal to me. I have been in the refugee camps. I have seen people who have been displaced for years. After the 2010 floods, twenty million people were displaced and two million are still displaced today, after three years. I was there two months ago and visited a couple of camps. It’s very personal to me, because those are the people seeing climate change up front. See uvm.edu/vq for an extended version of this interview.

THEGREEN ARTS & SCIENCES HQ NAMED FOR LATTIE COOR

One of UVM’s most successful and longest-serving presidents was honored in May when the administrative headquarters for the College of Arts and Sciences, 438 College Street, was newly named Lattie F. Coor House. Coor, who served as UVM president from 1976 to 1989, spurred advances on many fronts at the university, work that helped earn inclusion in Richard Moll’s influential 1985 book, The Public Ivys.    “I deeply appreciate this honor,” said Coor. “It affirms my very strong bond with UVM. I look back at my time as UVM president with great pride. Working together as a team, we were able to advance the quality and reputation of this extraordinary academic community, enhancing its long and illustrious tradition as we did so.”    After leaving UVM, Coor served as president of Arizona State University, in his home state, until his retirement in 2002. That year he co-founded a think tank, the Center for the Future V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

of Arizona, and serves as

its chairman and CEO. He is currently Professor and Ernest W. McFarland Chair in Leadership and Public Policy at Arizona State’s School of Public Affairs.

Being asked to work on the definitive text chronicling the papers of Marshall, U.S. secretary of state from 1947-49, was a true honor for Stoler. Ever modest, he admits his first thought was that more qualified people must be available. But the highly distinguished military and diplomatic historian—and author of the acclaimed biography George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century—was a clear fit for the job.   His hire as editor of the Marshall Papers in 2008 by the George C. Marshall Foundation was also fitting considering Stoler would be advancing the work his graduate school classmate Larry Bland had completed as editor of the first five volumes and part of the sixth when he died in 2007. “It’s been a lot of work, but incredibly gratifying, especially being able to carry on what my friend Larry had done so well for so many

years,” says Stoler. Recent U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, no stranger to navigating a turbulent world scene, is an admirer of Marshall’s leadership. During a visit in April 2012 to Virginia Military Institute to deliver a speech, Stoler accompanied Clinton on a tour of the museum and library. He also inscribed a copy of his Marshall biography for Clinton after Marshall Foundation President Brian Shaw recommended the book to her. In her speech that day, Clinton emphasized the importance of the three D’s: diplomacy, defense and development—all hallmarks of Marshall’s tenure. “No one lived by those words more than Marshall, and Clinton has clearly conducted foreign policy with those ideals in mind,” says Stoler. “I was deeply impressed with Secretary Clinton. She’s incredibly intelligent, intellectually curi-

As U.S. secretaries of state, both Hillary Clinton and George C. Marshall shaped foreign policy in a turbulent world. Professor Emeritus Mark Stoler, a foremost Marshall scholar, discussed Marshall’s life with Clinton during her visit to the Virginia Military Institute.

ous, and very knowledgeable.” Stoler, who has continued teaching in a visiting professor role at Williams College since his UVM retirement, remains engaged with the life of George Marshall. Volume six of The Papers of George Catlett Marshall: The Whole World Hangs in the Balance ( Johns Hopkins University Press) was published in January. The seventh and final volume is scheduled for 2015, picking up Marshall’s life in 1949 when he served as head of the Red Cross, through his appointment as secretary of defense a year later, and up to his death in 1959. KEVIN REMINGTON

Buzzard heads and feather beds

ne winter night in Maine, about fifteen years ago, the temperature dropped to seventeen degrees below zero. Thor Hanson g’00, then a master’s student in UVM’s Field Naturalist Program, accidentally dropped a can of Budweiser in the snow. The beer froze solid before it could all drain from the can. But Hanson, a rather slender fellow, clambered into his tent, got into his sleeping bag, and felt warm.

SALLY MCCAY

the narrative in Feathers caroms back and forth over what Hanson describes as “the imaginary but very significant boundary we put between the natural world and the human world.” We can’t make feathers, which may be why we love them, collect them. “Every culture and every home has feathers in it somewhere,” says Hanson, “and we use these for so many purposes. You start asking: why? And then you realize that the answers are the very same answers for why these things are so successful in nature,”— like supreme aerodynamics, unbeatable insulation, glittering beauty, perfect camouflage, the freedom of flight. For this book, Hanson reports from a dusty plain in Kenya where he watches vultures, with their featherless heads, dipping into the rotting carcass of a zebra; from sober shrines to natural history, including Yale’s Peabody Museum—but also from Las Vegas, where he tours the supply house of showgirls: the Rainbow Feather Company. Flying dinosaurs, quill pens, outrageous ostrich-plume hats, the myth of Icarus (who donned feathers and flew too close to the sun), the feather money of Santa Cruz Island, pillows at the Pacific Coast Feather Company, and electron microscope images of water droplets on the barbs of a pigeon—Hanson’s book travels gleefully on a headlong pursuit of the origin, meaning and uses of feathers for birds and people. It even tells why flamingos are pink. Nope, we’re not going to tell you. You’ll have to read it to find out. —Joshua Brown

Slate calls alumna Sidney Wade’s imagination “as powerful as any American poet’s since Wallace Stevens.” Her sixth collection, Straits & Narrows, offers a series of “luminous” poems, many set lakeside, that with an economy of words manage to simultaneously contemplate wild raspberries, longing and regret, for example. A past Fulbright Fellow at Istanbul University, Wade has also published translations of poems by Melih Cevdet Anday, Yahya Kemal, and other Turkish poets. Professor of English at the University of Florida, her poetry and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. sidneywade.com The Jew Named Jesus: Discover the Man and His Message Abingdon Press Rebekah Simon-Peter ’83 Rev. Rebekah Simon-Peter’s new book contributes to interfaith dialogue between Jews and Christians. “Jesus was Jewish—through and through,” Simon-Peter says. “Why is that important? I believe how we see, name, and claim Jesus has everything to do with how we see, name, and claim each other.” An ordained United Methodist pastor, the UVM alumna with a degree in environmental studies came to the ministry only after work as an acid rain researcher and volunteer naturalist. The Jew Named Jesus is her third book, following two other publications that make a case for the urgent need to practice faithbased environmental stewardship. Learn more about her work: bridgeworkspresents.org.

ONLINE EXTRA

uvm.edu/vq for more book reviews

SUMMER 2013

It was the down—tiny goose feathers—in his sleeping bag that prevented him from suffering a fate similar to the beer. Amazing feathers. On that cold night (one of many in Bernd Heinrich’s famed winter ecology course), Thor Hanson wondered about another feathered creature also sleeping nearby: the golden-crowned kinglet. This bird weighs five grams, “about the same as a nickel or teaspoon of salt,” Hanson writes in his book, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle. High over his head, in the crook of a fir branch, the kinglet kept its body about 120 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the surrounding air. Without the uncanny microstructure of feathers—the most insulating material in the world—the bird would have died in a few breaths. Amazing feathers. This is just one of dozens of featherfascinated, perspective-altering stories that led Hanson’s book to be selected as this year’s winner of the John Burroughs Medal. Given in the past to such luminaries as Rachel Carson and Barry Lopez, it is considered the highest award for American nature writing. Hanson credits UVM’s Field Naturalist Program, and teachers like Heinrich, for helping to shape this book. “This could have easily been a narrow ornithological textbook,” Hanson says, “and yet it’s the broad perspective that is encouraged in the FN program that allows this book to be something that touches on everything from fashion to golf history.” Glued together intellectually by a fascination with the intricacies of evolution,

[ BRIEFS ] Straits & Narrows Persea Books Sidney Wade ‘74 M.Ed. ‘78

BOOKS & MEDIA

JUSTRELEASED

SPORTS CATAMOUNT

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

THE GREEN & GOLD: WIN, LOSE, OR DRAW

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX EDELMAN AND BRIAN JENKINS

ONLINE

UVMATHLETICS.COM FOR SPORTS NEWS

STOP ACTION

SUMMER 3013

s the academic year and athletic seasons quiet for the summer, we offer a look at some of the best images of the Catamounts competing on court or field or track, ice or snow or water. The starting line-up: Kate Ryley, skiing; Brittany Zuback, women’s hockey; Marcie Marino, women’s lacrosse; Zach Paul, men’s soccer; Andie Blaser, swimming; Thomas O’Leary, Devin Motivala, Andy Stillman, Dylan Souder, cross-country; Mimi Eckenstein, women’s soccer; Katie Craig, diving; Colby Cunningham, track and field; Luke Apfeld, men’s basketball; Sally Snickenberger, field hockey; Jake Fallon and Yvan Pattyn, men’s hockey; and Niki Taylor, women’s basketball.

o explore the roots of residential learning at UVM, we could begin one of two places. With an inchthick report, tattered and yellowed, titled “University of Vermont: Project 73 Living/Learning Center: Request for Design/Build Proposals.” Anyone? Anyone? Or with Professor Richard Sugarman—affable, rumpled raconteur, learned, spiritual man with a memory that easily conjures the title of a campus lecture from forty-one years ago.

Live& Learn

by Thomas Weaver

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

photography by Sally McCay

Agreed, let’s start with the professor. First, step back a year to before the professor was a professor, but was a cabbie driving a taxi in Boston— “very unsuccessfully,” he explains. “Every time I went somewhere, I ended up on Storrow Drive.” Sugarman put Boston’s street-maze behind him when a friend called with a part-time job offer teaching in a new UVM residential learning venture called the Experimental Program. Created in 1968 as the brainchild of the late Professor Bill Daniels, the program was very much a product of the era. “People would always ask us, ‘Well, what’s the nature of the experiment?’” Sugarman recalls. “I would say, ‘Every day.’”

Left: Alyssa Urban ’04, Clay Studio, Living/ Learning. Above: Tiesha Adams and Theresa Givens-Mauldin, Caribbean House, Living/ Learning. Above right: Dewey House for Civic Engagement, Harris Hall. Right: Maggie Love, Jessica Okrant, Amy Terkelson, Dewey House, Harris Hall. Ned Liggett, Integrated Humanities Program, Living/Learning.

didn’t necessarily need to be separate lives at all. Which brings us back around to that musty document mentioned before, “Project 73: Living/Learning Center.” While there are mundane matters of square footage, preferred snack bar foods (pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs), budget ($6.5 million) and capacity (six hundred students, and ten faculty), there is also a glimpse of the big picture—why the place was being built in the first place. And that rationale spun off the educational wild west pioneered by Sugarman and colleagues. “This Experimental Program,” the report says “confronted the following three problems of university education: fractionation of knowledge lack of relevance loss of a sense of intellectual community.”

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Relatively free-form in terms of curriculum and grades, the Experimental Program seemingly ran with that freedom and a group of highly motivated, liberalminded students who were more than happy to take the path wherever higher education done differently might lead. One example: The Dawn Seminar. As Sugarman describes it, we envision a land long ago and far away, a place where the students in Coolidge Hall awoke at dawn to the cry of a rooster named Kelvin; then, blearyeyed, assembled for a lecture. “Six o’clock in the morning, we would have a presenter come in and speak about a subject, which would be discussed for the next several days in all classes, at all times, carrying over into the dining halls,” Sugarman says. “I think it was incredibly effective. A colleague from St. John’s College came and gave a talk ‘Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer’… absolutely brilliant talk. Most everybody got a great deal out of it.” While the Dawn Seminar, Kelvin Rooster, and the Experimental Program would prove, to varying degrees, to be short-lived, they blazed a trail, suggesting that UVM students’ academic lives and residential lives

In essence, the Experimental Program was just the first trial in an experiment that has continued across decades at UVM and continues today in a variety of residential learning communities that find their own ways to confront those issues defined in the late sixties. LIVING/LEARNING CENTER

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Had John Sama ’84 taken the counsel of his campus tour guide during a prospective student visit to UVM more than thirty years ago, the development of residential learning initiatives at the university might have taken a very different course. The director of Living/ Learning is sitting in his homey, comfortably cluttered office as he recalls this advice he eventually chose to ignore. “He said that L and L wasn’t a good place for firstyear students to meet other first-year students,” Sama says. Nevertheless, Sama was tempted by the fact that Living/Learning was a fresh, six-year-old facility, and discovering a suite, Emergency Medicine, that aligned with his personal interests impelled him to sign on. Some thirty-six years later, it would be difficult to find anyone at the university with a deeper history and

connection to the place. Sama became a leader in the Emergency Medicine suite and later a resident assistant during his student days. Just months after graduation he returned to L/L for a “one-year” post that, well, has morphed and grown and is still growing strong. Today, in addition to his Living/Learning duties, Sama oversees the five other residential learning communities at the university. As Living/Learning marks its fortieth birthday in August, Sama says the labyrinthian block of three-story brick buildings are still serving students well, particu-

larly thanks to renovations across the past decade. Programming is also flourishing, with forty programmed suites this year and more student ideas proposed annually than the complex can accommodate. It’s that continual renewal, both in residents and in programming, that keeps Living/Learning fresh, Sama says. “We’ve always wanted to be sure we maintained the opportunity for students to create programs because that gives us a lot of richness. It would be very easy for the university to say we can’t afford to have this luxury of having students come up with random ideas. But I think it’s that randomness that makes us interesting.” Asked for an example of this randomness, Sama ponders a moment, then recalls a proposal for “Exploring Culture Through Tea.” He admits to fully anticipating an, uh, “BS” presentation. But, instead, listened to students present a thoughtful, thorough pitch that delved into history, culture, ritual and and would prove to be an engaged suite that brought an inclusive, international flavor to all of Living/Learning. “For years I was pretty defensive about people thinking we were the ‘crunchy granola’ place,” Sama admits. “But I finally embraced it.” (Footnote: L/L’s computer server was once named “Granola.”) Embracing that identity, Sama says, meshes with Living/Learning’s enduring reputation as a place that celebrates diversity—whether that’s racial/ethnic/sexual identity or the “outsiderness” of a suite of kids passionate about their science fiction. “I think that’s one of the most important things about Living/Learning,” Sama says. “Lots of people find a place here.”

Cornelia Clay and Felipe Hoyos, GreenHouse, University Heights South. Wood workshop and study areas in GreenHouse.

NEXT GENERATION

in the classroom and what happened for you the rest of the day,” Rizvi says. “Those were much more tightly integrated in the past and in many places—and that was one thing we wanted to recreate.” He adds that he, founding dean of the Honors College Bob Taylor, and colleagues were motivated by current research as much as centuries-old tradition. Literature on student learning in higher education, Rizvi notes, indicates that as much as half of the learning that goes on in colleges takes place outside of the classroom. Core to the Honors College experience is a common course that students take in fall of their first year. The first-year students also all take part in a lecture series on the theme of diversity and weekly plenary lectures. And there are less formal events—such as a chili night in January hosted by resident faculty Guillermo Rodriguez and Steve Budington with their spouses—that knit the community together. continued on page 61

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Just as the opening of the Living/Learning Center in 1973 introduced a new era in residential learning at UVM, so it was with the opening of University Heights in 2005. Many generations of UVM alumni will remember University Heights as an incongruous neighborhood of humble ranch houses plopped down in the middle of campus. Razing the houses and creating some eight hundred new beds of student housing in the two adjacent complexes, University Heights North and South, was a key element in the campus transformation that took place during Daniel Mark Fogel’s years as UVM president. Inside or out—private bathrooms, air-conditioning, green roofs—these were not your dad’s cinderblock dorm. Beyond the amenities, the new buildings would be about community and were built with a mind to that—seminar rooms, lounge space with fireplaces, kitchens, faculty/staff offices, and faculty apartments. UHeights North, as it’s known in campus shorthand, is home to the university’s Honors College. Abu Rizvi, dean of the college and professor of economics, offers a historical perspective on the rationale for a residential learning community such as the HC. “There is a long Anglo-American tradition—the residential colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the houses at Harvard and Yale. Cotton Mather said that in the United States there is a distinctly ‘collegiate’ way of living. “Students were not anonymous. They didn’t interact primarily with other seventeen to twenty year olds. There wasn’t this huge division between what happened

ways to grow, think about, and EAT food

by Joshua Brown | Megan Camp ’84 | Lee Ann Cox | Jon Reidel G’06 |

Amanda Waite ’02 G’04 | Jeff Wakefield | Thomas Weaver | Dave Zuckerman ’95

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDY DUBACK. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: FAT TOAD FARM; MONTPELIER, VERMONT FARMER’S MARKET; STAFFORD ORGANIC CREAMERY; CRAWFORD FAMILY FARM CHEESE

he study and practice of food systems threads through academic disciplines, across political boundaries, and into the lives of every individual on the planet. As complex as these questions are, they might be boiled down to this—creating positive approaches to food for the wellbeing of the environment, farmers, and ourselves. Extension Dean Doug Lantagne ’77 directs UVM’s Transdisciplinary Research Initiative on Food Systems, a focus particularly well-suited to Vermont. On a visit to the state several years ago, author Michael Pollan, a leading voice in the food movement, was struck by the passion, expertise, and innovation he found in Vermont and at the state’s university. Read on for a glimpse of some of this work being done by UVM faculty, students, and alumni.

Agriculture & Aesthetics A social geographer’s view

“F

ood systems, to me,” says Cheryl Morse, assistant professor of geography, “is not just about food choice. It’s about the landscape that provides the food.” Here in Vermont, the look of that landscape—the idyllic pastoral scene, the “sweeping view with a mountain in the background and a maple tree in the foreground”— cuts right to the soul of the state for most people. The irony, Morse says, is that classic mix of farm buildings, open land and forest was a nineteenth century creation of the state to lure back people who had fled after the Civil War, whether as tourists or to live. “They crafted a narrative about the rural ideal and the agrarian landscape of Vermont,” she says. Leave the land alone, and it wants to be trees.

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According to Morse, it’s not just agriculture that’s keeping spaces open but private landowners who see scrubby boundaries creeping in and bring out the brush hog. “It makes people really sad,” she says. “It makes them think people aren’t taking care of the land. So it’s not so much an ecological perspective they’re coming from, it’s more from a cultural historical legacy.” But Morse also sees the agricultural census data showing an increase in the number of very large farms and a proliferation of very small, very active farms making little money. Middle-size farms, she says, are reducing in number. There’s both landscape and livelihood to keep alive in the state. Her overarching research question is, in towns that have very large dairy operations versus towns that don’t, has the landscape changed and how, and how have people’s lives changed? “I’m interested in what is happening to the land cover but more in why it’s happening and what choices farmers are making and under what conditions. What are the factors that drive them to enter or exit farming and what drives a landowner to keep a field open? To understand the whole food system we have to understand the economic and political environment that farmers are operating in and we also have to understand the social relations between farmers and consumers. Ultimately this will become a policy question. There’s got to be an acknowledgement that different types of farming are going to produce different kinds of outcomes.”

Mastering Food Systems In 2012, UVM launched a graduate degree program in food systems, giving students an in-depth view into collaborative problem solving of contemporary issues with thirty teacher-scholars from disciplines across the university: anthropologists to nutritionists, plant and soil scientists to experts in community development and applied economics. The twoyear program concentrates on applied skills and research, allowing students to find their focus in a very wide field. We asked a few members of the first cohort three questions:

1. What were your undergraduate studies? 2. Why study food systems? 3. What are your future goals? CECILE REUGE

1. Anthropology, UVM 2. Growing up in a food-oriented family—her parents are longtime restaurant owners—and working on a farm herself as a teen, Reuge was excited to discover an academic track in food. “I see this as an emergent field so I feel good being part of that.”

3. Working as a researcher for a foodbased union or other community organization. ANDREA SUOZZO

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

1. English, Middlebury College 2. Working for the Addison Independent,

Suozzo liked writing about food policy and agriculture, but also realized how little she knew. Covering the farm bill, she felt the reporting was focused on economic and policy implications in Washington rather than the impact on farmers. “I realized there was a real lack of journalism in that area so I started looking for a program that could help me fill that role.”

3. Food and agriculture journalism. continued on page 23

n 1931, when Richard and Marjory James started milking their small herd of Jersey cows in Weybridge, Vermont, it’s a good bet they weren’t considering an abstract concept like “food systems.” Within a couple of years, they took another step, deciding that bottling and selling milk themselves would increase the promise of their operation. And as Monument Farms Dairy, now in its third generation of family management, has steadily grown it’s remained true to guiding principles that are both bedrock Vermont virtues and twenty-first century food system gospel. “It’s what we’ve done and believed all along,” says Monument Farms’ Jon Rooney ’80. “It’s very important to think about where your food comes from, and it’s very important that you try to buy locally when you can. It is at the core of everything. We could just be making milk and shipping it to Boston, but we’d much rather be feeding people around here. Certainly from a business point of view,” he adds with a quiet laugh, “we’d much rather that people buy our products because of that and because of the quality.” Rooney works together with his cousins Bob and Pete James to run Monument Farms—along the same section of James Road, a few miles north of Middlebury, where their grandparents started out on twenty-eight acres. They milk about five hundred cows; crop some 1,800 of their 2,300 acres; employ thirty-five on the farm, in the plant, and making deliveries; and process 75,000 pounds of milk four days a week. It’s a progressive operation with best farming practices such as the recent addition of an anaerobic digester that processes manure and produces electricity from the methane. On the business side, the dairy has partnered with Burlington’s City Market, Hunger Mountain Co-op, and Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, to sell their product under a Vermont Co-op Milk/Monument Farms label. Such initiatives helped Rooney earn the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Outstanding Alumni Award in 2010. Rooney, who studied dairy science at UVM, runs the processing plant at Monument Farms and the cousins trade off duties as president every two years. Though he served with the Peace Corps in Guatemala and worked for Hood Dairy in Massachusetts for several years, Rooney says he always knew he’d return to Vermont and the family farm, which he did twenty-eight years ago. The roots are deep, and a tour of the dairy includes a stop by the business office to meet his mother, Millicent Rooney ’49, still working as treasurer at age eighty-four. Her late husband, James Rooney ’50, is also part of the family’s legacy at the farm. When Monument Farms marked its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2006, three thousand people showed up for the celebration, testimony to what the dairy means to the community. “We take a lot of pride in that most people in this area also take pride in what we do,” Jon Rooney says. “And we don’t take it for granted.”

Monument Farms

MONUMENT FARMS: ANDY DUBACK; HAMBURGER: SALLY MCCAY

Mastering Food Systems THE ETHICS OF EATING

continued

“There’s an attitude about food which is something like: ‘To each his own,’” Tyler Doggett, assistant professor of philosophy, explains. “That’s the right attitude to have about hairstyles, glasses, or clothes. But with food, there’s no way to avoid eating things that were at some point living.”

1. Biology and chemistry, Saint Michael’s

Killing kale or bugs for food might be OK. “But god forbid you eat a dolphin. Or a human being. No one would think, if you were having a human sandwich, ‘to each his own.’ And I remember thinking, ‘that’s kind of weird. Maybe it’s wrong to eat certain things; maybe it’s not.’ I’d at least like to think about that.” Across the past five years, Doggett has thought, taught, and published a great deal on just that. His “Ethics of Eating” course is a provocative seminar and a strong draw for students. His publications include both the first textbook for undergraduates and the first handbook for graduate students on the ethics of eating, both of which he is co-authoring. Don’t ethicists like Doggett unnecessarily complicate things that are challenging enough already—like the dinner menu? “It’s not like I’m complicating things,” the professor says. “I think what I’m pointing out is that things are more complicated than we thought.”

The Vermont Highland Grass-Fed Burger

College 2. As a high school teacher delving into environmental science, Achilich was increasingly finding resources based in agriculture and food. That and a lifelong interest in nutrition drew her to augment her molecular-focused education. “This program seemed like a perfect fit—learning and making my own meaning through research and applied experience.” 3. Long term, a doctorate in food systems or community nutrition; short term, curriculum consulting and applied work in the farm-to-school arena. RACHEL DISTEFANO

1. Psychology, Bates College 2. In addition to her work in the social sciences, DiStefano had completed premed requirements, but she wasn’t ready to pigeonhole herself in any field. “This allows me to use food as a way to get at health in a preventative way and look at social relationships with food.”

3. Long term, a doctorate in psychology with a food focus, food systems, or public health; short term, policy work for the Department of Agriculture or Health or a nonprofit research position. KRISTINA SWEET

1. Anthropology, Columbia University 2. Sweet views the program as a logical result of her previous work, both cooking professionally and focusing on food through the academic lens of anthropology. “I’m learning things that I wouldn’t have been able to articulate a year ago in terms of research skills and how I understand the complexities of the food system.”

3. Working for a nonprofit focusing on food or a Ph.D. program in geography with a food systems focus.

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Served up at Brennan’s, where more than 50 percent of fare—from buttermilk pancakes to the tofu taco—meets the Real Food Campus Commitment guidelines. In March 2012, UVM was the fifth school in the U.S. to sign on to the commitment, pledging to increase sustainable fare at campus eateries to 20 percent by 2020. To count as “real food,” offerings must be fairly traded, of low environmental impact, local, and/or humanely produced. Thanks to a focused effort, more than 28 percent of meat is now sourced locally. At current count, about 14 percent of the food University Dining Services provides is “real.”

KRISTYN ACHILICH

“

You sell cheese to France now.

UVM FOOD FEED Urban agriculture in Burlington. Public policy on taxing sugar-laden beverages. Insights on the current state of U.S. farm labor. A recipe for a mean French Canadian pork pie. Since April 2012, a number of members of the UVM faculty and others with expertise and interest in food systems have taken on diverse topics, posting away on UVM Food Feed, a blog focused on sustainable food systems and the University of Vermont. Cynthia Belliveau, dean of UVM Continuing Education and a key player in food systems work at UVM and in the state, initiated UVM Food Feed. “We want to bring together people who are passionate about re-creating our food system to make it more sustainable in its practice and more equitable in its access,” she writes. learn.uvm.edu/foodsystemsblog Posted in Economic, Environmental, Health, Social | Leave a comment

Call to [r]Evolution The Food Systems Summit

bold idea from former Interim President John Bramley in the fall of 2011—that UVM host a large, intellectually vibrant, international institute surrounding the multilayered issue of sustainable food—was realized by summer 2012 with more than three hundred people converging on campus—including attendees from Mexico, Canada and as far away as the UK. Through a diverse group of speakers and workshops the summit delved into the broad question of how to create regional food systems that are viable alternatives to the status quo—a global, ecologically, and economically unsustainable means of feeding the world. This summer’s theme will narrow to focus on scale, looking at rural versus urban food systems and considering what local means within these different contexts, recognizing the need to customize approaches for different regions. Food activists from New York City will be speaking from their own experiences, balancing their perspectives with that of Vermont’s “living laboratory” for creating new models of success in sustainability. “What we really want,” says Cynthia Belliveau, dean of Continuing Education and a summit organizer, “is a convergence of ideas as issues of food security, production and distribution become increasingly critical. There are a lot of questions but there haven’t been as many answers in the form of actionable solutions. The key here is to combine UVM’s expertise with experts from around the world, to be honest about the issues, and learn from what we’ve all experienced in our different environments.” Seventeen talks from last year’s conference can be viewed here: learn.uvm.edu/sustainability/food-summit/food-systems-conference/ 2012-conference-videos/

Video of this year’s conference will be posted in July.

Green Mountain rice paddies? The laboratory is the kitchen of Faren Worthington’s student apartment in Burlington. Jon Kraus holds up a small envelope. “Are we doing the Akitakomachi?” he asks. “We are,” says Worthington. Kraus and John Butler tip out their envelopes, pouring seeds, like a tiny stream of amber jewels, into a bowl of water. Butler skims seeds off the water’s surface. “The ones that float aren’t good,” he says. The undergrad trio is germinating rice from Japan—to test at Erik Andrus’s farm in Ferrisburgh. Their experimental equipment: bowl, strainer, canning jars—and, from a USDA seed bank, envelopes labeled Matsumae, Hokkai 223, Hayayuki, Hokkai 116, and Akitakomachi. As their senior capstone project, these three students in UVM’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources are helping Andrus start, transplant, and, at summer’s end, harvest this rice. Their field trials aim to find which of these cold-hardy varieties perform best on Andrus’s patch of clay plain bottomland. He’s starting his third year of rice production and has an eye toward building a local seed supply. Last year, Andrus sold 2,400 pounds, perhaps the first Northeast farm to sell rice in quantity. Now there are at least five Vermont farms testing it. As the state grows warmer—with more intense rainfalls and a burgeoning market for local grains—Andrus and these students imagine Vermont’s wetter farmlands dotted with rice paddies.

RICE SEEDS AND ISLAND POND STORE: JOSHUA BROWN; CHUCK ROSS: IAN THOMAS JANSEN-LONNQUIST

”

Think about that.

Chuck Ross’ 78, state secretary of agriculture, speaking at a recent Northeast Organic Farming Association meeting held at UVM.

FOOD DESERTS THE PROBLEM

Food deserts, regions the U.S. Department of Agriculture describes as places with largely low-income populations and few or no places to buy affordable, healthy food.

THE PLACE

Island Pond, population 1,260, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

THE RESEARCH

Linda Berlin, professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and director of UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, leads the Vermont component of a multistate study. Working with colleagues and students, Berlin is gathering information regarding consumers’ buying habits, local stores’ inventories, and exploring the supply chain through which food travels to the Kingdom.

THE GOAL

The researchers want to link what have often been seen as separate problems. On the one hand, 12 percent of the population in the Northeast, more than seven million people, are food insecure, according to the USDA. This means they face a challenge getting healthy, affordable food—and all the health problems, like obesity, hunger, and diabetes that are associated with this challenge. On the other hand, regional farmers are struggling to stay in business, the land base for agriculture in the Northeast continues to decline, and a large percentage of fruits and vegetables eaten here—that can be grown in the Delaware-to-Maine corridor—are transported from farms in the Midwest, California, Mexico, and other parts of the world. The researchers want to show that both problems can—and maybe need to be—addressed together. The plan: build a powerful model of how the whole system works. The hope: enhance the supply and availability of foods grown in the Northeast region.

The Big Picture

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ine billion by 2050. When Chuck Ross ’78, Vermont’s secretary of agriculture, discusses farming’s future he puts it in the stark numbers of the world’s projected population growth and the challenge that will be faced in feeding all of those people. An eighth-generation Vermonter who lives in Hinesburg on the same farm where he grew up, Ross has witnessed firsthand the intersection of population growth, agriculture, and land use. He recalls countless car rides from Hinesburg to Gutterson for youth hockey practices and how he saw that landscape change year by year. While the ice time would help him develop into a future Catamount player, the rapidly developing farmland he watched roll by out the car window sparked his interest in ecology and economics and subsequent work in government and public policy. Ross sees reason for optimism in Vermont’s approach to agriculture. He counts the state as a leader on many fronts—building community supported agriculture, farm to school programs, use of bio-digesters, artisanal cheese, the maple industry, and finding innovative ways to conserve farmland, among others. Drawing food producers and food consumers closer is a common theme in Vermont. Ross suggests the erosion of that connection in American society led to difficulty in getting a national farm bill passed this year. “We don’t understand our food system,” Ross says. “We do not understand what is involved in our agriculture system to put a sirloin steak on the table or understand that a manure spreader going down the road is not an obstacle to getting to work but is actually recycling nutrients.” Ross calls this need to build agriculture and food system literacy one of the biggest challenges ahead and, again, sees his home state helping lead the way. “People want to know what they’re buying—how it’s raised, organic, local, New England, Vermont. And our farmers are meeting that demand. That is helping to educate a whole new population of people about the food system and agriculture,” he says.

Beyond the beans

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Map of Maple

Amy Trubek, associate professor of nutrition and food sciences, is a cultural anthropologist and expert on terroir, the idea that food tastes of its unique locale and that it’s influenced by the hands and hearts of its producers. She has helped create the “Map of Maple,” a collaborative effort between UVM researchers and the State of Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Foods & Markets, along with sugarmakers and sensory panelists. The map demonstrates that terroir, while more commonly associated with wine, affects the sensory qualities of maple syrup. Used in workshops for sugarmakers, among other venues, the map serves as a tool to help producers, retailers, and consumers engage around the intrinsic complexity of Vermont syrup in a fun and thoughtful way.

offee helps Ernesto Mendez think about Vermont farms. Sure, he loves a hot cup. But it’s the entire coffee system—from Central American smallholder farms to that $4.25 cup of Starbucks—that really gives him insights. Mendez, professor of agroecology and environmental studies, has spent years with coffee farmers in his native El Salvador, as well as Costa Rica, Panama, and elsewhere. “I was asking: how can these coffee farms be more ecologically sound?” Mendez says. Then, in 1999, the bottom fell out of the market. “All of a sudden there is this global price crisis that these farmers have no control over. They don’t even know where the price gets set.” For Mendez, this coffee crisis—that lasted until 2004, sending thousands of farmers off their land and into poverty—sparked deep reflection about his chosen field: agroecology. Agroecology is an especially barnacled academic term. It first appeared in scientific journals in the 1930s, connecting ecological ideas to traditional crop planning. By the 1970s—paddling in the wake of the Green Revolution and environmental movements—agroecology was expanding its view to entire food systems, informed by ecological sciences. But, as Mendez’s coffee studies make clear, many of the challenges of making food systems ecologically sound extend far beyond ecological science. They’re about politics and justice—a truth reflected in a recent broadening of the field’s focus. “In the more natural-science type of agroecology, it’s easy to say: I just want to make dairy production more ecologically sound,” Mendez says. Sounds good. But that approach “ignores the fact that there are all these price issues and subsidy issues,” he says, that fundamentally determine whether a farmer’s effort to, say, invest in soil fertility will have a chance to succeed. Mendez is blunt: “The global food system is really messed up and unfair,” he says, which is “the main problem farmers are facing.” Building on his long study of coffee, Mendez’s newer research projects in Vermont, including one exploring how farms might best adapt to climate change, all begin by listening deeply to farmers and finding out what research they think might help them remain on the land.

Gardens within farms

A The question that focuses my research Rocki-Lee Dewitt, professor of business, grew up working on her family’s New York dairy farm. That personal experience grounds her academic pursuits regarding family business and agriculture.

“

What role do family businesses play in the emergence and evolution of industries, specifically those that are land-based? “We tend to think of family businesses as stewards. Are they? Do they shape what is considered the appropriate use of resources? Does their persistence from generation to generation help explain why practices become institutionalized and help shape competitive expectations? “Of course, there is a surprise in all of this. We tend to think of the ‘family business’ as the iconic mother, father, and children working together. It pulls at our emotions and desire to reward those who toil on our behalf. But, family businesses, businesses that are owned and operated by related parties, come in so many sizes and approaches that I frequently wonder how the selective use of family imagery causes us to be less mindful of just what is going on in our food systems.”

Epiphany in a tamale Amy Trubek has long fought a cultural stigma to her research—the notion

COFFEE CUP: SABIN GRATZ ’98; CRAWFORD FAMILY FARM: ANDY DUBACK

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that embracing the sensual experience of food is either unseemly or rings of elitism. But taking students on a study trip to Oaxaca, Mexico last spring, learning to make a local specialty, tamales de chepil, from women in a small Zapotec village, Trubek watched a scene play out that confirmed her deep-rooted beliefs about those who take time and care with food. The family matriarch called away, a relative added what seemed to Trubek to be an excessive amount of salt. Later, when everyone joined to share the meal, the matriarch was aghast tasting the tamales, insisting on remaking them so the Americans could taste the dish as it should be. Here, in a situation Trubek describes as one of poverty, was a cook invested in her art. “Yes!” thought Trubek. “Confirmation that expertise creates sensory analysis and sensory analysis means you understand the concept of the good.”

nthropologists note contradictions. Take this one: On Vermont’s approximately 970 remaining dairy farms there are at least 1,200 Spanish-speaking migrant workers, mostly from Mexico. Many of these workers put in seventy or more hours per week, producing perhaps half the state’s milk. Many have years of experience growing staple crops, like corn, back in Chiapas or other parts of Central America. And yet—here’s the contradiction—many of them have a hard time getting food in Vermont. Sometimes feeling trapped on farms, sending large portions of their pay to family members back home, often without access to transportation, and not finding familiar foods in grocery stores, these workers contend with varying degrees of food insecurity. “People that are directly putting food on the proverbial American Table are going hungry or facing nutritional deficiencies—that is a very striking issue,” says professor of anthropology Teresa Mares. Her research aims to understand the complex networks, both in local communities and the global economy, that make this problem possible. Mares wants to better understand the situation these people face—and she also wants to help directly. Which is why last year she joined forces with Naomi Wolcott-MacCausland, the migrant health coordinator with UVM Extension’s Bridges to Health program. Since 2009, Wolcott-MacCausland has helped lead a project called Huertas, which in Spanish means “kitchen garden.” And that is exactly what the project provides. On about twenty-five dairy farms in Franklin County (where Wolcott-MacCausland herself grew up on a dairy farm), and a handful in other parts of the state, farm owners, Latino workers, community volunteers, and UVM students have joined together to build gardens. With donated seedlings, the workers grow foods they want, many that are part of traditional Mexican cooking: jalapenos, epazote, tomatoes, cilantro, onions, and habeneros. It’s a harvest that plays a role in both feeding the body and also bringing people together to ease the pangs of isolation.

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We’ve come a long way from not so long ago when farmers hesitated to label their food ‘organic’ because they worried people would assume there were worms in their broccoli.” Enid Wonnacott G’92, director of Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, speaking at an April 9 panel discussion on “UVM and the Future of Vermont’s Agriculture.”

Field Experience

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The UVM Farmer Training Program is an intensive, six-month program for aspiring farmers and food system advocates that provides a hands-on education in sustainable agriculture. The program offers participants the opportunity to manage their own growing site, take classes with faculty and expert farmers, and work and learn on diverse, successful farms in the Burlington area. Participants earn a Certificate in Sustainable Farming, a deeper understanding of agricultural management and small-scale farming, and the entrepreneurial skills to start their own operations. The farmland in Burlington’s Intervale, just a mile from campus, is a key resource for the program.

Farm 2 School by Megan Camp ’84

cross the past fifteen years, a quiet revolution has taken place in Vermont as initiatives have been launched to help schools build relationships with farmers in their communities, serve local foods in their cafeterias, and integrate food, farming, and nutrition education into their curricula. These diverse efforts fall under the umbrella label “Farm to School” and they are the work of thousands—farmers, parents, teachers, administrators, doctors, nurses, food service staff, funders, businesses, nonprofits and government, including our Vermont legislators and congressional delegation. Over the past decade, 60 percent of Vermont schools have started a Farm to School program and the adoption rate is accelerating. In 2007, the first Farm to School legislation in the country was passed and funded in Vermont, creating a small grant program for schools. Programs as small as one school and as large as a whole region have blossomed into a statewide network. What does that mean for Vermont? Farm to School enables every child to have access to nutritious food while building markets for local farmers. It offers nutrition and agriculture education, school garden development, composting programs, and farm visits. Teachers, food service staff, students and their families learn where their food comes from, who grew their food, and how their food choices affect their health, the environment, and their communities. What could it mean for the nation? In 2010, a White House Summit on Childhood Obesity identified Farm to School as one of the top five strategies for improving student health and nutrition. Thanks to support from Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont was the first Farm to School program to receive funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate best practices. There’s reason to hope that ten years from now the United States might look back on a national Farm to School revolution and find its roots right here in Vermont. Megan Camp ’84 is vice president and program director of Shelburne Farms, a nonprofit education center that offers programs for youth, families, and adults on sustainable farming and food. This essay is excerpted from a piece that appeared in the Burlington Free Press in August 2010.

INTERVALE: SALLY MCCAY

Under the sun

Market Day by David Zuckerman ’95

David Zuckerman ’95, together with his wife, Rachel Nevitt, owns and runs the organic Full Moon Farm in Hinesburg. He is also a Vermont state senator representing Chittenden County. DAVE ZUCKERMAN, HIGH TUNNEL: JOSHUA BROWN

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armers markets, more than just a place to buy veggies, are about a return to community. From the perspective of both a farmer and state senator, I find that these markets provide essential and vital opportunities for people in our state to come together. For me, it’s a key place to connect—with customers, friends, constituents. And as I overhear countless conversations among neighbors, it’s clear I’m not alone in that. For twenty-six weeks each season, on Saturday mornings, City Hall Park in Burlington comes alive. Starting around 6:30 in the morning, we vendors of agricultural goods, prepared foods, and a variety of handcrafted Vermont products come together to set up our booths. As we all exchange our greetings, stories are shared from the past week. We’re truly a community in our own right. Soon enough, the people of Greater Burlington start to arrive— retired bank officers, teachers, janitors, software developers, hair cutters, government workers, pilots, dog owners, teenagers, folks dressed to the nines as well as just about every other stripe from the community. While they’re certainly in the park because of the freshest vegetables and baked goods, what is really happening is far more than commerce. Customers start inquiring about things on the farm, discussing recent news, and connecting with friends from throughout the community. Between weighing vegetables and making sales, I see all of this from my stand at the market. I revel in the spirit of what happens in downtown Burlington on those Saturday mornings and know that the same scene plays out in so many other towns and villages throughout Vermont. It’s a joy to be there watching folks slow down to appreciate what we have as a community.

ce crystals and dust blow up from the winter-gray fields of Jericho Settlers Farm. It’s early April. A crowd of perhaps twenty-five farmers stomp their boots and blow on their mittens, waiting to get into a tunnel. The owners of this farm, Christa Alexander and Mark Fasching, point to the tunnel’s entrance. There is nothing hobbitlike about it. Instead, a delicious warm breeze washes across our faces as we go in and sunlight filters in from all sides. This is a “high tunnel,” basically a metal-pipe-frame shed covered in two layers of translucent plastic. It’s a low-cost variant of the traditional glass greenhouse. The farmers are here, on a tour sponsored by NOFA-VT and UVM Extension, to learn how a high tunnel might extend their growing seasons. Thousands of onion, tomato, and cilantro seedlings stretch in a green lawn across metal tables. For Professor Vern Grubinger, the vegetable and berry specialist at UVM Extension, these tunnels are one of dozens of innovations he sees adding up to a quiet revolution in American agriculture that Vermont farmers are helping to lead. He lists the ongoing rise of organic farming techniques, artisan cheese, expanding farmers markets, wholesale “food hubs,” direct sales from farms to schools, oilseed crops for onfarm fuel production, “deep zone” tillage, and many others— including various flavors of tunnels and hoop-houses. These range from unheated ones made from scrap lumber to elegant giants that roll on metal rails with sophisticated fan and heating systems—but one goal is the same: capture winter as a profitable season for farming. Some hardy greens can be extended past New Year’s and other plants can be held dormant, ready for market in early spring. “The main heat in here is propane?” asks Chris Callahan, an agricultural engineer with UVM Extension who is helping to lead this tour. “And the sun,” says Mark Fasching.

UVM PEOPLE by Jon Reidel G’06 photo by Mario Morgado

Howard Averill ’85 THE SPARK Howard Averill ’85, chief financial officer of Time Inc., fully realized his love of numbers during his semester in an accounting class with Professor Peter Battelle. But, years later, he would make another important realization—that financial numbers felt hollow unless they were connected to something meaningful. A self-professed newshound, Averill experienced this firsthand at NBC Universal in chief financial officer roles at MSNBC, NBC News, and NBC Universal Television, where he was part of the news planning process while handling the financial aspects of producing “NBC News,” “The Today Show,” “Nightly News,” “Dateline,” and “Meet the Press.” “It’s not just widgets and numbers, it’s how you plan to cover one of the most expensive news events in history ten thousand miles away in Iraq, or 9/11, or the 2000 presidential election,” says Averill. “CFO roles in companies like this put you in the middle of everything.”

THE LADDER An early job with Pepsi helped lay the groundwork for future success, Averill says. “I learned about all these systems for how to plan and little quirky stuff you don’t really think about— but turns out matters. A lot of people in my field who are way smarter than me never learned about operations or how things work.” Averill, who would move on to ITT/Sheraton before advancing to NBC Universal and Time, admits he’s sometimes questioned whether he was ready for the next step. “I remember thinking after the MSNBC job, ‘I’ve finally reached a level beyond what I can handle.’ I’d always call my oldest brother Jim ’80, and he’d say, ‘What are you nuts? You’ve got to go for that.’ Fortunately, they’ve all worked out so far.”

DAY TO DAY Averill catches the 5:30 morning train from his home in Westchester County to his

office on the thirty-fourth floor of the Time-Life Building in Rockefeller Center, where he oversees the finances of the $4 billion international publishing company and its 120 magazines and fifty websites. Budgeting and forecasting, financial reports, audits, and taxes take up much of his time, but no day is ever the same. Averill is currently focused on helping Time continue its development in the digital age. “It’s a little tough lately because we’re in an industry that’s going through some major changes, but we’re figuring it out, which is what makes it so exciting,” he says. “Trying to transform an industry is really tricky, but I love being part of it.” V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

COLLEGE YEARS Averill is a Burlington native who grew up just down the hill from Redstone,

one of five boys in his family to graduate from UVM. He briefly considered being a doctor or a dentist, like his brothers David ’80 and Paul ’83 who went to work for their father, Charlie, at his practice on Pearl Street. But that epiphany in Peter Battelle’s class sharpened his focus on economics and accounting. “I loved UVM,” says Averill, who met his wife, Sharon, in Bailey-Howe Library. “My friends said I spent too much time in the library, but I loved what I was doing and studying that stuff. If you love it, you get better at it. And that has been the case throughout my career.” VQ

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THE LESSONS OF A LONG, LONG DRIVE In which a one-time SGA president hits the road in search of his own kind by Jay M. Taylor ’10

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This whole thing is probably Pat Brown’s fault.

After graduating from UVM three years ago, I immediately began the kind of first job out of college that makes one’s parents sufficiently happy. I was working at UVM for Sodexo, the university’s foodservice partner: full-time, good benefits, and it even kept me in the Burlington and UVM worlds. There was only one problem. Well, two really. First, I probably should have taken some time to travel between graduation and finding that “real job.” Not doing so made me more than a little stir crazy. The second issue was that at some point near the end of my two-plus years with Sodexo, I came to the realization that—long-term—it just wasn’t for me.

portrait by Andy Duback travel photos by Jay M. Taylor ’10

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So I gave notice that I was stepping down but had no plan for the immediate future beyond “going driving for a few months.” Wise? Certainly not. Scary? Terrifying. Necessary? Definitely. I’d laugh, maybe a bit uncomfortably, as I talked of “going driving” when people would invariably ask that dreaded “what’s next?” question. Then I ran into Pat Brown. If you know Pat, as generations of UVM grads do, you know that he has a rare wisdom born from his years growing up a surfer in Florida, followed by decades of gently guiding young people via UVM’s Department of Student Life. I’d worked with Pat quite closely during my term as UVM’s student government president. He knew me, knew my type, and didn’t miss a beat when I told him of my ridiculous “plan.” “You know, I have a list of every student government president since the organization started,” Pat told me. “You could probably make a road trip out of tracking some of them down.” Given how lost I felt in terms of my career and geographic desires, I immediately took him up on the offer. It made sense. It was an opportunity to meet a wide cross-section of UVM alumni with whom I shared this common student government experience and a chance to see where their lives had taken them. It was also a chance for me to ask a bunch

Alex Wilcox ’94 Lyn Eimer Vreeland ’44 Bill Pickens III ’58 Bryant Jones ’05 Bill Tickner ’02 Sarah Poirier ’06

of people how they’d tackled that fun life phase that begins shortly after graduation. An agreement with Vermont Quarterly’s editor that there might be an article in this even allowed me to rationalize it as work. I bought a road atlas. My route would grow from a combination of where I had SGA presidents to interview, where I had family or friends to stay with, and places I felt I needed to check out. After all, the ulterior motive for this trip was to find something I’d like to do for work and/or a fun place in which to do it. By the time all was said and done, the map was a mess of oversized Post-It arrows that outlined where I intended to stop. The plan was to go down the East Coast to the Florida Keys, around the panhandle and through Texas to Denver, over to LA by way of Vegas, up the West Coast through San Francisco and Seattle, then back to Denver. After Denver? I didn’t know. First I’d fly to Virginia to have my wisdom teeth removed, then fly back to Denver so I could figure it out. When I charted it out in Google Maps, I projected that I would drive a little more than eight thousand miles. I felt pretty confident that my little Honda Insight hybrid was up to the task. Projections and lines on a map are one thing; the road is another. You see a lot during that much time in the driver’s seat. I saw the setting sun in Texas play brand new tricks on my eyes. I saw parts of the country that were probably uninhabitable before the advent of air conditioning. I saw scenic vistas I’ve read poems about in English classes. I can think of at least four specific instances in which my conscious decision to avoid a driver who seemed like bad news probably saved my life. And, as I descended out of Arizona’s northwestern corner, I saw the expanse of brilliant light that is Las Vegas. Sadly, that was the best part of my trip through Las Vegas. While parked in my hotel’s parking garage, thieves smashed one of my car’s passenger windows and removed bags of stuff indiscriminately. Despite walking away from the casino

with $200, Vegas would end up being more expensive than the entire rest of the trip. They even took my canvas UVM bag filled with snacks and some of my finest UVM t-shirts. In so many ways, that hurt. THE BIG THREE I took so much more from this trip—meeting these people and hearing their stories—than I could ever express within a few thousand words. But I’m going to try. Here are the three most important things I learned from my talks with UVM student government leaders past.

The history of the student government at UVM is very much connected to the history of civil rights in America.

While I doubt the three founders of the student government—Joseph “Joe” Corbett ’43, Julia Fletcher Peet ’44 and Lyn Eimer Vreeland ’44—realized it at the time, it is almost poetic that they created a student advocacy organization while our nation and its allies were defending democracy around the world. And in a male-dominated world, it is not insignificant that two of the three founders of the student government were women. “In that time, many of the men were off fighting. So the women filled many roles traditionally held by men,” Lyn explained. As Lyn described it to me, the idea for the student government “was in Joe’s head, he was the big instigator. He wanted people to have a voice in things.” And even then, well before UVM became a bastion for inclusivity, the SGA was focused on being inclusive of all UVM students, regardless of background. I had a chance to meet William “Bill” Pickens III ’58, the first SGA president of color, as well as Elliot Brown ’59, the first Jewish SGA president. Both knew that there were racist and anti-Semitic undertones in the country but both also generally regarded UVM and Burlington as significantly more accepting than elsewhere. And both also reflect on their roles in this history fondly and are proud that their alma mater seems to have been significantly

ahead of the rest of the country. Bill Tickner ’02 arrived at UVM knowing he was gay but having decided that his life would be easier if he lived it as a straight man. During the 1999-2000 debate in Vermont over civil unions, the SGA lobbied and protested in support of full-marriage equality rather than civil union. Bill was one of the most vocal supporters, as was Andrea Minkow ’00, SGA president at the time. The whole experience made Bill realize that he could, in fact, find community and be happy living as an openly gay man. His story of coming out to his family, his friends, the SGA officers, and his fraternity really touched me. It’s the closest I’ve come to feeling what that experience must be like for the many who have lived it. Bill took a leave of absence to travel the country and present to other university student governments about how they, too, could advocate for gay rights. When he returned to UVM, he became the first openly gay SGA president. Sarah Poirier ’06 and her running mate became the first female president/vice-president team. Kesha Ram ’08 and her running mate became the first president/vice-president team of color. Reflecting on all of this makes me proud to have appointed and worked with the first openly transgender SGA officer, Vice President Elliot Kennedy ’09.

Career progressions aren’t always linear. In fact, they rarely are.

For the Class of 2013, here’s your lesson: With the possible exception of Elliot Brown— whose deep love and appreciation for political science led him into teaching, legislative affairs, and later to the Department of Justice—no one I interviewed followed a linear career progression. And since I regard each of them as successful in his/her own right, it’s a lesson I encourage you to take to heart. The fact is, the job you take out of college doesn’t have to be the last job you ever take. EXHIBIT A) Alex Wilcox ’94 grew up in Vermont’s Champlain Islands with a love of airplanes. He was even fired from a restau-

rant job during college because he kept leaving early to attend flying lessons. After graduation, he moved to the Midwest where he was the manager for a rock band called “The Naildrivers” that had a following in Indiana and Kansas. After a year or so traveling these two states in a motor home, the band moved to Florida and subsequently broke up. There, Alex worked at fast-food chain Johnny Rockets until he got a job at Miami airport. Before long, he had climbed the ranks and left to become the third employee of JetBlue. (We have Alex to thank for leather seats and live TV in coach as well as UVM’s partnership with JetBlue that helps fund recruiting efforts in inner-city high schools.) Eventually, Alex left JetBlue to start an airline in India and, after successfully getting the company off the ground, he moved back to the United States and started a private jet company he calls “the populist private jet company”—JetSuite—where he is the CEO. EXHIBIT B) Rob Rosen graduated UVM “full of confidence and with zero plan.” He took a job in NYC the summer after graduation, saved his money, then traveled Europe with a friend. When he returned to the United States he moved to Colorado to ski and enjoy the mountains. “I’m glad I had that experience,” he says. “But I knew it was time to get serious.” Before starting law school he worked for Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. After landing an enviable job at a prestigious law firm in Boston and realizing it wasn’t for him, he said “Yes” when his former boss at the Clinton campaign invited him to take a job at the White House. There he worked as part of the core staff, often joining the First Family on vacations. He also worked as the political director for Sen. Ted Kennedy. Today he works for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he has climbed the ranks to be the foundation’s director of the executive office and philanthropic partnerships. In their winding success stories, Alex and Rob certainly aren’t alone among the group of UVM alumni kind enough to share their stories with me. Taken together, they make a strong case for the belief that if you’re smart and follow your heart, good things can happen.

Seattle’s Pike Place, The White House, Rocky Mountains, Dry Tortugas National Park, Los Angeles

3 ONLINE EXTRA Brief profiles/updates on past UVM student government leaders. Lyn Vreeland, ’44 Bill Pickens ’58 Frank Cioffi ’77 Seth Bowden ’07 Kesha Ram ’08 Andrea Minkow ’00 Dale Rocheleau ’80 Rob Miller ’89 Geoff Liggett ’78 Bryant Jones ’05 Elliot Brown ’59 Shelley Scipione ’93 Alex Wilcox ’94 Bill Tickner ’02 Sarah Poirier ’06 Robert Rosen ’90

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uvm.edu/vq

If your goal is to be happy, the “fun” thing to do is probably the right thing to do.

I can’t tell you how many of these individuals told me to have fun and follow my heart. “Easy for you to say,” I would think as they—gainfully employed—bestowed this wisdom upon me. There is this pressure to figure out exactly what it is you’re supposed to do and go do it as hard as you possibly can. That’s why my interview with Geoff Liggett ’78 interrupted my sleep more than any of the other conversations. I interviewed Geoff for a little over an hour near the beginning of this long journey. At the end of that time he said, “OK, turn off that recorder.” Thinking he was about to tell me wild stories about UVM in the late seventies, I eagerly hit the pause button. Then he said, “Now let’s talk about you.” Geoff started his career as a college career counselor. He said, “One of the things I like to do with students is have them make a list of things they like to do. Then we circle the things that go together and see if there’s a job in there. So, what do you like?” I started with “investments” and followed up with “marketing” and then he stopped me. “No, I mean, what do you like?!” I laughed awkwardly, thought for a second, panicked, realized I had no idea, then admitted defeat. As I sat alone in my car for the four hours it takes to drive from Choate Rosemary Hall—where Geoff is the director of development—back to Burlington, the idea that I didn’t really know what I enjoy doing slowly sunk in. At first it felt pathetic. Then I came to terms with the fact that many people probably couldn’t genuinely answer that question. How could I know what kind of job to go after if I didn’t know what I liked? I decided to make that question a primary personal focus for the rest of the trip.

RIDING INTO THE SUNSET When all was said and done, I drove 11,322.2 miles @ 42.2 miles-per-gallon from Vermont to Florida, California to Seattle, and back to Burlington, February 5 to April 14. I interviewed seventeen people: fifteen former SGA presidents, one Pat Brown, and one Lyn Vreeland. I visited or ran into dozens of UVMers, a few childhood friends, and even connected with several distant family members. It hit me as I was pulling out of the parking garage of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s office in Seattle that my interview with Rob Rosen ’90 marked the beginning of the end of my journey. All that was left was a lot of writing and a lot more driving. As I drove away from Seattle and through America’s wide-open spaces, I played out in my head how the article would come together. I knew a couple of themes I wanted to cover, but was really at a loss for how the whole thing would work out. A magazine story can be every bit the journey of a cross-country trip and, with some gentle “nudging” from the editor, this piece has morphed from a collection of SGA president profiles to something more like a personal essay. I was initially very resistant to the idea of making this article more about me than about the people I interviewed. They’re the ones who were interesting enough to interview, I was just the one trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing with my life. But Vermont Quarterly thinks you’ll find that interesting, too. And—assuming you’re still reading—maybe that’s true. As for what’s next: Seattle to Denver, Denver to Burlington, I took the simple advice of Geoff Liggett and thought hard about what I liked. My list was short but workable: Food, mountains, animals, and being outside. I had Rob Rosen’s advice fresh in my brain (“This is the time to gain experience and take risk because it gets harder and harder.”) Then I thought back to the last time I had said: “That’s what I want to do when I’m older!” So I looked up a dude ranch in Wyoming where my family took me as a kid, one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. I applied and was hired to be a wrangler there for the summer. I seriously doubt I’ll be waking up at four in the morning to wrangle horses and/or tourists five years from now. By then, I see myself in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Austin, or Denver, and I think the rest will work itself out. But at the moment, wrangling is what I want to do, and Wyoming is where I want to be. I saddled up on May 15. VQ

ALUMNI CONNECTION

IN THIS ISSUE Dr. Ivers Rifkin ’49 Eliza Goddard ’13 Calendar Paula Oppenheim Cope ’75, G’83 Class Notes In Memoriam

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Disco era do si do.

UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHY

U V M F O U N D AT I O N

ALUMNI

CONNECTION Rifkin Scholarship offers deserving students a leg up

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

assachusetts dentist Dr. Ivers Rifkin ’49 deeply appreciates the education he received at UVM. That experience has inspired him to lend a helping hand to today’s UVM undergrads and future generations with a $100,000 gift to establish The Dr. Ivers Rifkin ’49 Scholarship. “Student financial assistance is our top priority,” says Tom Sullivan, president of UVM. “Dr. Rifkin’s gift creates a legacy that ensures there will be Rifkin scholars, year after year, for generations to come.” Growing up in Brockton, Massachusetts, with his family—his physician father, Abraham, his mother, Rose, his sister, Elaine, and his brother, Ernest—Rifkin graduated from Brockton High School in 1943. The young Rifkin then came to Burlington to begin college, but after his first semester he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Rifkin’s World War II service would be as a radio operator and gunner in the Pacific Theatre, where he was stationed in the Mariana Islands. In the thick of history, Rifkin was on Tinian, base for the Enola Gay, on August 6, 1945, when President Truman announced that the United States had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Proud of his service and with that historic day forever in his memory, Rifkin returned to life stateside and resumed his studies at UVM. After earning a bachelor’s degree, Rifkin was accepted to Tufts University’s dental school where he received a DMD in 1952. Rifkin opened a practice in Bridgewater, where he has been a solo practitioner ever since, serving several generations of families. At the age of eighty-seven, he continues to work three days a week. His longtime employee, Elaine Phaneuf, a dental hygienist and his office manager for thirty-six years, says, “Dr. Rifkin is very caring, understanding, and softhearted. He is proud of his UVM degree, and I’m not surprised that he made such a generous gift to a place that has been so instrumental to his career and so important in his life.” Rifkin makes clear his fondness for the university and concern for its students. “I feel grateful to UVM for giving me the good background that got me into Tufts dental school,” he says. “And not having any children, I wanted to do something for posterity with my money. I know how expensive it is to get a good university education these days and wanted to help deserving students get their degree with a little less worry about how they were paying for it.”

NEW WAYS TO CONNECT To offer alumni of shared interests and common bonds a way to connect on meaningful levels, the UVM Alumni Association and the University of Vermont Foundation recently launched the UVM Alumni Affinity Program. “Our research shows that UVM alumni have gathered around special interests for many years on an ad hoc and informal basis,” says Anuradha Yadav ’96, chair of the UVM Alumni Affinity Program Committee and a member of the UVM Alumni Association Board of Directors. “Often these gatherings were driven by key milestones, such as anniversaries, or by special events important to the community,” adds Alan Ryea, associate vice president of alumni relations. “The UVM Alumni Affinity Program is designed to further cultivate and engage these communities beyond a single event or activity.” Some examples of affinity groups may include • Student activity involvement (Outing Club, student leaders, the Cynic, WRUV) • Professional/career affiliation (environmental, legal, entrepreneurs, educators) • Identity-based groups (ALANA, Greek, Hillel, LGBT) • Regional programs (Chicago, San Francisco, Florida, Philadelphia, Minneapolis)

WHERE TO BEGIN? Check if a group exists by reviewing the current list at alumni.uvm.edu/affinity. If no group exists, alumni can 1. Contact the alumni office. 2. Submit an application form. 3. Obtain approval (applications are reviewed and approved by the UVM Alumni Affinity Program Committee in September, January and April). 4. Sign up for an orientation.

More info: alumni.uvm.edu/affinity

ALFRED GOLDBERG ’50

C A L E N DA R Boston, July 18, 6-9:00 p.m. Young Alumni Social at Tia’s Washington, DC, July 25, 6-8:00 p.m. Summer Social at the Iron Horse New York, NY, August 1, 6-8:00 p.m. Summer Social at the Royal

Ira Allen Society Scholar passionate about learning and life

San Francisco, CA August 11, 1:05 p.m. (PST) Giants Baseball Game

JULY AUG

Washington, D.C., July 13 Bunny Business at Glen Echo Park

Burlington, August 23 Class of 2017 Student Move-In Day Burlington, August 25 Convocation

OCT

n incredible journey began when Eliza Goddard ’13 stepped into a kayak Flushing Meadows, NY, August 27 for the first time during TREK—an orientation program for incoming UVM Night at the US Open students. “That experience was the beginning of the best four years of my life,” says the community-entrepreneurship major who graduated in May. Burlington, October 4-6 Despite what her 3.71 GPA might suggest, Goddard’s studies have not kept Reunion, Homecoming and Family Weekend her shuttered in Bailey/Howe. She has found time to volunteer, tutor felBoston, October 19 low students, study abroad, and be a campus leader in the Student Alumni Community Service Association. New York, NY This combination of superior academics and the drive to do good on October 30, 6-8:00 p.m. campus and in her community led to Goddard’s selection as the inauguUVM night at Sotheby’s ral recipient of the Ira Allen Society Scholarship. Awarded annually, the scholarship recognizes a student who has made outstanding volunteer alumni. for details & registration contributions to the university or his or her community, while maintainuvm.edu ing a meritorious academic record. Collectively, lifetime Ira Allen members have donated more than $260 million to the university since its inception. “The financial burden on my family has been very difficult, with two children in college and the steep rise in tuition for out-of-state students over the past seven years,” notes Goddard. She describes the Ira Allen Society ScholarUVM ALUMNI ASSOCIATION ship as an important cushion that allowed her to enjoy her JOIN US TODAY senior year to the fullest. Part of her senior year has been devoted to spreading the good word about UVM, helping to build support for future generations of students. As the Ira Allen Society Scholar, she was invited to several UVM Foundation events to speak Become a charter lifetime member now and you will receive a about the scholarship and her experience at UVM. During an complimentary copy of a just-released publication, The University event in October 2012, she met Charlie Zabriskie ’53, who of Vermont, a coffee-table book that illuminates UVM present and has since served as a mentor to Goddard, helping her navigate past in text and beautiful color photography. Sustaining members the real-world opportunities awaiting her after graduation. of the UVM Alumni Association provide essential support to the She hopes to find a client-account management position on university and build the worldwide UVM community network Fifth Avenue in NYC. Of her time at UVM and her upcoming even stronger. graduation, Goddard says, “UVM has taught me to embrace Join today. who I am. I will miss it all, but I also look forward to being an alumni.uvm.edu/membership. alum of a school that I am so proud of.”

SUMMER 2013

SALLY MCCAY

GIFT PLANNING

ALUMNI

CONNECTION PR O FI L ES I N G I VI NG

A grateful alumna tells her story INSPIRE OTHERS Planned gifts make an impact at UVM From scholarship funding to stateof-the-art facilities, we rely on you to help us keep our programs competitive. Together, we are working toward a strong future for the University of Vermont and our students. When you extend your support by naming UVM as a beneficiary of your IRA or estate plan, your special relationship with students will continue as a part of your legacy for years to come. In addition to the satisfaction of making a difference, your gift could also earn you: • Membership in UVM’s Wilbur Society. • Tax incentives and other financial benefits. • Increased financial security.

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

You may also visit alumni.uvm.edu/ estateplanning to access free brochures on popular planned-giving and estateplanning topics. Topics include: • How to Prepare to Meet With Your Attorney • Who Should Inherit Your IRA? (How Family Members Lose Out) • Strengthen Your Future With a Charitable Gift Annuity

Visit alumni.uvm.edu/giftplanning to start planning your gift. To learn more about structuring your gift to maximize its benefits, contact Becky Arnold ’77, director of gift planning, at 802-6569535 or toll-free at 888-458-8691.

www.alumni.uvm.edu/giftplanning

hen Paula Oppenheim Cope ’75, G’83 took to the podium to accept the 2012 Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award last October, she shared what she said was “my story.” It wasn’t the story most who knew her well were familiar with— that of a successful consultant, facilitator, and training specialist who is president of Cope & Associates, Inc., a management consulting and training firm based in Burlington; of the volunteer who has worked tirelessly on behalf of UVM and its Alumni Association for years; and of the published author and healthcare expert who has spoken widely on the economics of child care, total quality management, and volunteerism. She focused her story instead on a 16-year-old girl who arrived on campus in the early 1970s penniless, without parents or guardians to help and advise her, and uncertain about to whom she could turn. She followed her instincts, though, and soon found herself in the Financial Aid Office, where she met a man named Rodger Summers. “He was an incredible mentor for me,” she says. In what Cope remembers as a remarkable display of courage and problem solving, “Rodger made it possible for me to remain at UVM.” Summers arranged for her to stay on campus over break periods, helped her secure legal status as an emancipated minor and in-state resident, and con-

nected her to a network of people who helped her find part-time jobs. “When I graduated from UVM four years later, it was Rodger Summers who was there at my graduation with a dozen roses,” she says with obvious emotion. Summers would later become UVM’s associate dean of students. During her time at UVM, Cope was a self-driven student leader, active in founding both Women in ROTC and UVM Rescue, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Cope also was active on campus in the Hillel organization. It was gratitude for that UVM experience that led Cope and her husband, Timothy, to make an estate gift establishing the Cope Family Fund. The fund honors Rodger Summers and can be used to help students, like Cope, “who enter the University under unusual circumstances, when counselors are at a loss and no rules apply.” Eligible students must be enrolled in an undergraduate program and demonstrate financial need, with preference given to UVM Rescue or UVM Hillel participants, not to exclude other qualified candidates. “UVM was a safe place for me to grow up,” Cope says today. SALLY MCCAY

CLASS NOTES

new

UVM

ALUMNI

DIR EC TORY

A new alumni directory will be published in January 2014 that will help you connect with friends and fellow alumni around the world. Watch for a letter, email, or call from PCI to update your information.

LIFE BEYOND GRADUATION

alumni.uvm.edu/ alumnidirectory

‘‘

Toby Cohen Sacks and her husband, Michael, are enjoying the empty nest, ice cream for dinner, and trips that don’t involve school vacations.

80TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Loraine Spaulding Dwyer, an alumna of the engineering school, authored several books on local history and worked for various Vermont newspapers. After living in Underhill, Vermont, for fifty

years, she now lives at the Converse Home in Burlington, where she continues to read books, papers, and magazines daily. Loraine will celebrate her 100th birthday in October. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

75TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

39 40

’’

Send your news to— Mary Shakespeare Minckler 100 Wake Robin Drive Shelburne, VT 05482 Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Henry McGinty reports from Abilene, Texas, that “At ninetyfour years of age, I am healthy, wealthy, and very happy in my lifestyle. Helen Keedy ’40, my wife for fifty-four years, whom we all loved, has been gone for seventeen years. A couple of years ago when our daughter Ruth’s husband died, I invited her to move back into the room where she grew up, which she did. Now she and her sister, Helen, who has retired from teaching first grade after forty-seven years, do women’s club, church, service club, and grandchildren together. I now have three great grandchildren spread from Virginia to Arizona. Love, happiness, and good things fill our lives.”

Send your news to— Maywood Metcalf Kenney 44 Birch Road Andover, MA 01810 maywoodak@comcast.net

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

70TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. I apologize for not submitting a column for the winter issue. I was in the middle of a move from my home in Fair Haven, Vermont, to a retired-senior community, The Maples, in Rutland, Vermont. I am happy to report that I am very contented in my new abode, although I must admit it wasn’t easy getting from there to here. I survived it through the Christmas festivities and lots of snow. God is good! During the

SUMMER 2013

35 36

Send your news to— Ray W. Collins, Jr., M.D. 15 South Street Middlebury, VT 05753

— Class of ’73

CLASS NOTES holiday season I heard from Ziggie Wysolmerski, who lives in his home in Rutland during the winter and at Lake St. Catherine during the summer months; Patty Pike Hallock, also living in Rutland; Dick Swift’s widow, Carol, who lives in Florida, and appreciates receiving the Quarterly; and Lucille Clark Myron ’42, who resides in California with her husband of sixty-six years. All are well. Harry Twitchell and his bride, Betty, have very much enjoyed their first year of married life, except for Tropical Storm Sandy. Send your news to— June Hoffman Dorion Unit 114, 3 General Wing Road Rutland, VT 05701 jdorion@myfairpoint.net

Ione Lacy Keenan passed away on on February 12, 2013. Ione was a member of Sigma Gamma Sorority, Omicron Nu, and Phi Beta Kappa. It was also her pleasure to be a member of the allgirl band after the ROTC band was called up for active duty. In addition to working as a medical assistant in her husband’s medical practice for forty years, Ione enjoyed a life-long career in volunteering. For one year, she also taught dietetics to student nurses in the Department of Home Economics at UVM. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

I’m not receiving much news from the class of ’46. I’m sure you are all doing something exciting, even if it is moving to someplace smaller, which I expect to do soon. I was at a senior (old folks) dance in Burlington recently, where I was happy to find Virginia Campbell Downs whirling around the dance floor. She is enjoying life at Shelburne Bay in South Burlington, a senior independent-living facility. Send your news to—

Harriet Bristol Saville 203 Deer Lane, #4 hattiesaville@comcast.net

Mary Kinerson Quimby passed away on October 23, 2012. Cynthia Quimby Young ’68, Mary’s daughter, wrote that her mother loved UVM and the time she spent there and was proud of the fact that Cynthia followed her to UVM. Mary was a strong advocate for social justice and was active in civic affairs and the Democratic Party. She served the State of Vermont in many capacities and later had her own real estate business. The Quimbys retired to North Carolina and then to Tennessee. As for myself, I’m not doing much, but I did thoroughly enjoy our snowy winter, even though I’m not skiing any more. Send your news to— Louise Jordan Harper 15 Ward Avenue South Deerfield, MA 01373 louisejordanharper@yahoo.com

65TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Carleton Whittemore Sprague, who lives in Port Isabel, Texas, reports that his wife of fiftyeight plus years passed away in March 2012. He is still enjoys playing golf and has eleven hole-in-one attested certificates. Email alumni@ uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Doris Galloway Cassiday was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Charter Oak State College in June 2012. In 2013, she was named a Distinguished Nominee for Administrative Award by the Connecticut American Council on Education Women’s Network. Harold Raymond Garinger passed away on October 30, 2012. With a strong interest in airplanes, Harold entered a Cadet Train-

ing Program and was flying to Europe in early September 1945, when the war ended—so he turned the plane around and landed in Nova Scotia. He and another pilot worked their way south and ended up walking the campus of UVM, wearing their Army uniforms. Seeing them on campus, the university president thanked them for their service to the country and asked when they wanted to enroll. Harold was proud when his grandson Jeffrey entered UVM as a freshman in the fall of 2012. Nancy Toby Shisler writes that she and her husband, Joseph, moved from Zepherhills to Winter Garden, Florida, to be closer to their children. As a fifteenyear volunteer at the hospital and a member of a barbershop chorus and Christian aerobics class, she hopes to find similar groups in their new location. William Elgood, also known as ‘the Deacon’ by his Sigma Phi brothers, died January 21 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After three years in the U.S. Maritime in World War II, he received a B.A. degree from University of Vermont and then an M.A. degree in speech and library science from University of Michigan, where he later taught and coached debate. Bill went on to become director of General Motors Institute’s Library for over twenty years. Another classmate, William Towle, D.M.D. died in Venice, Florida, January 30. He served in the Army Air Corps in World War II in North Africa and Italy. After receiving a B.A. degree from UVM, where he was a member of Sigma Nu, he graduated from Tufts Dental School in 1952 and served with the U.S. Army Dental Corps Reserve. Bill practiced general dentistry in Richford for thirty-five years, served as a hospital volunteer, and was active in many civic organizations. As this went to the Alumni office at the end of March, your class secretary and Al Callahan were enjoying being “snowbirds” in New Smyrna Beach. Send your news to— Arline (Pat) Brush Hunt 236 Coche Brook Crossing West Charleston, VT 05872 pat.hunt@kingcon.com

Robert and Barbara ’52 (Hayden) Dufresne were saddened by the unexpected death of their only daughter, Susan, on September 12, 2012. Although

Susan lived near her parents in Florida, her love always remained in Vermont, where she is now buried. Winston Arthur Way of North Hero, Vermont, passed away January 26, 2013. After completing a master’s program in agronomy at UVM, Win stayed on at the university and became the extension agronomist for Vermont, a position he enjoyed for thirty-two years. He became well known locally for his television programs on WCAX’s “Across The Fence,” as well as the numerous articles he wrote and lectures he presented in small towns throughout Vermont. Win, who loved his work and educating people, described himself as leading a “charmed and charming life.” Hedi Ballantyne, class secretary, has been reluctant to submit personal news, but reports that three years ago her husband had a heart valve replacement operation and last June suffered a stroke that affected his speech and swallowing. “After a few set-backs in the summer, he is now home in my care and making improvements. He enjoyed celebrating his 90th birthday in Stowe with a family gathering at the Stoweflake Resort during the UVM Alumni gathering there. We were easily the oldest people at that event and got our pictures taken.” Send your news to— Hedi Ballantyne 20 Kent Street Montpelier, VT 05602 hedi.ballantyne@gmail.com

Harry and Beth Lohr McCarthy, who spend their winters in Fort Myers, Florida, recently had dinner with Ray Vescovi and his wife, Sue, also in Florida for the winter. They hear regularly from Lee and Gloria MacDonald ’52, who are retired in Colorado. Harry and Beth returned to Quechee, Vermont, in early May for the summer. Barbara Jones Coussement reports that she has been a patron of the Lyric Opera of Chicago since moving to Wheaton, Illinois, in 1971. Barbara was selected Volunteer of the Year for her Chapter of the Lyric organization in 2012, for which she was recognized by the Lyric Board of Directors at a formal dinner at Chicago’s Four Seasons Hotel . “Go LYRIC and Go CATS!” she cheers. Email alumni@uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class

secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Bobbi (Leenhouts) and Neil Towne had all their plans made for attending the 60th anniversary of their graduation from UVM last fall, but Bobbi’s recovery from a torn rotator cuff made it impossible. They had planned to drive from California, where they live, cross-country once more before they have to surrender their drivers’ licenses. They had been in touch with Walter Barnes and his wife over the years, until Walt’s death in 2011, and are still in touch with Mimi Beauvais Lyons. Mary Jane Borah Healy of North Hero, Vermont, has published her second book, Deeds and Misdeeds, based on the errors and omissions revealed by her research into 200-year-old land deeds of North Hero, Vermont. Her first book, Rebel’s Reward, is the result of years of research to determine the locations of the 100 orig-

inal rights on North Hero Island granted to Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys by the Vermont Assembly. The original map is presumed to have been destroyed by fire many years ago, and Mary Jane’s work has determined the approximate locations of the rights. Email alumni@uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

60TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. To prepare for our sixtieth reunion, do send some news about your life for our next issue so that classmates will be prepared to include you in happy chats in October. Please include “UVM” in the subject area so that I won’t mistakenly delete your message. Send your news to—

Nancy Hoyt Burnett 729 Stendhal Lane Cupertino, CA 95014 nanhiker@aol.com

Robert W. Foster writes that he is, “Still providing dispute resolution services in engineering and surveying. Still writing. Still traveling—to Beirut to visit eldest son and family and to near/ distant points. Still moving at threequarter speed with reconstructed knee.” Harriet (Nicki) Nicholson Suo moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2004, after her husband’s death. Her son and his family live there, and Nicki reports that “. . . it’s a wonderfully unique city. I also love being here to enjoy my two granddaughters who are six and almost four. I work out with a personal trainer twice a week and I highly recommend it for staying young!” Kathryn Wendling, class secretary, hopes to get updates from classmates. “I am happy and doing well in Vermont,” she says, “and look forward to hearing from you!” Send your news to— Kathryn Dimick Wendling Apt. 1, 34 Pleasant Street

Woodstock, VT 05091

Dick Lewis reports that he recently had lunch with Brad Gordon in Scottsdale, Arizona. Doctor Brad has retired and spends his time between Arizona and Newport Beach, California. Dick says he keeps plugging along in plumbing supply. Edward Richard McElwee passed away on September 2, 2012. He was an Owl of the Lambda Iota Fraternity. Send your news to— Jane Morrison Battles Apt. 125A 500 East Lancaster Avenue Wayne, PA 19087 janebattles@yahoo.com Hal Greenfader 805 South LeDoux Road Los Angeles, CA 90035 halisco@att.net

Lee Hitchcock is still living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he keeps busy with his church choir, the fire department, Masonic Lodge, Shrine, and the Grand Strand Fire Inspectors Associa-

Green Living At Wake Robin, residents have designed and built three miles of walking trails. Each Spring, we make maple syrup in the community sugar house and each Fall, we harvest honey from our bee hives. We compost, plant gardens, and work with staff to follow earth-friendly practices, conserve energy and use locally grown foods. Live the life you choose—in our vibrant community that shares your “green” ideals. We’re happy to tell you more. Visit our website or give us a call today to schedule a tour.

Celebrating 20 Years of Building Community

200 WA K E R O B I N D R I VE, SH EL B U R N E, VER M O N T 05482

SUMMER 2013

802.264.5100 / wakerobin.com

CLASS NOTES tion. If you are down that way, give him a call. Audrey Rubin Stein finds retirement another remarkably exciting time of life, with more time to continue to travel to remote parts of the world and share this passion with her grandchildren . . . one at a time. She returned to Nepal in April, where she had been twice in the the late 1980s, this time going to the Kingdom of Mustang. Visit her website at www.passionate-traveler.com Send your news to— Jane Stickney 32 Hickory Hill Road Williston, VT 05495 stickneyjane@yahoo.com

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

Hollis Seavey Howard passed away on February 11, 2013, in Dallas, Texas. Ann Barton Manciagli married Giacomo (Jim) Manciagli fifty-four years ago in Connecticut. They have four children and seven grandchildren. Jim was employed by Amoco Oil Company, and they lived abroad for twenty-five years. Upon his retirement, they moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, where they have happily resided for the past twenty years. Bob Wolfe writes, “The head lights from our 55th class reunion can now be seen in our rear view mirror. Before you know it we shall start planning our 60th in 2017. For those who attended, a good time was had and the rest can only wonder what they missed. To those of you who made the telephone calls and sent emails to boost the event to our classmates, many thanks.” Email alumni@uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

55TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Judy Rosenblum Cohen and her husband, Richard, traveled to Antarctica in January. They now have bragging rights, as they have been to all seven continents, above the Arctic

Circle, and below the Antarctic Circle. They even did the polar plunge, taking a short (very short) swim in the Antarctic waters. Marcella “Chellie” Webbe Elliot is living with her daughter and her family in Monroe, North Carolina, where they moved last June. She reports that it is lovely and very friendly there, and she is finding plenty to do. Alan Young is a retired mechanical engineer living in Northern California. He notes that, “I worked for IBM in 1961, and at that time we had some powered iron in water we painted on the data recording tape so we could see the memory bits. Now they are just a few atoms wide.” He and his wife have seven kids and ten grandchildren. Fellow alums can email Alan at alanmyoung@hotmail. com. Andy Skroback reminds classmates that the 55th reunion will take place October 4 to 6, 2013—a funfilled weekend to get reacquainted. Please plan to attend. Andy and his wife, Barbara Evans ’59, recently met with Dick and Ann Lee White to start the ball rolling on weekend plans, and Alan Fields says if there is enough interest in the “musical show” depicting the class of ’58’s days at UVM, he will fly in from Arizona. Please email andrewskroback@verizon.net if you would like to participate. Andy is also looking for volunteers willing to call classmates and encourage their attendance; he will provide updated information (telephone and email addresses) for classmates in your sorority, fraternity, or field of study if you would like to re-connect with them. In a personal update, Andy reports that after twenty years in the trust industry with Bank of Boston, he opened his own investment advisor firm, Skroback and Associates. He and Barbara have always felt it necessary to give back to the community they live in, and some of Andy’s rewarding community experiences included serving as past president and honorary trustee for life of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He has also served on a multitude of boards. He and Barbara have four children, three who graduated from UVM, and nine grandchildren, one who graduated this past year from UVM. The Whites and Skrobacks look forward to seeing you at the 55th. Email alumni@uvm. edu if you are interested in serving as

class secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Frank Smith wrote from Colorado with an update and to lay claim to a rare distinction—he has two former Vermont governors in his family. During his UVM days Frank helped coach the women’s ski team. He was an active member of the USMC Special Infantry Unit, serving as a platoon leader and retiring as a major. As for that gubernatorial connection, Frank’s greatgreat grandfathers were John Gregory Smith, governor in the 1800s, and Edward Curtis Smith, governor in the early 1900s. When he visited Vermont for his thirty-fifth class reunion, Frank stopped by the statehouse in Montpelier for a look at his distinguished ancestors’ portraits. Nancy Hoppen Lawrence is still in Palm Beach Gardens and selling real estate in Florida with her own company, Lawrence Associates. She sees George Rossi every so often, most recently in May at his granddaughter’s wedding. Karl Herbert Raab tells us that he has no time for retirement. He is busy promoting the music of Richard Stoehr (1874–1967), who was a St. Michael’s College professor and composer; has produced a CD for ORF (Austrian National Radio) and concerts in Austria, Canada, and several U.S. states, including an upcoming Vermont Philharmonic performance in 2014; and is also general manager of Lord Byng Symphony Orchestra (lbso.ca) in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he lives. He winters in Berlin with his wife, Eveline, who works for the German Foreign Office. Janet Dauchy Celuzza is living in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and would love to hear from any med tech classmates. She is on Facebook. Send your news to— Henry Shaw, Jr. 112 Pebble Creek Road Columbia, SC 29223 hshaw@sc.rr.com

Paul R. Salvage has been honored as a New England “Super Lawyer,” a distinction achieved by only five percent of New England lawyers, based on experi-

ence, professional achievement, and peer recognition. Paul is the co-chairman of the insolvency department at the Springfield-based firm of Bacon Wilson, P.C. He has also served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals Bankruptcy Judge Merit Selection Panel and is a frequent lecturer before various bar association groups on the areas of reorganization and creditor/ debtor rights. Fred Kolstrom reports that he and his wife, Yvette ’73, have achieved several of the world travel objectives awarded by International Travel News magazine (ITN), a list that required nearly fifty years to complete. It includes the ITN 100 Nations Award, given to those who travel to 100 or more nations, and the Phileas Fogg Award for travel to all the countries mentioned in Around the World in Eighty Days, among many others. Email alumni@uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

John Wesley Shannon, who lives in New Hartford, New York, retired from General Electric Company in April 1993 after twenty-six years of service as an accountant and unit manager. He was also an adjunct instructor at Mohawk Valley Community College, teaching accounting in the evenings while his children were in college. For the past fifteen years, John has been involved with AARP Tax Aides. His son is an executive at BAE Systems, a British firm; his younger daughter is a doctor of optometry; and his other daughter is an office manager at a printing company. John has five wonderful grandchildren, three in college and two in high school. Joe Buley had his book, In the Shadows—The Memoir of a Professional Civil Engineer, released during Engineer’s Week in February. Comments from the inside cover trailer note that, “In this unusual memoir, Mr. Buley recounts his successful fifty-year career as a professional civil engineer, taking the reader into his personal and business life to show the interaction of family, social, and political events that shaped his technical career.” Graham Phelps retired from the Veterans Adminis-

THANKS

Chatty Cats, the Annual Giving office’s student phonathon callers, received more than $1 million in gift commitments from you—our very generous alumni and friends—during the last academic year. Of that, more than $33,000 was matched by commitments from donors’ employers. Your generosity ensures affordability, enhances academics, and enriches campus life—all of which improve UVM’s reputation. Your generosity makes a tremendous difference in UVM students’ lives. Thank you.

Lexington, MA 02420 steveberrydhs@gmail.com

Forrest “Woody” Manning has been working on his family tree after learning that some of his family emigrated from England and others came from France. He has met on-line many relatives from around the world. “A lot of work, but extremely interesting,” he says. Woody also does substitute teaching in local schools. Patricia Gitt has written a new novel, asap—as soon as possible, which was selected as Angie’s Diary Book of the Week for the week of February 3. Barbara Rifkin Levy reports that life in Arizona is wonderful (despite the politics!). She is currently serving as the chair of the board of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and enjoying the challenge. Her consulting practice is being whittled down . . . no more fundraising campaigns, just work with board and staff to help with planning and fundraising education. She and her husband, Marty, are fast approaching their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Their two sons continue to work 24/7 in their respective restaurants: Doug is chef/owner of Feast in Tucson, and Mitch is chef/ owner of Cuvée in Basalt, Colorado. Both are married, and Mitch has provided three grandchildren for Barbara and Marty to enjoy. Charles Wesley Stevens credits his Vermont education with propelling and preparing him to obtain a job on Wall Street. After thirty-nine years and increasing responsibilities at the same firm, he is retired and living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Geri, whom he met in New York City, are enjoying a good life. They have one son, an attorney, who, with another attorney, owns two law firms in Pennsylvania. Their two grandsons are not yet old enough to decide what they wish to do in life. Jay McGowan sends a big “thank you” to everyone who

had anything to do with reunion. He and his wife, Pat ’61, agreed it was the best UVM reunion they’ve ever attended. In their news, he and Pat left New Jersey three days before Storm Sandy hit. Their 28-day, 5,000mile road trip took them from New Jersey to South Florida, up the west coast, then to Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, visiting friends and family along the way before heading home. “Life is good and we are having a blast,” says Jay. Sandra Schindlinger Honig-Haftel reports that the Haftels recently sailed to South America and the Antarctic—an awesome journey around the Antarctic Peninsula to the Falklands and Tierra del Fuego, following Magellan’s and Darwin’s journeys. They also enjoyed their 50th reunion last year and keep in contact with Marion (Gang) Banks, Marge (Coleman) Berg, Roanne (Bockar) Katcher. Dr. Jeff Steckler practices near Venice, Florida, where Sandy lives, so they are in touch sometimes. She and her husband also have a home in East Hampton, Connecticut, travel quite a bit, and are generally enjoying their retirement years as snowbirds, parents, and grandparents. Sandy would love to hear from any and all old friends. Deanne Siemer has been a trial lawyer and for many years has taught trial advocacy courses for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and for private client (usually corporate) law offices. In 2011, along with two long-time teaching colleagues, she turned to video delivered via a website, which can reach a much wider audience. She practices law for six months a year, in the winter, and is an active farmer during the summer. The farm, a little more than 200 acres in rural western New York, is prospering despite quite a few things that intellectually seemed promising, but “on the ground,” so to speak, did not work out so well.

Send your news to— Patricia Hoskiewicz Allen 14 Stony Brook Drive Rexford, NY 12148 traileka@aol.com

50TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Raymond Johnson has been named president of the American Academy of Health Physics. He has served as the dean of administration for a health physics society professional development school on lessons learned from Fukushima, conducted several workshops, and written more than a dozen articles and papers on radiation safety. Last September, he was named man of the year by the Oakdale Emory United Methodist Church and welcomed grandchild number fourteen. Jeffrey Falk, class president, looks forward to seeing members of the Class of ’63 in October. Contact him if you would like to participate in reunion planning. Jeff will be in Burlington on Thursday, October 3; if you’re there and want to meet, please email him. Kae Gleason Dakin cheers, “One, two, three, yeah for ’63! Can you believe it’s our 50th? Hope to see many many of us ’63ers in Burlington in October. It will be a great weekend, especially if lots of us come. See you there.” Toni Mullins, class secretary, also has reunion on her mind. Reunion is only a couple of months away, she writes, and by now I hope that you have made your plans for October 4 to 6. The weekend will start with a cocktail reception on Friday evening in Waterman Manor. Saturday will offer music, entertainment, and local vendors all day as well as tours and historic walks. That evening we will have a 50th Reunion class celebration dinner at Burlington Country Club.

SUMMER 2013

tration in 1996 and is now living in a seniors’ retirement high rise in Salt Lake City. This spring he went on a tour in Europe (Spain, Portugal, and Morocco), before traveling to Japan in early May to visit his old stomping grounds. Adele Kahwajy reports, “I am still retired and enjoying it. I have become a ‘movie buff’ and now have about 400 DVDs. Movie theaters in San Antonio, Texas, have very loud sound systems, and most of the time, I can’t stand it. So, I started collecting the DVDs. It has been delightful, especially when I come across an oldie from my pre-teen days. Visitors to San Antonio can find me in the phone book by remembering how to spell my last name with an “h” as the third letter: Kahwajy.” Judy Enright Daly is going to Ireland in July with son David, his wife, Holly, and their three young sons, Finn, Michael, and Cashel. Bob Hobbie emailed “The highlight of 2012 for us was celebrating Joyce’s and my fiftieth anniversary. We spent a month trying to be Italian in a lovely farm house in Tuscany. Our children and grandchildren came for two weeks. We enjoyed day trips to the surrounding cities—Radda, Pienza, Siena, San Gimignano, and Florence, to name a few. Susan and Jan Mashman, our great friends and UVM classmate, spent a week with us when our family was not there. It was a memorable experience.” Roger Zimmerman reports that after two years in India, his daughter Heather has been home since Thanksgiving. It’s great. In January, he and Lynne ran another very successful trip to Yellowstone, where he’s been a backcountry ski guide for twenty-seven years. Anybody interested in that trip for next year can give him a buzz or email zimozimmy@yahoo.com. Since then he has been guiding skiing in Maine, continuing to work in his other profession, and studying to become a Master Maine Naturalist. Louise and Steve Berry have been travelling. In February, they both skied in Courchevel, France, and Steve continued on for a second week in Zermatt. Upon returning home, Steve spent a week skiing in Utah. In May, the Berrys spent two weeks traveling through Turkey. Send your news to— Steve Berry 8 Oakmont Circle

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CLASS NOTES

Finally, on Sunday morning the Class of 1963 will be recognized as the newest member of the Green & Gold club at the Green & Gold Brunch. We designated the Doubletree Inn on Williston Road for our class housing. If you have not already done so, please make your reservations as soon as possible—802-658-0250. Of course, you are welcome to stay elsewhere, at venues such as the Sheraton, Hilton, or Courtyard Marriott, where UVM has blocked a number of rooms at a discounted price for reunion. We class secretaries don’t often write about ourselves; yet I was asked by an UVM associate how I came to be the class secretary. I don’t really remember how that happened! I do remember one reunion when Sara Moreau Gear, Allen Gear, Frank Bolden, Jeff Falk, and I were lounging on the campus lawn and the subject came up about continuing as secretary and as president for Jeff. There was an informal vote at that night’s banquet and here we are still at it for fifty years. Begin thinking about memories and photos that you would like to share in the 50th Reunion Memory Book. Linda Hicks Deftos is looking forward to reunion. Since graduation from UVM, she received an M.A. in speech language pathology from Columbia Teachers College. She lived for a brief time in Needham, Massachusetts, then moved with her three children to Del Mar, California, where she worked full time as a speech language pathologist in the San Diego Unified School District. Her three children graduated from University of California Santa Cruz, University of California San Diego, and University of California Berkeley. She has two surviving children: a son, who works as a pathologist for the Santa Clara County Hospital in San Jose, and a daughter, who works in a Montessori preschool. Linda retired in 2009 and travels extensively. She has three grandchildren, and thoroughly enjoys her retirement with them, as well as sewing, reading, making beaded jewelry, cooking, and traveling. Send your news to— Toni Citarella Mullins 210 Conover Lane Red Bank, NJ 07701 tonicmullins@verizon.net

Linda Deliduka is enjoying retirement and has taken two great river cruises with classmate and friend Frances Lillyman. They have been from Saint Petersburg to Moscow, from Istanbul to Athens and through the Greek Isles, and are in the process of deciding where to go this year. Betsy Stern Becker, Ellen Stark Gold, Barbara Leff Kauke, and Ilene Hofbinder Rosenthal celebrated their joint 70th birthdays by spending a lovely weekend together in Philadelphia sightseeing, eating, and catching up. “We had so much fun that we decided not to wait another seventy years to do it again,” reported Betsy. Hugh J. Harley III is still skiing at Stowe— almost as much as when he was at UVM. He is also active with the UVM Alumni Association and the Vermont Regional Board. Abbott Brayton reports the publication of his second book, Outpost Scotland, a historical novel set in Scotland’s Western Highlands during the early stages of World War II. His third book, a sequel, is nearing completion and may be out in early 2014 if all goes well. Fully retired from three professions, writing is more of a retirement hobby. Abbott and his wife, Esta, split their time between Vermont and Knoxville, Tennessee. Send your news to— Susan Barber 1 Oak Hill Road P.O. Box 63 Harvard, MA 01451 suebarber@verizon.net

Jerolyn “Jerry” Kudola Allen tells us “After twenty years in the South, we still love it. No snow and beautiful springs with azalea and native dogwoods. I have been for many years and continue to be very active as a volunteer guardian ad litem, advocating for abused and neglected children—a very rewarding endeavor, but a far cry from my math degree. My husband and I find time to travel overseas several times a year. The highlight this year will be visiting Greenland. A hint to finding West Union, South Carolina, on the map—it is not near Union, and is a very small town!” Barbara Hoffman Mow just spent three and half months in a lovely beach house at

la Jolla Shores, California. It was a great choice for such a snowy winter. Her last three-month sabbatical was in Hong Kong on Victoria Peak and next year will be in Miami Beach. She and her husband, Van, still continue their travels to Europe and Asia, as Van is invited to do seminars and lectures. They hike, fish, play tennis, and so forth, but have been missing skiing. Not bad for not yet being retired. “We miss Vermont and the Northeast,” commented Barbara. “There is no place like home, but our grandkids are in California and Hong Kong.” John Westcott writes from Catharpin, Virginia, that he is completing ten years as business development director at the Boeing Company. He and his wife, Pamela, completed a long trip to Maui and the West Coast last fall and recently returned from a business trip to London. They enjoy spending time with their five grandchildren and their two labradoodles. John will always be glad to hear from old friends. Send your news to— Colleen Denny Hertel 14 Graystone Circle Winchester, MA 01890 Colleenhertel@hotmail.com

Edward Varney married Betty Haines (Mary Fletcher School of Nursing) following his graduation from UVM, and they were sent to Heidelberg, Germany, where he was CO of the 519th Car Company in the U.S. Army. Upon returning to the States, he worked in New York City in fashion packaging before moving to Meredith, New Hampshire, where he became an account rep for Batesville Casket Company. He traveled Vermont and New Hampshire for thirtysix years, which allowed him to see the growth of UVM over the years. Ed and his wife have two children: their son, Adam, works for USAA, and their daughter, Sarah, is a senior staff writer for Kaiser Health News. In 2010 they retired to sunny Anthem, Arizona. John Rie is enjoying retirement. He and his wife, Deb, spent the six cold months last year sailing to the Bahamas and back. This year they’re skiing once again, and enjoying the two of their four grandchildren who live about five minutes away from them. They are active in their local community of Westbrook, Connecticut. This summer will be devoted to

fishing and sailing. Skip Meacham retired twenty years ago, following a successful career in the corporate world, to pursue a second career as a mason, repairing concrete swimming pools. After ten years of punishing his body in that line of work (no gym required), he is now enjoying full retirement—golf, skiing, riding his Harley, and the Atlantic City casinos and beach. Skip would like to hear from other classmates, particularly Jeff Hider and Joe Furgal ’64. Class secretary Kathleen Nunan McGuckin reports that Susan Quick has retired from the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell and is enjoying her free time and no schedule. Sue sold her Clydesdales in 2011 and also one mare she bred that is supreme over all other draft breeds for 2012 in the Canadian Maritimes, which was a thrill for Sue. She keeps busy with hand spinning, knitting, and planning her garden, and hopes that our classmates are well and enjoying their retirements, too. Milton Jepson worked for Pratt & Whitney for thirtyfive years, beginning in East Hartford, Connecticut, and ending in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he now resides. He is retired and working part-time as an elementary school teacher in Palm Beach County. Milt and his wife, Phyllis, have three children, two of whom are also teachers. Anne Appleton Weller has moved to Cumming, Georgia, to be closer to family, after many years of living and working in Missouri. In February, she visited my husband, Ken McGuckin, and me in St. Augustine, where we have been spending our winters. Yes, retirement is good! Send your news to— Kathleen Nunan McGuckin P. O. Box 2100 Montpelier, VT 05601 kkmcguckin@prodigy.net

William Meezan was awarded an honorary degree at the University of Vermont’s 211th commencement in May. Bill has devoted his distinguished career as a scholar, educator, and expert consultant to improving the lives of America’s most vulnerable children. He is a distinguished visiting professor at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, holding the Mary Ann Quaranta Chair in Social Justice for Children. Previously, he served as

director of policy and research at Children’s Rights, a national advocacy group working to protect abused and neglected children. He has been a Congressional Science Fellow and a Senior Fulbright Scholar in the Baltic States, helping launch the first social work programs in the former Soviet Union. Class secretary Jane Kleinberg Carroll writes, “It was my pleasure to have dinner with Bill and his husband, Mike Brittenback, after attending “Juvenile in Justice,” Richard Ross’s exhibit at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York. For the past five years, Richard has photographed and interviewed inmates ranging in age from ten to their early twenties at more than 200 juvenile detention facilities in thirty-one states.” The New York Times: “Conceptually, the show is a sobering trip down the dead-end street that is America’s prison system. Visually, it’s as gripping as any art around.” For more about Richard’s work, see www. juvenile-in-justice. com. Vicki Norton Remsen recently co-authored a book called In This Moment . . . the little book of emotions. The pocket-sized book is intended as a resource to provide a way to simply and easily acknowledge emotions that arise in our everyday lives, give them a voice, and release them. For more information visit www. inthismomentbook. com or www. lonelotus.com. George Fortier and his wife are now living in Meridian, Idaho, to be nearer to their daughter and family. He retired from dentistry in Windsor, Vermont, almost nine years ago. Send your news to— Jane Kleinberg Carroll 44 Halsey Street, Apt. 3 Providence, RI 02906 jane.carroll@cox.net

Save the date—The Class of 1968 will be inviting you to attend their 45th Reunion in October 2013. Irvin Paradis retired at the end of May—forty years of practicing pulmonary medicine was enough. For the last forty years, he also has been happily married to Cindy Fox, a Class of 1973 nursing alumna. Their three sons and two grandchildren all live out west and want them to move there, but New England holds Irvin and Cindy fast. Send your news to— Mary Moninger-Elia 1 Templeton Street West Haven, CT 06516 melia1112@comcast.net

Save the date—The Class of 1968 will be inviting you to attend their 45th Reunion in October 2013. Gregory McHugo received a Ph.D. in psychology in 1979 and has been on the faculty at Dartmouth College ever since. He currently works at the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center, conducting mental health services research. He has been married twice and has two sons, a daughter, and a granddaughter. Greg spends as much time as possible outdoors at home in Strafford, Vermont, and at his camp in Greensboro. Send your news to— Doug Arnold 11608 Quail Village Drive, #3 Naples, FL 34119 darnold@arnold-co.com

David Pierce is finishing his fortieth year of teaching physics at Tabor Academy in Marion, Massachusetts. His wife, Connie, teaches French at Tabor. This fall he was awarded the David H. Byron Award for Outstanding Service to Science Education by the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers. Lynne Saxton Smith loves living in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and spending summers at Bantam Lake, Connecticut. Her three daughters are spread out across the U.S.: Kristen resides with her husband in Frederick, Maryland; Cindy lives in Hawaii with her husband; and Lauren, who will be getting married in March, lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. She and her family are very excited to be traveling to Hawaii for the first time to visit Cindy this spring. Lynne would love to hear from any of her sorority sisters; contact her at h2oskier4@sccoast.net. Christine Mosher Labone is living in Trigg, Western Australia, and working at Fremantle Hospital Biochemistry Department as a senior shift scientist. While enjoying the West Australian lifestlye, she misses the snow and mountains of Vermont. Class secretary Sarah Sprayregen sends greetings from campus. I want to lead my class notes with the welcome news that I have found Jason Robards. He called me recently and we had a terrific chat. He’s living in St. Paul, Minnesota, where his daughter, Laura, grew up. Jason is totally enjoying his time as Mr. Mom to his eleven-yearold son, Greg, noting bowling nights

VQEXTRA online

MARTHA GAVIN ’70 “It’s an amazing example of the military complex, corporate America, and the whole art and design world working handin-glove for a common purpose. They developed road maps for creative, outsidethe-box thinking, and problem solving that we should be using today.” —Martha Gavin on a secret U.S. military unit during World War II that created faux military installations to deceive enemy forces, the subject of a new documentary, Ghost Army, that she has helped produce. read more at

uvm.edu/vq

SUMMER 2013

45TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Roberts Cameron Smith, who retired from active parish ministry in the Episcopal church in 2009, wrote and self-published a book, God Did Not Curse The Serpent: She Is Love. In April of 2012, he began a new ministry as chaplain to inmates in the Indio County Jail, eighty miles from his home in Riverside, California. He works two ten-and-a-half- hour

days per week, which is sometimes desperately tiring, but wonderfully rewarding. As the nun who has been the GED tester at the jail said, “Being put in jail can be such a teachable moment!” Barbara Sadler Swinton has been living in the Rochester, New York, area since arriving there after graduation. Upon retirement from the world of quality assurance and regulatory affairs for medical devices in 2007, she followed a passion for jewelry design and opened an online store in 2009: www. touchofsilver.etsy.com. She also sells her creations to a local store and in the museum shop of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery. When not in her studio, Barbara spends lots of time with the three of her five grandchildren who live nearby. Life is good. Cynthia Quimby Young let us know that her mother, Mary Kinerson Quimby, Class of 1947, passed away on October 23, 2012. Diane Glew, class secretary, reports that Herm Hoops serves as a whitewater river guide in Utah. He has devoted almost fifty years to running and preserving the rivers of the Colorado Plateau. He retired from the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service and National Park Service in 1996. For the past decade, Herm has documented and continues to document the history of the inflatable craft. Reunion is coming! Forty-five years . . . go figure. Please come share in the myriad activities. Send your news to— Diane Duley Glew 64 Woodland Park Drive Haverhill, MA 01830 ddglew@gmail.com

CLASS NOTES and pizza parties and citing this as the most important work he’s done so far. Laura is a member of the Anonymous Choir, using her talents with this nationally known group. I spoke to Hans Froelicher when I was in DC recently. We tried to connect in Annapolis, but time didn’t permit. He reports that he retired from his job as general counsel of the DC Housing Authority about a year ago and then grew bored, so he now has a part-time position with Maryland’s Office of the Attorney General. I also ran into Nancy Blasberg and Mags Caney Conant at a wonderful midwinter gathering at Nancy’s fabulous new place. Nancy has re-settled in the Burlington area and loves it. We just had lunch with a new friend after Nancy returned from Costa Rica, where she visited her son, Matt. I met up with classmates, Michael Lash, Nancy Heckman Blasberg, and Walt Blasberg at the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce 21st Annual Ambassadors’ Silent Auction on March 28. We reminisced a bit, and the North Hero House Inn offered great samples of their dinner specialties. It was a fun evening, especially seeing classmates who are so tied to local community efforts. Send your news to— Sarah Wibur Sprayregen 154 Cliff Street Burlington, VT 05401 sarah.sprayregen@uvm.edu

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Sam Simmons reports that after forty-one years as a teacher, coach, and administrator, he will be taking a sabbatical from his position at Salisbury School in Connecticut to spend the year researching best practices at boys’ schools around the world under the aegis of the International Boys’ Schools Coalition. While he plans to spend the bulk of his time working with schools in North America, he also intends to visit boys’ schools in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. “With all four of the kids grown and out of the house and being alone since Mick died in October of 2009,” he says, “this sabbatical opportunity could not have come at a better time.” Nancy Tabke Ooms presented a session on making health education relevant to high school students at the

National Convention of the American Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance in Charlotte, North Carolina. Nancy is team leader, teaching health at Livingston High School, Livingston, New Jersey. Leon Martell lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches history by day and playwriting at UCLA Extension at night and writes for the Youth Concert Series for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Disney Concert Hall. Bill Dunnington is very pleased to be back in Burlington after twentyfive years in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is now empty-nested, selectively consulting on energy and economic development, and connecting with old and new friends. Susan C. Morse, a nationally known tracker and expert on wildlife habitat, has received Unity College’s 2013 Environmental Leader Award for her accomplishments in wildlife monitoring and conservation and raising public awareness of the need for habitat protection. Sue has spent nearly forty years researching wildlife and habitats throughout North America, with a special focus on bobcat, black bear, cougar, and Canada lynx. In 1994, she founded Keeping Track (www.keepingtrack. org), a non-profit organization based in Huntington, Vermont, that trains professional biologists and citizen scientists in wildlife monitoring skills. In closing, a note from your class secretary, Debbie Stern. My husband, Mitch G’79, and I have recently returned from a fabulous trip to Japan, where we toured Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nara, and Nagoya, to name just a few places. It was an amazing experience, a total immersion in a different culture. We enjoyed the beautiful cherry blossom season, visited many historic temples, stayed in traditional Japanese inns (ryokans), rode the bullet trains, visited the mountains, and sampled some wonderful foods. Send your news to— Debbie Koslow Stern 198 Bluebird Drive Colchester, VT 05446 debra.stern@uvm.edu

40TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion Wadi Sawabini announced that he and Mary ’75 became grandparents in October. Sutton Grae Sawabini will be, they hope, the third generation of Sawabinis to attend UVM. Wadi hopes to see many ’73ers at the 40th reunion in October. Linda Rubin sold her veterinary practice in 2008, and currently works part time at the Orlando (Florida) Humane Society. A student of French and frequent traveler to France, Linda also writes poetry, swims, and runs. She would love to hear from members of the class of ’73. Charlotte (Charli) Cohen Sheer has retired from teaching for good this time, having returned to the classroom after time away for raising a family and trying various other work venues. Free time is filled with grandchildren, bicycling, RV travel, and bluegrass concerts with her husband. Watercolor painting is her newest passion, along with her volunteer work for the Holocaust Stamps Project, which she founded four years ago at Foxborough Regional Charter School. This education initiative is teaching students important lessons about discrimination, prejudice, intolerance, and bullying. Charlotte invites individuals, clubs, and business groups to collect and send their ready-to-discard cancelled postage stamps to the project, which has a goal of collecting one stamp for each of the 11 million who died in the Holocaust. For more information, see the website— www.foxboroughrcs.org/studentsfamilies/frcs-holocaust-stamp-project. Albert Gardner Thayer continues to represent UVM at college fairs in Texas. Toby Cohen Sacks always looks for news from ‘kids’ from the Class of 1973, but never felt newsworthy enough to contribute herself—until now. After forty years her time has come. Daughter Jenna ’12 followed in her mother’s footsteps, English major and all, and thoroughly enjoyed her years at UVM; she has now escaped to St. Petersburg, Florida, so she never has to wear a NorthFace coat again. Son Josh took the UMass/Amherst route and will soon enter the world of high finance. Toby and her husband, Michael, are enjoying the empty nest, ice cream for

dinner, and trips that don’t involve school vacations. Connie Sargent can’t believe it’s been forty years since her UVM days. Since then, she’s married, divorced, and worked all her life, first as a classroom teacher, then a community educator, and now a mental health counselor. When she couldn’t get a job in Vermont, Connie moved to New York state, and, twenty years ago, went back to school and earned a graduate degree. Life has not been what she expected, but her path has forced her to grow and change, and she intends to continue that trajectory. Send your news to— Deborah Mesce 2227 Observatory Place NW Washington, DC 20007 dmesce@prb.org

Class secretary Emily Manders writes that Barbara A. Moore was the recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the CALS annual alumni and friends dinner in May 2012. Barbara, the owner of The Good Table in Rye, New York, is known for her guiding principle of utilizing fresh, local produce for her five catering businesses throughout New York and Connecticut in what she calls “restaurant-supported agriculture.” Jim Condos was re-elected as Vermont’s Secretary of State on November 6 with eighty-six percent of the vote. Diane Batt Smith and I attended the Title IX brunch at Reunion last fall. It was great fun to see my coach and teammates from my (long ago) years of playing tennis for UVM. And I was honored to finally get my varsity letter. We also went to the annual dessert open house at Tri-Delta sorority, where we had more fun visiting with sorority sisters we had not seen in years. Finding old UVM friends and going to cool events is why it’s worth going to Reunion, even if it’s not your reunion year. Steve Rice G ’77, still resides in East Nassau, New York, with his wife of thirty-three years, Anna. They have two grown children and one grandchild. Steve has a wine-tasting business, as well as a nutrition/wellness venture. He has traveled to Costa Rica frequently, where he hopes to retire, and still gets to Vermont in the spring and summer, where he spends time sunbathing at Harriman Reservoir in

Wilmington. Steve would love to hear from fellow classmates (swinner123@ aol. com) and looks forward to the class reunion in October. “Let’s boogie the night away,” he writes. Send your news to— Emily Schnaper Manders 104 Walnut Street Framingham, MA 01702 esmanders@gmail.com

Andrea Mastrocinque Martone has relocated to Sarasota, Florida (“Paradise” she calls it), where she continues her work as a national public relations/ marketing consultant. She left the chaos of commuting to NYC PR firms and finds tranquility in the life that the west coast of Florida has to offer. Her UVM ties remain strong, and she is actively involved with thirty-five fellow alumni—some of whom meet in Vermont for yearly mini reunions. Loretta Knauer Davis, who lives in Tuxedo Park, New York, invites fellow alums to visit when in New York. She is still a judge, but through a grant will be working as a moderator/advocate for Sandy storm victims in Long Island. “We all give back in various ways,” she writes. Pamela Sargent is still living in South Florida (Lighthouse Point) and loving it. She has three more years to work as an audiologist for the Broward County School System before retiring. Her husband continues to battle heart-related health issues. Their older son, Sam, a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, lives in Boston, where he works as a consultant for Oliver Wyman. Younger son, Ben, attends FSU, where he is majoring in business/sports management. Pamela hopes to travel more to see old UVM friends in her retirement. Matthew ‘Matt’ David Kaye is in the middle of his twenty-seventh year reporting news from Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, and the White House for U.S. and overseas radio and TV stations. It’s been a great run since1974, when he first started broadcasting at WUVM AM and FM, then landed

in Washington after a dozen years at numerous radio outlets in New England, New York, and Maryland. Matt has been married for twenty-eight years to Tamara Kaye; they have a twenty-five-year-old son in the U.S. Naval Academy and an eight-yearold daughter in elementary school. It’s been ten years since Mark Johnson submitted a class note. Mark has written that he is still working in the space industry, doing the electronics for an upgrade to the radiation detector that’s headed for the International Space Station. Over the last few years, he has been designing the electronics for several missions: Keplar is now looking for Earth-like planets, JUNO’s soon to be looking at Jupiter, and MSS that will be looking at our magnetosphere soon . . . others as well. If you would like to know more about these missions, just Google NASA with the name of the mission to find out more. Send your news to— Pete Beekman 2 Elm Street Canton, NY 13617 pbeekman@clarkson.edu

Peter Sherwin writes from Weston Park in Bath, England, “I’m planning on meeting up with my old friend John Evans to do some long-distance cross-country skiing in April in Norway where the sun doesn’t go down until 9 p.m. These days it seems like all I do is work so I’m looking forward to it. Should bring back memories of being a wastrel at UVM.” Patricia Maier thumbs her nose at all of us (not really) from St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, where she’s been living and working in public education for a while. In response to my email prompts, she says, “I loved Williston Quarry to swim, but I loved Huntington Gorge for the beauty, not safety. Remember Ben and Jerry’s out in the garage? Remember the five beers for $1 at Hannibals? Remember the yards of beer at Black Cat and chugging them? Remember happy hour parties at Sigma Nu?” Chuck Sheketoff writes from Silverton, Oregon, “I have the honor of being one of the ‘experts’ giving context to the stories of eight families struggling with the impacts of the Great Recession in the HBO documentary “American Winter.” There have been a number of films

about what led to the Great Recession; this film by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Joe and Harry Gantz is the first to look at what happened to ordinary people.” David Goodman, from Etna, New Hampshire, reports, “I have been at Dartmouth Medical School for almost twenty-five years. Although I still see some patients, I spend most of my days conducting health-care research and leading the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. I also am the chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education. My wife, Patty ’73, is now a full-time potter, but joins me on my international travel as much as possible. We, along with our son, Andrew, still love hiking the Green Mountains.” Susan Nostrand Boston proudly proclaims, “I finally moved to Vermont a few years ago, after talking about it for years. My husband, David, and I (married thirtysix years June 2013) built a house in Woodstock and love the small town atmosphere after living in the Boston suburbs for years. Our daughter, Sarah Andriano, had the itch to get to Vermont and is now director of admissions at Champlain College. Our son, Peter Boston, is assistant director for major giving at Boston College.” Ellen Thompson claims the prize for closest to Burlington. She and her husband, Jim, recently bought a 1797 farmhouse in Grand Isle. They have turned it into a fabulous gallery— Grand Isle Art Works with Zach’s Café at the Gallery. There is art work in the gallery made by more than sixty-five Vermont artists. Ellen is also the director of instruction and information services for the Essex Town School District. She completed her third UVM degree in 2007 in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies doctoral program. Polly Whitmore submits an account of this superb adventure: “March was a memorable month for visiting with Wilks dormmates. First stop was Mammoth Lakes, California, to catch Mary Pryor Heller between completing clinical duties as an FNP at a local hospital and making perfect turns with weekly ski group at 10,000 feet. Coming from Boston and sea level, I was toast after hiking a two-mile x-country trail loop around the nearby lakes! Fast forward one week to western Massachusetts, where former Wilks roommate Hollis Burbank Hammarlund and fellow dormmates Jackie Tear

SUMMER 2013

Mitchell Goldstein writes that his daughter Mikela was chosen to represent the USA last July in the Maccabia Games in Israel, where she competed in the open women’s foil competition. The family went to Israel to cheer her on. Petter Kongsli, Bekkestua, Norway, reports that since graduating from UVM and earning a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Idaho in 1978, he has been a practicing architect, designing and building homes in and arround Oslo. He and his wife, who is also an architect, have five (almost) grown kids, each working or studying in different fields (acting, architecture, foreign relations, marketing, high school). Cross-country skiing is a high priority for them, and they participate in marathon events (54-, 70-, and 90-km distances). Petter misses and thinks of the many fine people he met in his years at UVM and hopes to meet some of them again at reunion 2015. Candace Whittemore Lovely continues painting and teaching in Hilton Head, South Carolina. She is a Copley Master, whose American Impressionism paintings are well known. Candace’s most recent show, God Bless America, received rave reviews. She urges any UVMers to come see her in Hilton Head or visit her website to see her beautiful art work and learn about upcoming shows: candacelovely.artspan.com. Bruce Ellison has been working in Portland, Oregon, for FLIR Systems Inc. for the last twentyfour years; his UVM mechanical engineering degree has stood him in good stead. He encourages his fellow engineering alums to donate to UVM. He and his wife, Cindy, raised two boys—one is a video game designer in Montreal and the other is a Ph.D. geotechnical engineer in San Francisco, working on the Transbay Center; they also have one grandchild. Bruce and fellow ski team member John Geller have been racing in the

PACRAT league (“ski racing for has beens”) on Mount Hood. Bruce enjoys following the goings on at UVM in the Vermont Quarterly. I recently caught up with Wendy Gould Weiler. She and Bob continue to live in Camden, Maine. They are looking forward to daughter Whitney’s wedding in Maine at the end of the summer. Dina Child, class secretary, notes that this is a “big” year for most of us who were born in 1953. Happy birthday to all and welcome to the sixties. Send your news to— Dina Dwyer Child 1263 Spear Street South Burlington, VT 05403 dinachild@aol.com

CLASS NOTES and Kim Royar Blodgett ’76 all met up for a fun lunch in Greenfield.” Barbara J. Powers passed away on April 7, 2013. Barbara worked for more than twenty-eight years for Comdex, retiring as vice president of operations. After her retirement she was very active with the Brain Science Foundation of Wellesley, organizing golf tournaments and other fundraising events. Barbara herself was an avid golfer and Boston sports fan, who enjoyed spending time with her many friends. Christine Plunkett was inaugurated as the fifth president of Burlington College on Saturday, April 27, 2013. Andrea Howard Bonnar is refreshing her home economics child development knowledge and skills in caring for her toddler twin grandsons—and having much fun doing so. Send your news to— Pete Morin 41 Border Street Scituate, MA 02066 pbmorin@comcast.net www.facebook.com/pete.morin2

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

45TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Diane Riley Pouliot is very pleased to announce that she will be the new president of the Equinox Curling Club in Manchester, Vermont. The Equinox is one of the youngest curling clubs in Vermont and ready to take the “fastest growing indoor Winter Olympic sport” to the public. With the 2014 Winter Olympics coming soon, curling will gain some public awareness, and Diane hopes you will join her in Manchester at Riley Rink, New England’s largest indoor ice arena. Audrey Ziss Bath will be coming to reunion all the way from Boise, Idaho, her first time back to UVM in thirty-five years. She will be joined by Andrea DeAngelis, Pen Starke, and Rick Kohn and can’t wait. “For any of you sitting on the bubble, undecided about whether or not to return to Burlington for this reunion,” she says, “well, if I can get there from Idaho, you can get there, too. Hope to see many classmates there!” Evan Preston Reed is still playing soccer. Are

any other women our age out there still playing? She and others are hoping to get a fifty-five-plus and sixtyplus division in a tournament in Florida in January. If you qualify and are interested, contact Evan at elitereed@ windstream.net. India Howell has been living and working in Tanzania since 1998. In 2003, she founded the Tanzanian Children’s Fund. (www. tanzanianchildrensfund.org) Since then, the fund has built a Children’s Village in northern Tanzania and developed a range of programs to address the needs of marginalized children in the area. Currently it serves a population of about 8,000 people in the areas of education, health care, and micro finance, and eighty-eight orphaned children live at the Children’s Village. Email alumni@ uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class secretary. Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Roy Sokolowski reports that his new firm, WestView Investment Advisors, is owned by three UVM Alumni: Roy himself, Pat Sokolowski, and Ben Nostrand ’86. Mark Dowhan sends greetings from Cocoa Beach, Florida. He is working as director of operations for United Launch Alliance, putting satellites in orbit aboard Atlas and Delta rockets from Cape Canaveral. “I guess that ‘funnelator’ experience on the front lawn of Sig Ep paid off after all,” he quips. Send your news to— Beth Gamache 58 Grey Meadow Drive Burlington, VT 05401 bethgamache@burlington telecom.net

Kurt Kaffenberger and Martha Seagrave were delighted to celebrate the graduation of their son, Sam Seagrave Kaffenberger, UVM Class of 2013. Ines Rulis Barlerin can’t believe how time flies. She moved back to the Washington, DC metropolitan area after graduation for work and family reasons, which led to joining the foreign service. She and her husband, Peter Bar-

lerin, a Middlebury College graduate, raised three children, mostly abroad. Peter, continues to work at the Department of State, and Ines pursues a full-time career in painting. Check out her work at www.studioepartners.com. Send your news to— MaryBeth Pinard-Brace P.O. Box 655 Shelburne, VT 05482 marybethpinard_brace@alumni. uvm.edu

Tom Horan is a professor and dean at Claremont Graduate University. Last summer and fall he had the honor of working with the White House on their Data. Gov initiative. Jean Dunbar Knapp reports that her daughter, Erin, graduated from UVM in May 2012, and after working in sales and marketing for the NE Patriots for the season, just moved back to Burlington to join Select Design as an account manager. Her son is a sophomore at UVM, studying mechanical engineering. Jean is at Tufts Health Plan as the AVP of budgeting and financial planning. The family’s favorite times are spent boating on Lake Winnipesaukee, snowmobiling, hunting, travelling to Nicaragua, and hanging out with their five dogs. Wendy Laramee Wilton tells us that her daughter, Georgianne ’14, is an RA at Hamilton 3 on Redstone this year and loving her UVM experience. She will miss Vermont when she travels to China this summer and to Tokyo this fall for her studies abroad. Her son, Henry, a Castleton State College grad, is teaching ornithology as an adjunct at his alma mater. Wendy is celebrating the start of a fourth elected term as Rutland City’s treasurer, with the second clean audit opinion for the city’s financials in more than thirty years. Diane Lachtrupp sold her ballroom dance studio in NYC in 2006, moved to Saratoga Springs with her husband and two boys, and is now celebrating the one-year anniversary of her new studio, Tango Fusion Dance Studio, in Saratoga Springs. Diane, who has taught and performed throughout the U.S., South America, and Europe, is happy to bring her dancing back home to the Albany Capital District and New England area. Email alumni@uvm.edu if you are interested in serving as class secretary.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 alumni@uvm.edu

Chris Tobin resides in Bellbrook, Ohio, and works for the Department of Defense. “Looking forward to the government furlough—not!” he writes. His oldest daughter graduates from high school this spring. Where does the time go, he wonders. Alexander “Lex” Crosett III was appointed to the executive team of Conservation Services Group. As executive vice president of software and services, Crosett oversees the company’s software development, information systems, and network operations. Lisa Brunini Harvey is proud to be in her thirtieth year of teaching art at Moretown Elementary School in Vermont’s Mad River Valley. Over the course of her career, she has also taught at three other valley schools and in the Art Education Department at UVM. She and her husband of seventeen years, John, a Middlebury alum, share a love of skiing at Mad River Glen, where they are also coop shareholders. In the summer, she is busy in her perennial and vegetable gardens. She also paints and sells her work at a local village shop. Life is good in the beautiful Mad River Valley. Carol Delaney is a farmer grant specialist with Northeast SARE, a USDA grant program hosted at UVM, as well as a volunteer overseas. Last summer she went to Mali for two weeks with Winrock International to train women and men in basic sheep and goat production and management skills. The Malians she met were a nonaggressive culture, very open to other ways of life, and Carol never felt in danger. In April 2013, she went to El Salvador to work with burgeoning dairy-goat farmers—a busy but rewarding way to spend vacation. Back home in the U.S., Carol maintains a small-ruminant consulting business. (Both the ruminants—goats and sheep—and the business are small.) Mark Gregory fills his days seeing patients in a primary care setting and teaching med students and residents at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also medical officer for IL ANG, USAF at Scott AFB. “It is an honor to be a physician and a privi-

lege to serve our country—and I get to do both (and fly a little too!),” he reports. Douglas Blondin brought his career of more than thirty years to an end when, taking advantage of an incentive program, he retired from AT&T Bell Labs/Lucent/Avaya in mid-February. After a month of vacationing in Las Vegas and Maui, Doug started work at NexGen Storage in March. Send your news to— John Scambos 20 Canitoe street Katonah, NY 10536 pteron@verizon.net

30TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Linda Sell Steil, Heidelberg, Germany, works for the Warrior Transition Battalion Europe (U.S. Army) as the adaptive sports and reconditioning site coordinator for Europe. The program works with the Warrior Transition Command in Washington, DC, and takes care of U.S. soldiers injured in war zones and Europe.

Carol Bergeron just released her first book, People Succession: Lessons from Forward Thinking Executives in Middle-Market Companies. This succinct read is intended for executives, board members, and people managers in middle-market and aspiring middlemarket companies. See Carol’s website to learn more: bergeronassociates.com/people-succession-book. Melissa Cooper Steidl and her husband, Karl Steidl, are proud to report that their son, Kurt Steidl, will join the UVM Class of 2017 and the men’s varsity basketball team. After sorting through a dozen or so recruiting offers, he chose UVM because of the great team chemistry, terrific coaching staff, and excellent academics. Kurt has been admitted to the School of Business and is planning on a concentration in marketing and accounting. Susan B. Elliot tells us that her son Nathan will graduate from UVM this year, thirty years after she did. He has had a wonderful college experience and was a member of the snowboard team. Her younger son, Connor, also a college student, completed a Semester at Sea last summer through the University of Virginia. Susan is still working in the Burling-

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ton, Vermont, office of Congressman Peter Welch, in health care and human services. Lisa H. Conti G’86 has been appointed to the founding faculty of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University. As an assistant professor of medical sciences, she will be responsible for teaching neuroscience and biostatistics courses at Connecticut’s newest medical school, which will offer its first classes in August 2013. Prior to joining the faculty at Quinnipiac, Lisa was an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Program at the University of Connecticut. She was also an assistant project scientist and assistant adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego and has taught in the psychology departments at Middlebury College, Trinity College of Vermont, and the University of Vermont. Amy Reyelt Stevens and her husband, Scott, continue to live in Simsbury, Connecticut, and work at the Westminster School, where they have been since 1985. They have had occasion to return to Burlington several times, especially in the last four year as their daughter, Abby ’13, graduated from UVM

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in May. Abby had a wonderful experience, and Amy and Scott have loved revisiting many of their old haunts with her. Lauren Schaechter Lieberman is thankful to UVM for preparing her to be a special education teacher and very proud of her daughter, also studying to be a special education teacher, who will graduate from UVM in 2014. “We share some wonderful memories!” notes Lauren. She still stays in touch with Alison Buttolph Kutchma and Johanna Gardner Mahdavi. Sharon Morrissey Young has resigned as class secretary after more than ten years of service. Please send her a big thank you for her service to our class as she communicated with us and compiled our class notes. Thank you, Sharon, for a job well done. In closing, an update from your new secretary, Lisa Crozier. I am busier then ever despite both of our girls being out of the home and in grad schools. Our older, Caryn Alexis, graduated this May with her Master of Music in vocal performance and will be off into the world of auditions and operas. Our younger, Colleen Nicole, graduated summa cum laude from North Carolina State University in May 2012 with degrees in

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CLASS NOTES zoology and poultry science. She is about to very successfully complete her first year of vet school at NCSU CVM. I travelled to Norway in April with my mom to visit my sister Marit and her family at their sheep farm on Ombo, an island near Stavanger, Norway. Last year I became a certified Stott Pilates® essential and intermediate mat instructor, and I continue to teach knitting at all levels at my local yarn shop. Jim and I are looking forward to a trip to San Francisco this summer. I look forward to reconnecting at Reunion, especially with Lynn Larson Rhoads, Janna Jacobson, Laurel Baker Walker, Megan Brendel, Debbie Noyes Swartz, Karen Lamson McKenny, and so many more with whom I have lost contact. Send your news to— Lisa Greenwood Crozier 3370 Sally Kirk Road Winston-Salem, NC 27106 lcrozier@triad.rr.com

V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY

Megan Camp received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Middlebury College at the commencement ceremony in May. Megan is vice president and program director at Shelburne Farms, a 1,400-acre working farm, nonprofit education center, and National Historic Landmark located in Vermont’s Champlain Valley. Providing leadership for organizational and educational program development, she has focused on building public-private partnerships to conduct research, influence policy, and build networks to strengthen sustainability-education efforts in Vermont and around the world. Carol Greenberger loves living in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and ten-year-old daughter. She is in private practice doing psychotherapy at The Relationship Center. Come by and say hello if you’re in the area. Kristin Ann Manazir was very excited to get a surprise visit last Memorial Day weekend from Ginger Ross Kosobucki and Sally Neidecker Morris in honor of their birthdays. They walked all around UVM campus and laughed (of course) just about the entire time. “Thank you to both of my very dear friends, whom I’ve had since freshman year, for giving me that wonderful gift of a reunion!”

writes Kristin. Sam Sparhawk is a managing director in securities finance at The Bank of New York Mellon. Barbara Clark Sparhawk works for J Crew Corporation. Two of their kids opted for Penn State over UVM, despite recruIting efforts by mom and dad. Sam and Barb keep in touch with Phil Davis and Jeff Ng, and are planning a mini reunion soon. Jeff has kept UVM tradition alive with his older daughter enrolling in the Class of 2016. Send your news to— Laurie Olander Angle 12 Weidel Drive Pennington, NJ 08534 Abby Goldberg Kelley 303 Oakhill Road Shelburne, VT 05482 saragrant2001@yahoo.com Kelly McDonald 10 Lapointe Street Winooski, VT 05404 jasna-vt@hotmail.com Shelley Carpenter Spillane 336 Tamarack Shores Shelburne, VT 05482 scspillane@aol.com

Paul Klockenbrink, a partner in Gentry Locke’s Labor and Employment Law group, was named a “Legal Eagle” for employment law, management and litigation, and labor and employment in 2012 by Virginia Living Magazine. Cathy Irish Tremblay recently joined the Vermont Regional Board of the UVM Alumni Association and also serves on its athletic sub-committee. Her youngest daughter is a UVM sophomore, majoring in education. Lynne Halpin Costen toured the UVM campus to prep for volunteering at a UVM table for a college fair in Connecticut last fall. “UVM looked great!” she reports. Lynne officiates soccer and girls lacrosse high school games, which gets her runing on a field with the kids—a great change of pace from another job she loves, chief administrator/owner of ASR Engineering in Milford. Caroline Tassey, who has been a family nurse practitioner for many years, opened a practice in child and adolescent psychiatry after obtaining her psychiat-

ric mental health nurse practitioner license. Send your news to— Barbara Roth 140 West 58th Street, #2B New York, NY 10019 roth_barb@yahoo.com

VQEXTRA online

Lee Diamond is a lab safety coordinator for the Department of Risk Management & Safety at UVM. She has worked at the university since 1997. In her spare time, she is getting her yoga teacher training certificate and organizing a free annual community-sponsored yoga benefit on the Church Street Marketplace (Aug. 11, 2013). Donations at the event will go to Prevent Child Abuse Vermont. Send your news to— Lawrence Gorkun 141 Brigham Road St. Albans, VT 05478 vtlfg@msn.com

Jane Isaacs Schoenholtz writes, “I was sorry to miss our 25th reunion in October. I miss UVM, Burlington, and fellow classmates! Glad to hear it was such a success. Fortunately I still see Carey Hoffman Pippert, Trish Wheeler Ellsworth, Stephanie Croke, Laurie Oelbaum Sommer, and Carolyn Williams Hazen as much as possible, and we talk even more.” Jane and her husband, Mark, are still living in New Canaan, Connecticut. Their older daughter, Katelyn, is a sophomore at Taft; Megan, their fourteen-year-old daughter, just heard that she, too, got into Taft and will likely be going next year as well; and Teddy, who is ten years old, will be entering sixth grade. Jane hopes to bring the family back to Burlington soon. Marianne Spear Apfelbaum wants all UVM alumni who are business owners to know about her company’s new venture: Williston Area Business Association (WABA). Visit www. willistonaba. com for information. She is also looking for great freelance writers for her newest publication, My Finance Magazine, which premiered in June. Contact Marianne if you are interested. Dara Levine Hillis writes, “Dear Class of 1987, many of us are celebrating our thirtieth high school reunion. It is hard to believe. I remember leaving my very close-knit group of Rye High School friends and thinking I could

PATRICK MURPHY ’85 “It was very compelling to see the Burmese people aspire to something very different, and now seeing them get that opportunity has been quite an incredible process to be part of.” —Patrick Murphy on his work with the U.S. Foreign Service in Burma, where he was the senior government official in charge of historic visits by Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama. Patrick Murphy is pictured with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese politician and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. read more at

uvm.edu/vq

never find friends so supportive and fun, but I did! Thank you to all who have shaped such wonderful memories and have kept in touch. I do keep in touch with Jeannette Beer-Becker, Eileen LaRochell-Ramer, and Petra Gerstberger-Rowland.” Valerie Welsch Hale comments that Class Notes seems empty and wonders if everyone is on social media. She is living the hectic juggling act of raising two teenagers while still an active scientist and teacher. As close to Vermont as she could get is Amherst, Massachusetts, where she has worked at Amherst College sine 1997. Wayne Davis sends greetings to all UVM alumni, and invites you to look him up if you have the occasion to be in the Dayton/Cincinnati Ohio area. According to Wayne, there are a few Catamounts out that way. Sara Prineas Wurzer lives in New Jersey and practices pediatrics in Hamilton, New Jersey. She had daughter, Jane Beatrice, on October 5, 2012, who joins sisters Grace and Claire and brothers James, John, and Mark. Class secretary Sarah Reynolds reports that Mary (Giambruno) Fuge and Jennifer (Mongeon) Eisenlau had their own UVM mini-reunion recently. Unable to travel to Burlington, they met in Cincinnati for a Bengals-Giants football game and tailgating with their children (Mary has six kids; Jennifer has one boy). When not tailgating or being mothers, Mary and Jennifer are deep into their respective careers. Their UVM degrees have come in handy: Mary is the director of the St. Rita Hospice in Lima, Ohio; Jennifer is a professor at Front Range Community College in Boulder, Colorado. They wish they could have been joined by their UVM roommate of four years, Deb (Wilson) Kelly, also of Boulder, Colorado. Maybe next year. Send your news to— Sarah Reynolds 2 Edgewood Lane Bronxville, NY 10708 ssrey2@verizon.net

Nathan Graham and his spouse, Heidi Kenison Graham, both School of Business Administration graduates, have lived in Maine for twenty-four years. They have two children, ages seventeen and fourteen. Their seventeen-yearold daughter is a high school junior and is looking at colleges throughout New England. Maybe UVM is in her future? Katherine B. Swindell reports that all is well in Portland, Oregon. She had a great time seeing Mike Reardon on a work trip and loves running into Ann Taggart ’90 at various neighborhood spots. She looks forward to getting together with the Groovy Girls (Kate Fallon Croteau, Robyn Fried Boyd, Moe Kelly Gonsalves, Kim Slomin McGarvey, Emily Katz Moskowitz, Pecka Sue Mooney Noonan, and Stefanie Conroy Wallach), and will miss Diane Peligal O’Halloran madly. Robert Shire, who practices chiropractic in midtown Manhattan, has added health coaching to the practice and is expanding all over the country, helping people lose weight and achieve optimal health. Ilana (14) is a freshman at Scarsdale High School, and Evan (10) is in the fifth grade at Edgewood School. His wife, Nancy, keeps the Shire engine running smoothly as CFO (Chief Family Operator). Send your news to— Maureen Kelly Gonsalves moe.dave@verison.net

Samantha Carleton married Matthew Blischak in Boston’s Trinity Church on November 10, 2012. In attendence were alums Trish Huie, Brian ’88 and Carol Kane, Jon Hill, and Donna Brooks ’88.

Samantha and Matthew have moved to Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and would love to hear from any of Sam’s classmates. Kelly McBride joined TD Bank as store manager in New Britain, Connecticut. An assistant vice president, she is responsible for new business development, consumer and business lending, managing personnel, and overseeing the day-today operations at the store. Kelly has twenty-four years of retail banking experience. Mitchell Gould and Julie Brecher Gould proudly celebrated their son Jake’s bar mitzvah on March 9, 2013. Their younger son, Maxwell, helped celebrate. Amy Mendel and Lee Rosenthal graduated together in 1990, but it took seventeen-plus years to find each other before marrying in 2010. They are living in Port Washington, New York, and having a great time with their two-year-old son, Sammy. Send your news to— Tessa Donohoe Fontaine 108 Pickering Lane Nottingham, PA 19362 tfontaine@brandywine.org

Scott Drake married his partner, Jeremy Davis, on August 18, 2012, at the Barn at Boyden Farm in Cambridge, Vermont. Friends and family were able to enjoy all the Lamoille River Valley had to offer. Scott is currently the store manager at Under Armour in Lake George, New York. Shaunda Kennedy Wenger had her book, Reality Bites, Tales of a Half-Vampire, selected as a finalist for juvenile fiction in the 2012 Book of the Year Award by ForeWord Reviews. Chris Ostrowski and family moved from the mountains of Park City, Utah, to the beach of Sayulita, Mexico almost two years ago, wanting to experience the world in a different way than they could in the States. “Lots of people talk about doing something like this, but we were able to make it happen,” says Chris. His wife continues to work for the airlines; their kids, aged 6 and 8, attend a Spanish-speaking Montessori school; and Chris moved his decorative concrete business there. Sayulita is home now. Follow their latest adventures at www. ozzyandashleyadventures. blogspot.com Send your news to— Karen Heller Lightman 2796 Fernwald Road

Pittsburgh, PA 15217 khlightman@gmail.com

Matt St. John became the executive officer of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, a regulatory agency in northern California in May 2012. Charged with preserving and protecting surface and ground water quality, Matt finds the position challenging, but always interesting and diverse. His daughter, Anastazia (12), is an avid reader and loves theater. His son, Aidan (10), enjoys playing lacrosse. They keep him young at heart. Matt would love to hear from UVM classmates. Gene Barfield and Tim LaCroix, after thirty years of loving happiness, were married March 15. The ceremony took place at the government headquarters complex of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Native American people, of which Tim is a tribal citizen. The newly married couple expressed their most sincere thanks and great respect for the people of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and to their government, for acting in support of the equality of all people. They will host a celebration of their marriage at a later date. Send your news to— Lisa Kanter 10116 Colebrook Avenue Potomac, MD 20854 jslbk@mac.com

20TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Dan Brister’s new book, In The Presence of Buffalo, was published in July by Graphic Arts Books. This nonfiction essay collection weaves personal reflections and stories of the present-day slaughter of America’s last wild bison with information gathered through historical, cultural, and scientific research. The book traces Dan’s journey from his days at UVM as a student of English and environmental studies to his grassroots work on the Yellowstone boundary as executive director of Buffalo Field Campaign. Jonathan Tofel and his wife, Anne, welcomed their second daughter, Ellery Kane, who was happily

SUMMER 2013

25TH REUNION OCTOBER 4–6, 2013 alumni.uvm.edu/reunion If you are interested in planning your upcoming reunion, email alumni@ uvm.edu. Joyce M. Letourneaut Cabrera and her husband are very proud that our eldest daughter, Cas-

sidy, followed in Joyce’s footsteps and chose UVM and Burlington as the ideal place to further her education. She studied hard and managed dean’s list and is already preparing for her first summer at Groovy UV. Karla Galfetti Smith reports that after raising kids (ages 10 and 13) and volunteering at non-profits for a number of years, she is back to (paid!) work at a computer hardware company in Westborough, Massachusetts. Send your news to— Cathy Selinka Levison 18 Kean Road Short Hills, NJ 07078 crlevison@comcast.net

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CLASS NOTES

greeted at home by big sister Aria. Jonathan also just launched his second new products innovation consultancy and is curious if any other UVMers are also involved in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) world; if so, he would like to connect on LinkedIn. Deb Desjardins was voted in as vice president of the board of Sojourner House. A nondenominational faith-based agency, Sojourner House provides residential treatment and other services to addicted women and their children to break the intergenerational cycle. Lt. Col. Shannon O’Boyle will retire from the Air Force in July 2013, after twenty years of dedicated service. Here’s a shout out to all the AFROTC Det 865 alumni! Laura Beth Scott was named vice president of supplier operations at Wayfair.com, a large online retailer of home products and furnishings. Jessica Atkins Hernandez moved back to Manhattan with her husband, two-year-old son, and dog last June, after four years in the D.C. area. She works for the law firm of Morrison Foerster as the attorney development manager for the East Coast and Europe. Her husband, a Commander in the U. S. Navy, is stationed at the Military Entrance Processing Center in Brooklyn. They will be in NYC until the summer of 2014, and Jessica would love to connect with any UVM people in the area. Jonathan Decker and his wife, Brittany, welcomed twins to the world on November 30, 2012. Their daughter, Ally, and son, Bailey, are doing great. Mom and dad are exhausted but thrilled. Thanks to his four-year roommate, Korey Fuellhart, for the UVM kids clothing. Jon loves to support his Cats every day with his two Pennsylvania license plates: UVM 93 and CATAMNT. Andrea HathawayMiglorie and Jerry “Jake” Miglorie had their first baby, Jerry “Jake” Miglorie, Jr., in September 2012. The couple works at Jake’s family’s business, Jerry’s Nissan, in Rutland, Vermont. Andrea continues to train and compete with her horses and for the past four years has been district commissioner of the Rutland County Pony Club. This year marks her twentieth year as a 4-H leader. She also enjoys playing golf and RV-ing with her husband and can’t wait to RV with their little son this summer. Andrea tries to

frequent UVM as much as she can. Send your news to— Gretchen (Haffermehl) Brainard gretchenbrainard@gmail.com

Mary Martialay “got hitched,” as she put it, although, “I suppose the proper way to say it would be ‘Mary Martialay, ’94, married Andrew Casabonne, a graduate of that SUNY school on the other side Lake Champlain.” The couple exchanged vows on September 9, 2012, aboard the Adirondac on Lake George. UVM was well represented with Karl and Andrea (Weed) Aeder, Laura (Dobrowalski) Quirk, Gwyn (Roberts) Croll, Ken and Kristen ’94 (Cronin) Ferrara, and Sam Charron ’95 in attendance. On a day of high winds and tornado warnings, the boat docked without incident after the ceremony, and “Sweet Caroline” rounded out the playlist at the reception. Holly Johnson Machanic and fellow UVM grad and husband, Corey Machanic, have recently launched FlavorPlate.com, a website design and content management system for the restaurant industry. Flavor Plate is a user-friendly and mobile-optimized website solution, providing restaurants all the necessary tools to manage their own content, connect with social media, and take reservations online. Flavor Plate offers discounts to businesses that are members of local food networks and support local food producers. Corey and Holly live in South Burlington with their two daughters and dog, Coco Bear. Adam Pratt and Megan Cotter Pratt ’93 enjoyed a little time away from their children, Caroline, James, and Andrew, at the UVM alumni ski weekend, topped off by great day of skiing with Sean McVeigh. Send your news to— Cynthia Bohlin Abbott 141 Belcher Drive Sudbury, MA 01776 cyndiabbott@hotmail.com

Vaughn T. Collins G’95 has been named executive director of the Vermont State Dental Society. Vaughn’s career is deeply rooted in Vermont: He was executive director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development for four years, president of the Vermont Commu-

nity Development Association, and a board member of Vermont Energy Investment Corporation from 1992 to 1995. He is also a graduate of the Vermont Leadership Institute at the Snelling Center for Government. Erica Ludlow Bowman had a surprise visit from her old friend Caleb Marriot ’94, his wife, Caroline, and their daughter, Esme. Together with Erica’s daughter, Juniper, they all went sledding down a bobsled-type run through the woods—making Erica long for the old days of hiking and sledding down Mount Philo. Erica is still working as a landscape architect and living in Jamaica, Vermont, with her husband, Rob. They have been working hard to create a homestead on the mountainous property they call Evernest. In the summer they often grow enough produce and cut flowers to sell at the local farmers’ market. They hope to transform their place into a large teaching garden where people will come and learn about gardening with perennials and vegetables. Erica also hopes to catch up with old friends JJ Jacobs, Erika Mark, Susie Powers, Nell Ryan, and Jennifer Hughes over the summer. On March 23, Ryan Wildes ’96 celebrated his fortieth birthday in Burlington with fellow grads Dave Sird ’96, Kate Clark Brennan, Andi Lemmon, John Gorman, Sarah Strouse Curry G’07, Daniel Curry ’92, Tara Nemeth Pacy ’88, and Ben Pacy ’86. Holly Andrews says that after being fortunate enough to stay at home when her kids (Emily, 12, and Ryan, 9) were young, she decided to go back to school. Holly graduated from the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program at North Shore Community College in Danvers, Massachusetts, in 2011. She is currently a full-time certified, licensed OTA working at a shortterm rehab facility in Beverly, Massachusetts. She is so glad to make a difference in the lives of her patients. Her husband, Jon Andrews, also works close to home in Essex, and they are able to keep up with the kids’ busy schedules thanks to their easy commutes. Send your news to— Valeri Pappas 8495 East 28th Avenue Denver, CO 80238 vpappas@davisandceriani.com

Jayme Rivas Robertson and John Pappas welcomed their second daughter, Sophie Marina Pappas, in October. Big sister Olivia is revelling in her new role. Jayme continues as lead teacher of the Early Childhood Center at The Learning Center for the Deaf. Stuart Sweetser is happily living in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently consulting with the California State Compensation Insurance Fund. Israel and ToniAnn Sacco Maynard have recently relocated their family to Beijing, China. Send your news to— Jill Cohen Gent 31760 Creekside Drive Pepper Pike, OH 44124 jcgent@roadrunner.com Michelle Richards Peters 332 Northwest 74th Street Seattle, WA 98117 mpeters@eagleeyes.biz

Leandra Manos accepted a position in August as the head swimming and diving coach/aquatic director of the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut. She had a successful first year, coaching one swimmer to five new school records. Bethany Ann McDonald Shepherd was married in Labastide-en-Val, France to Tristan Shepherd in September 2012. She resides in London, UK, with her husband and spends her time directing plays, painting theatrical scenery, and fundraising for the arts. Since 2005, she has lived in London, where she obtained a postgraduate diploma in directing from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and an M.A. in arts policy and management from Birkbeck College, University of London. She works as head of trusts and foundations at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and is trustee for the outreach charity DreamArts. Andrew Rosenzweig, M.D. is now associate chief and fellowship director of the Division of Geriatrics, Department of Medicine, at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennnsylvania. Erika Meisel Schwartz was disappointed to miss the reunion in October, but had a great day in Burlington and visiting the campus in August while on a family trip to the area. It was move-in day for students so it was pretty busy,

but amazing to see all the changes on campus, especially the bookstore. Her kids were excited to buy some UVM gear. Rob Slocum writes that he and his wife recently welcomed their third child, Henry Robert Slocum. Rob is living in Pleasantville, New York, and working at Creative Artists Agency. Paul Mollomo G’97 is publishing a journal about Linux networking and Boolean theory: www. paul-mollomo.us. He welcomes UVM alumni to join the conversation. John Emery and his wife, Heather Devlin Emery MD’07, relocated last year to Bedford, New Hampshire, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they met. They are very excited to be back in New England, closer to friends and family. Deborah Finkelstein Lenchus and her husband, Dr. Joshua Lenchus, welcomed twins to their family. Samuel Judah (5 lbs., 14 oz.) and Hannah Leah (6 lbs., 1 oz.) were born on February 16, 2013. Big brothers Isaac (6) and Aaron (2) are very excited. Everyone is doing well. Deborah and Joshua are living in Davie, Florida. Send your news to— Elizabeth Carstensen Genung 362 Upper Hollow Hill Road Stowe, VT 05672 leegunung@me.com

Christopher R. Noyes was promoted to partner at WilmerHale. Lionel (L. J.) Joseph Palardy has retired, but volunteers in many capacities: at WRUV for the twenty-second consecutive year, doing music presentations for the English Department, as artistic adviser for Burlington Discover Jazz

Festival for the last ten years, helping out at UVM’s Speech & Debate program and at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. L.J. recently completed a one-year cooking gig (Saturday nights) at Vermont Respite House in Williston. Amanda Barnes married Geoffrey Zampiello Trinity ’98 at the Roger Sherman Inn in New Canaan, Connecticut, on February 22, 2013. The couple resides in Norwalk, Connecticut. They also spend time skiing at Bromley. Livy Beecher Riddiford and her family have left the Gulf Coast. Livy and her husband, Dave, and their son, James, have moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Livy is currently working as an account manager for the jewelry company Nina Nguyen. They are looking forward to enjoying seasons once again. I’m so excited to announce the birth of John Conathan Creney II. Lyssa Sher Creney and Joe Creney ’98 welcomed their crazy adorable son on August, 12, 2012. Lyssa and Joe are thrilled with their bundle of joy. Right around the corner from the Creneys, Chris Frier and his lovely wife, Sara, welcomed their son, Colby Robert Frier, on October 26, 2012. Colby weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 19 inches long. Dad, mom, and son are doing great. Up by our old stomping grounds, Leslie PippinTepper and David Tepper ’98 welcomed the newest addition to their family, Dylan Joseph Tepper, born on November 29 at Fletcher Allen hospital. Congrats to you both. Christian Craig and his wife, Lizzy Allen Craig G’09, welcomed Addison Jane Craig on November 10, 2012, in Springfield, Vermont. Addison weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces and is getting settled in with mom and dad at their home in Weathersfield, Vermont. Send your news to— Sarah Pitlak Tiber 42 Lacy Street North Andover, MA 01845 spitlak@hotmail.com

Caroline Evans was named the 2012 Vermont Outstanding Clinician of the Year by Bi-State Primary Care Association, an award given every year to the clinician whose work has made a significant impact on the health of an underserved population. Caroline’s work as sole manager of the ongoing care for the total patient panel

VQEXTRA online

JAY NASH’ 98 “The melody would start to reveal what story the song was trying to tell. That was a big departure, a reverse from how I’d approached all my other records. At the end of the day, I would just put that song to rest. I’d close it and start with a new one the next day.” —Jay Nash on the creative process at the root of his new recording, “Letters From the Lost.”