Vermont Quarterly Spring 2020 issue

Verm ont THE UNIVERSITY OF

OUR STATE OUR UNIVERSITY Green Mountain Soul Land Grant Legacy Heather Darby, Innovation on the Farm Daniel French G’14, VT Secretary of Education Melody Walker ’05 G’11, Abenaki Voice Scholars to Citizens S P R I N G 2020

COVER PHOTO Heather Darby, Extension professor CONTENTS Main Street, Bristol, Vermont.

Photograph by Bear Cieri

Vermont Quarterly SPRING 2020

DEPARTMENTS

2 President's Perspective 4 The Green 16 Catamount Sports 18 New Knowledge 46 Back on Campus 47 Class Notes 64 Extra Credit FEATURES

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UVM People: Daniel French G’14

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GREEN MOUNTAIN SOUL

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Teacher, principal, superintendent, Dan French brings broad experience to his service as Vermont’s Secretary of Education. | BY THOMAS WEAVER In nineteen photographs and nine paragraphs, our humble attempt to define what makes Vermont Vermont. | TEXT BY CAIRN CROSS, ELISE GUYETTE, MARIA HUMMEL, GARRET KEIZER, LUCY ROGERS, BEN ROSE, MEG LITTLE REILLY, TOM SLAYTON, THOMAS WEAVER

GREEN & GOLD

Tracing the impact of a landmark scholarship that draws many of the state’s brightest high school graduates to UVM and helps strengthen the state’s workforce. | BY THOMAS WEAVER & JANET FRANZ

38 BECOMING INDIGENOUS 42

What does it mean to be a native Vermonter in the twenty-first century? Alumna Melody Walker has helped lead the discussion. | BY ANDREA ESTEY

FIELD TEST

As farmers incorporate new practices into a way of life at the heart of Vermont, they have a fierce advocate and friend in Extension professor Heather Darby. | BY JOSHUA BROWN

| PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE

Vermont’s University in my travels throughout the state across the past seven months, I’ve learned a lot from Vermonters.

Most I have spoken with look at the changes UVM has undergone in the last fifteen years—from state-of-theart new buildings that have transformed our campus to research that has improved the lives of Vermonters, to rising academic quality and robust enrollment—and see a vibrant institution on an upward trajectory that is good for the state.

But some see these gains differently; as coming at the expense of Vermont and Vermonters. In their view, the university, in pursuit of the out-of-state tuition revenue necessary to fund its advance, is turning its back on Vermont and Vermonters.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

With a collective tally of approximately 40 percent of our graduates electing to start their careers in Vermont, this represents a much-needed “brain gain.”

Befitting our mission as one of America’s great land grant universities, our connection to and support of the state is realized in myriad ways. At the heart of this, of course, is undergraduate education for Vermonters.

Approximately two thousand Vermont high school graduates apply to the university every year and the university admits 68 percent of them. What’s more, 44 percent of in-state students attend UVM tuition-free.

True, we are an unusual state flagship university in our balance of in-state and out-of-state students.

Vermonters make up only about 20 percent of UVM’s incoming class (a number that increases to 27 percent for the total undergraduate population, thanks to Vermonters who transfer back to UVM).

But these numbers merit a closer look at the realities behind them: Vermont’s small population, the second lowest in the nation; the limited number of high school graduates resulting from that small population; the low percentage of Vermonters who go on to college, approximately 50 percent, close to last in the nation; and the attraction that going beyond the state’s borders for college holds for some of our young people.

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While providing an education for Vermonters is an essential part of the social contract of the land grant university, so is doing all we can to build the state’s workforce and employment opportunities. At this moment in time, that is of vital importance as we face the existential threat to Vermont’s future represented by our shrinking workforce, a problem laid out in sobering detail by Governor Phil Scott, UVM Class of 1980, in his State-of-the-State Address in January.

Nearly 70 percent of our in-state students elect to remain in their home state to begin their careers after graduation, and 31 percent of out-of-state students remain in Vermont after graduation. With a collective tally of approximately 40 percent of our graduates electing to start their careers in Vermont, this represents a much-needed “brain gain.”

Still, many of our young grads tell us that they would like to establish their careers in Vermont if more good jobs that matched their interests were available.

Indeed, there is considerable room for advancement on this front, and UVM is hard at work to help create those employment opportunities by supporting the job creation initiatives of the state and incubators like the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. We do this by spinning off new companies based on our faculty’s research, by forming partnerships with large corporations like Google that not only fund research by our faculty and students but could potentially establish satellite operations in the state, and by ramping up our global engagement to attract investment from other countries where UVM has a research and educational presence.

I look forward to the work ahead with our partners in higher education, business, and communities throughout the state as we work together to build a sustainable future for Vermont.

—Suresh V. Garimella

ANDY DUBACK

BE A PART OF THE MAGIC

VQ EDITOR Thomas Weaver

“Giving to UVM allows me to continue being part of the magic of the university.

“Naming UVM as the beneficiary of my 401K allows me to make a significant contribution to my alma mater during a time in my life when I am focused on saving and acquiring assets.

This designation will increase the impact of the smaller gifts I make throughout the year to support a cultural diversity scholarship and the Lawrence Debate Union at UVM. Plus, it’s a fun way to make my 401K even more meaningful while showing my Catamount pride!”

Casey Ann Short ’15

Please consider naming the University of Vermont as a beneficiary of a retirement plan, life insurance policy, will, trust, or life income gift.

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Naming UVM as a beneficiary may enable you to make a larger gift than you might expect.

You may make your gift in honor or in memory of a loved one.

Your gift may be unrestricted, or you may direct your gift to an area of UVM meaningful to you.

A bequest is flexible and can easily be changed as needed.

For more information: UVM FOUNDATION OFFICE OF GIFT PLANNING Amy Palmer-Ellis, JD Assistant Vice President for Development & Gift Planning Donna Burke Assistant Director of Gift Planning Phone: 802.656.9536 Toll Free: 888.458.8691 giftplanning@uvm.edu go.uvm.edu/bequest

ART DIRECTOR Elise Whittemore CLASS NOTES EDITOR Kathy Erickson ’84 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Joshua Brown, Kaitlin Catania, Cairn Cross, Christina Davenport, Andrea Estey, Janet Franz, Elise Guyette, Maria Hummel, Garret Keizer, Lucy Rogers, Ben Rose, Meg Little Reilly, Tom Slayton, Amanda Waite ’02, G’04, Jeffrey Wakefield, Benjamin Yousey-Hindes PHOTOGRAPHY Joshua Brown, Bear Cieri, Andy Duback, Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist ’09, Glenn Russell, Sally McCay ILLUSTRATION Glynnis Fawkes CORRESPONDENCE Editor, Vermont Quarterly 617 Main Street Burlington, VT 05405 (802) 656-2005, tweaver@uvm.edu ADDRESS CHANGES UVM Foundation 411 Main Street Burlington, VT 05401 (802) 656-9662, alumni@uvm.edu CLASS NOTES alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes VERMONT QUARTERLY Produced by UVM Creative Communications Services Amanda Waite’02 G’04, Director Publishes March 1, July 1, November 1 PRINTED IN VERMONT Issue No. 86, March 2020 VERMONT QUARTERLY ONLINE uvm.edu/vq

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SPRING 2020 |

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YOU SHOULD KNOW a warm welcome to the xenobots, hybrid robot-organisms like “ So no other. May the world treat you kindly.”

—Wired Wired was among hundreds of media outlets worldwide that recently covered ground-breaking research

by UVM professor of computer science Joshua Bongard and colleagues at Tufts University. Read more on page 18.

TOP

English professor Emily Bernard’s collection of essays Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine has garnered wide praise, including earning a place among author and critic Maureen Corrigan’s top ten “unputdownable reads” of 2019.

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PROFS OF INFLUENCE

0% The percentage University of Vermont tuition will increase from fall 2019 to fall 2020.

Read more on page 7.

GREEN GREATNESS For the third consecutive year, UVM’S Grossman School of Business Sustainable Innovation MBA has been named the no. 1 “best Green MBA” program by The Princeton Review.

William Copeland, professor of psychiatry, Mary Cushman, professor

of medicine and of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Taylor Ricketts, director of UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment, all earned a place on the 2019 list of the world’s most influential researchers. The Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list is based on the number of times published studies have been cited by other researchers over the past decade.

WINNING STREAK During the fall semester, Catamount student-athletes combined to achieve a school-record GPA of 3.297, marking the thirty-third consecutive semester the department GPA has been above 3.0. Read more: go.uvm.edu/gpa

SOUTH POLE SCIENCE As one of twenty-four members of the National Science Board appointed by the President of the United States, UVM President Suresh Garimella spent a week in December touring Antarctica and inspecting facilities run by the U.S. National Science Foundation on the coast of the continent and at the South Pole itself. “Now it’s critical—existentially critical—to understand Antarctica,” Garimella says. “Understanding how—and how fast—the glaciers and ice sheets are moving, melting, and growing in this remote part of the planet is of great consequence for all of us.” Read more: go.uvm.edu/pole

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THE GREEN News & Views

FIELD TRIP: A visit to Patrick Gym is a favorite excursion for kids at the UVM Campus Children’s School. Life-size posters of Catamount basketball players Hanna Crymble and Daniel Giddens are a particular attraction these days. Eleanora Boyd, Charlie Corran, Wren Farran, and Ben Strotmeyer check how they measure up.

SALLY MCCAY

SPRING 2020 |

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New Leadership Team

TRUSTEES | In June 2019, Ron Lumbra ’83 testified before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. His subject: presenting strategies to enhance the diversity in the nation’s board rooms, comments informed by Lumbra’s two decades in the executive search industry, where he is a managing partner of the firm Heidrick & Struggles. And it’s a circumstance Lumbra, who became the third African-American board chair in UVM history with his election in early March, has experience with in his own life and career.

Raised in northern Vermont’s Montgomery Center, Lumbra’s adoptive parents had not attended college themselves, but encouraged him as he excelled in both academics and athletics. Looking back on his UVM years, Lumbra says, “The exposure to out-of-state kids—new friends from Cleveland, Seattle, Syracuse, Silver Springs, Philadelphia—for a kid from small-town Vermont, it was the best possible thing I could have had. It flipped my script, that access to different ways of thinking from students with more urban backgrounds.” A mechanical engineering major at UVM, Lumbra continued his education with a Harvard MBA. Today, from the perspective of board chair, Lumbra celebrates how providing opportunities for first-generation students syncs perfectly with the mission of a land grant university.

Cynthia Barnhart ’81, the board’s new vice chair, shared the campus (and Votey Hall) with Lumbra in the early eighties as she earned her bachelor’s in civil engineering. Barnhart’s parents also did not attend college, but they saw that

Board of Trustees Vice Chair Cynthia Barnhart ’81, Chair Ron Lumbra ’83, Provost Patricia Prelock, and President Suresh Garimella.

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all of the kids in their Barre, Vermont family—Cynthia, her sister Kathy ’80, and brother Richard ’82—earned their degrees from the state university. “My parents valued education a lot,” she says. “UVM was a great launching pad for all three of us.” Barnhart’s husband, Mark Baribeau ’81, is also in the Catamount family.

As a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the past twenty-eight years, Barnhart has blazed trails, becoming the first woman to fill the role of chancellor with her appointment in 2014. She brings deep higher education experience to the UVM board, particularly on student issues, the focus of the chancellor’s role at MIT. As Barnhart and Lumbra join forces in board leadership, President Suresh Garimella has quickly built a strong working relationship with Provost Patricia Prelock as they head the university’s administrative team. A UVM faculty veteran who has served the university as professor and chair of communications sciences, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and now as provost, Prelock brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and history to her leadership role.

An internationally recognized expert on autism, Prelock has also worked closely with Vermont children with autism and their families for years.

“This team has a diverse and powerful range of knowledge and life experience united by a deep commitment to the university and its land grant mission,” says President Garimella. “I’m excited about what we’ll achieve moving forward—as a leadership group, and together with the UVM community.”

ANDY DUBACK

Holding the Line on Tuition

CAMPUS LIFE | As part of his commitment to making UVM accessible and affordable, President Suresh Garimella announced in November that tuition for the academic year beginning in fall 2020 would not increase over 2019 levels.

“Student loan debt is the second highest category of consumer debt—second only to mortgage debt and higher than credit card debt. Funding a college education is one of the very largest expenditures families face in the United States,” Garimella said. “Forty-four million borrowers owe $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. Yet, education is increasingly important to future success. It’s critical that we do everything we can to address the pressures that families and individuals face in their effort to achieve their educational goals.”

Garimella said the university has kept tuition increases at modest levels in recent years and commits over $160 million in grants, scholarships and tuition remission every year, enabling 44 percent of Vermonters to attend UVM tuition-free.

The university has seen a steady rise in its four-year graduation rate, which now ranks in the top six percent of public universities nationally. Garimella said the university will work hard to further increase its already enviable graduation rate as another cost-cutting strategy for students and their families. Timely graduation decreases SALLY MCCAY

the overall cost of a degree and enables students to join the work force earlier.

“Despite that solid record,” he said, “we need to do even more.”

The zero tuition increase, contingent on UVM Board of Trustees approval this spring, is part of Garimella’s efforts to enhance the value of a UVM education. Half of the value equation is educational quality, he said, an area the university

“Funding a college education is one of the very largest expenditures families face in the United States.” has devoted thought and resources to in recent years, creating new courses, expanding experiential learning opportunities, investing in student advising and career counseling, and continuing to recruit top teacher-scholars, trends that will accelerate during his presidency.

Cost is the other half of the value ratio, an area the 2020 zero percent increase addresses. “Relying on annual tuition increases, even modest ones, is not sustainable,” Garimella said. “As we move forward, we will focus intently on all the ways the university can generate additional revenue to relieve the pressure on tuition.”

SPRING 2020

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| THE GREEN

Artist and Citizen ART | Mildred Beltré’s neighborhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, has it all: the sprawling greenery of Prospect Park, world-class art and events at the Brooklyn Museum, beautiful brownstones around every corner, and nearly any cuisine one could crave—all within walking distance.

But after twenty years in her apartment, the native New Yorker and UVM professor of drawing and printmaking says the rest of the borough has finally caught on. Gentrification is rapidly transforming Crown Heights.

For longtime residents like Beltré and Oasa DuVerney, a fellow teaching artist in Beltre’s building, the influx of people and renovations that come with gentrification create a revolving door of fleeting neighbors and businesses, a vulnerability to rent inflation and landlord corruption; increased policing; and a sense of mistrust and suspicion. But the duo isn’t letting their block on Lincoln Place get swallowed up by Brooklyn’s growing hipster scene so easily.

Nearly ten years ago, the two artists took

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their art supplies, pop-up tents, tables, and chairs out to the sidewalk in front of their building. Together, they hoped to attract curious passersby and befriend their neighbors while they made art. Since then, the “Unofficial Official Artists in Residence” of Lincoln Place have evolved the experiment into Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, a collaborative public art project that builds gentrification resilience and community on their block through art.

Beltre and her neighbor have taught mediums like weaving, dance, sculpture, drawing, and silk screening to their community; they’ve planted gardens and invited guest artists to create site-specific installations on their block; and have hosted barbecues and tenants’ rights meetings through BHAM. Beltré, DuVerney, and BHAM’s work was recently displayed by the Brooklyn Museum, has appeared in the Brooklyn Children’s Art Museum, and has been awarded a Brooklyn Community Foundation grant to support neighborhood strength.

SCOTT DOLAN (2)

LEAHY SCHOLARS INITIATIVE LEAHY UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARS Tuition support and funding for learning opportunities for Honors College students LEAHY DOCTORAL & POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLARS Support for students involved with the Gund Institute for Environment Support the Leahy Scholars: go.uvm.edu/leahy

Leahy Scholars Initiative Honors Senator’s Decades of Support FOUNDATION | In recognition of Senator Patrick Leahy’s decades of support for important research and teaching initiatives, the university has announced a new $3.3 million fund that will pay tribute to Senator Leahy and his wife, Marcelle. Funds for the Patrick and Marcelle Leahy Scholars Initiative were raised, and will continue to grow, through private philanthropy.

The new fund will benefit undergraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral students in two signature programs at the university: the Honors College and the Gund Institute for Environment.

“The Leahy Scholars Initiative will provide financial support and enrichment opportunities that will help us prepare students to meet the challenges that confront our state, our nation, and our world,” said Suresh Garimella, UVM president, when the fund was announced in October. “This is a tremendously impactful way to honor SALLY MCCAY

Senator Leahy and the societal impact he himself has had over the last half century.”

“We are so proud of Vermont’s land grant university, and this ongoing investment in the future of UVM and its students honors its rich legacy,” said Senator Leahy. “To be a part of UVM’s future means so much to us, and to Vermont. We love the idea of being a part of training the next generation of climate scientists. We are inspired by the vision and determination of our students and can think of nothing better than investing in these emerging leaders.”

The Leahy Undergraduate Scholars program will support students selected from the Honors College, whose members represent the top 10 percent of undergraduates admitted to the university, spanning all its colleges and schools. The students, chosen competitively based on their academic record and engagement in community and other causes, will receive both tuition support and

funding for high-impact learning opportunities, including study abroad, research, internships, and community service.

The Leahy Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scholars program will support students engaged in activities supported by the Gund Institute for Environment, a community of 150 researchers and leaders from across UVM’s colleges and departments.

The Gund Institute is also allied with forty partner institutions in ten countries.

Selected doctoral and post-doctoral students will receive funding for customized leadership training and real-world experience collaborating with leaders in government and business, with the goal of promoting a deep understanding of complex global environmental issues. Leahy Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scholars will conduct cross-disciplinary research on global environmental challenges with worldclass mentors at UVM. SPRING 2020

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| THE GREEN

Cynthia Reyew

Water, Water Everywhere

ENGINEERING | “Think about it,” says engineering professor Appala Raju Badireddy, “seventy percent of the planet is covered with water—and we’re running out of drinking water.” He’s leading a research effort to help solve that problem.

As the director of UVM’s Water Treatment and Environmental Nanotechnology Laboratory, he and his students are designing and creating a new generation of filtering membranes to make clean water—quickly and cheaply.

A membrane is, in some ways, simple: it’s a barrier with holes. If the holes—the pores—are of a certain size they’ll keep out bulk items, like grains of sand. If they’re smaller, they can keep out microscopic threats, like parasites. Smaller still, viruses.

And, below the nanoscale, molecular filtration membranes can separate out dissolved substances, like toxic chemicals or the salt in seawater.

“It’s a nearly perfect technology,” says Badireddy. “You can capture pathogens.

Without adding any chemicals, you can make seawater, or even sewage, drinkable.”

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Indeed, in Singapore about a third of the drinking water supply comes from membrane-filtered sewage. And many other places in the world from Florida to California, Saudi Arabia to India, have major investments in desalination plants that use membranes to extract drinking water from the ocean. Except that membranes have one central flaw. “They clog,” says Badireddy. “Everything clogs the pores.”

But what would happen if you put an electrical field really close to a membrane surface—or ran current through the membrane itself—and polarized it? Badireddy asked himself that question and discovered a powerful, low-cost repellant to keep membranes clear of a host of materials that can clog them.

“Everything in the water is charged,” Badireddy explains, “it’s all negatively charged or positively charged.” Using an alternating field, that flips its charges very frequently, attracts both positive and negative particles. This oscillation—pushing bits of waste or bacteria back and forth— keeps them in suspension while the water

passes through the membrane. “And then the contaminants get carried away during the crossflow,” Badireddy says, a bit like leaves that wash over and past a storm drain while the rainwater pours down.

As Badireddy’s lab continues to follow the path of this research, it could mean a revolutionary advance in membrane design with worldwide application. His work is also focused on a critical local application—addressing phosphorus, a key nutrient for agricultural plants but also a persistent pollutant that contributes to eutrophication and toxic algae blooms in lakes and streams.

Badireddy wants to use membrane filtration to capture phosphorus in the water—and return it to the farm before it reaches Lake Champlain. Describing the potential benefit of the approach—for farmers, wastewater treatment facilities, and the health of Vermont’s Great Lake— Badireddy says, “It’s resource recovery.

The difference between pollution and a resource is often just where something is located.”

JOSHUA BROWN

SECRETS UNDER THE ICE GEOLOGY | The real mission was to build a top-secret missile base. But, in the early 1960s, the U.S. Army publicly trumpeted the creation of a scientific station called Camp Century—a “city under the ice” they called it, in northwestern Greenland, far north of the Arctic Circle. A series of twenty-one horizontal tunnels spidering through the snow—complete with movie theater, portable nuclear reactor, nearly two hundred residents, hot showers, a chapel, and chemistry labs—all, they said, in aid of research.

As part of the effort, a team led by U.S. glacier scientist Chester Langway drilled a 4,560-foot-deep vertical core down through the ice. Each section of ice that came up was packaged and stored, frozen. When the drill finally hit dirt, the scientists worked it down for twelve more feet through mud and rock. Then they stopped.

For decades, this bottom-most layer of ice and rock from the core was lost in the bottom of a freezer in Denmark. Last year, it was rediscovered—in some cookie jars.

In October, more than thirty scientists from around the world gathered at UVM for four days to decide what this one-of-a-kind sample of silty ice and frozen sediment might tell us—and how best to study it.

UVM geologist Paul Bierman, who led the workshop, thinks it may be “the key, the Rosetta Stone,” he said, to understanding how durable the ice on Greenland was durJOSHUA BROWN

ing past warmings and coolings. And this, in turn, can give scientists a much clearer sense of how fast Greenland might melt in the warming world of the future. Since some twenty feet of sea-level rise is bound up in that vast ice sheet, the answer to this question is of dramatic global consequence.

The preliminary results that Bierman and two scientists in his lab—Drew Christ and Lee Corbett—presented at the workshop are troubling. “We should be hoping that this dirt has been covered for two or three million years or more,” he said.

Instead, the team’s analysis of the sediment, with support from the National Science Foundation, suggests the massive ice sheet over Greenland must have been greatly reduced within the past million years or less—during a warm time when the Earth’s climate was similar to today.

“This is tentative. We did most of this work in just the last few days, going like mad to be ready for the workshop,” Bierman said, “but, if this first look holds true, this is big-time bad news.” A Greenland that melted off recently, when the past was like today, is a Greenland that is likely to quickly melt again. Discussion among the international team of scientists gathered at UVM this fall will expand the ways this rare sample of geologic history can sharpen our vision of the future.

An overlooked bit of Greenland dirt collected in the 1960s is a treasure for scientists with modern techniques for dating the last exposure of sediment.

Working in UVM’s Community Cosmogenic Facility in Delehanty Hall, geology professor Paul Bierman is an expert at analyzing tiny amounts of radioactive isotopes to gauge how long it has been since a landscape was not covered with ice.

Read more: go.uvm.edu/ice SPRING 2020

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| THE GREEN

Hoop Dreams, Wisely Considered

DRAFTED GRADUATE

120% current NBA rookie salary

DRAFTED FRESHMAN

60% current NBA rookie salary

New salary structure proposal by UVM finance professor Michael J. Tomas III and UVM accounting professor Barbara Arel.

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BUSINESS | Going pro early may be a nobrainer for college superstars like former Duke freshman and 2019 NBA draft firstpick Zion Williamson. But an article in the International Journal of Sport Finance by two professors in the Grossman School of Business proposes a new salary structure that might entice most other college players considering the NBA to graduate before trying their hands at going pro.

“Zion Williamson is a classic example of a strangely strong signal that foregoing the remaining time in college is rational—from a basketball perspective, we’re not talking about his education or degrees—but from a basketball learning perspective, he had nothing more to gain from playing for Duke. So he should go to the pros and get the contract,” says Michael J. Tomas III, finance professor and co-author of the study with accounting professor Barbara Arel.

Noting that the average NBA career length is just 4.8 years, Arel and Tomas reimagined the NBA’s rookie salary scale—which currently awards the highest salary to the player picked first in the draft and declines with each successive player picked—in a way that considers both draft pick position and class year.

“This is our attempt to show that you

could alter the NBA draft schedule to try to incentivize student-athletes to stay in college.

There’s been a big discussion about people leaving early to go to the NBA draft, and I think that revolves around the idea of wanting to see them get an education,” says Tomas.

Their study proposes a pay scale that locks in salary gains as athletes advance toward graduation and incorporates yearly bonuses into their salaries determined by class year. Specifically, it offers a drafted freshman 60 percent of the current NBA rookie salary base and ratchets up to 120 percent for a drafted graduate in that same position.

Inspired by a ratchet option or cliquet option in the finance industry, the professors say that ratcheting up rookies’ salaries this way would ultimately “provide the incentive for players to delay entering the draft until they are ready to contribute to the NBA, but still allows an early exercise decision to remain rational for the very top prospects.” Subsequently, the researchers argue, the NBA’s labor market would improve as a whole as drafted athletes enter the NBA more prepared for the pro game following the additional seasons of college basketball.

ABOVE, CHRIS GRAYTHEN /GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT, SALLY MCCAY

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Q U E S T I O N S

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we create research, but we do not serve the public when we give that research away to people who lock it up.

How can libraries help solve this?

Bryn Geffert is passionate about “making the academy’s research available to anyone, anywhere, regardless of means,” and he believes UVM can play a leading role in creating new models that make that vision possible. It’s work he spearheaded as library director at Amherst College and a focus he’ll continue as dean of UVM Libraries, a role he assumed at the beginning of this academic year.

Brynn Geffert

dean of libraries What’s problematic about the current model of sharing the academy’s research?

GEFFERT: As librarians, we talk a lot about a crisis in scholarly communication. Faculty at UVM and faculty everywhere receive money from the federal government, from philanthropic organizations, and from tuition and fees—all money well spent to produce good research. Our faculty then seek publishers—often commercial publishers—to distribute what they produce. These publishers, however, require our faculty to sign over copyright to their work without compensation. The institution that finances the research receives no compensation. The government receives no compensation. Out of necessity (given the paucity of publishing outlets), we give our information, produced in the public interest, to commercial publishers; the publishers then sell it back to us, usually in the form of journals that cost thousands of dollars a year for a single title, while denying access to those unable to pay, i.e., to most of the world’s populace.

So we’re caught in a system that effectively locks up the information we have worked so hard and spent so much money to produce. This state of affairs is especially troubling at land grant institutions like UVM, whose mission is to serve the public good. We serve the public when

GEFFERT: Libraries need to begin imagining themselves not merely as purchasers of information but as producers as well.

Some of the most exciting work afoot in academic libraries can be found at institutions creating academic presses under the auspices of their libraries. These presses provide the same sort of peer review and editing one expects at an established press. But these presses, instead of selling the information, make it freely available online. These libraries have decided, in other words, to produce information in ways consonant with the values of the academy.

This does not mean that libraries are about to quit buying books or journals anytime soon. But when we do purchase information, we must do so in accord with certain commitments. We must carefully review contracts to make sure they contain nothing prohibiting us from sharing electronic books and journals with people outside the institution. We must demand the right to send material freely through interlibrary loan. And we must help our faculty get copies of their research into repositories where it is freely available.

This is all to say we must produce and purchase information in ways that do not lock it up; we must spend our money on initiatives that make information universally available.

What else are you focused on in your role as dean?

GEFFERT: I believe UVM’s libraries should be evaluated in part by whether our graduates know how to conduct good research. By “good research” I don’t necessarily mean laboratory research. I simply mean we must be able to say “yes” to the following questions: Can a student ask a good, researchable question? Can she identify the disciplines that have something to say about that question?

Can she then track down reputable information, evaluate it, synthesize it, and ultimately produce something original? These are the skills college graduates need in civil democracies, and libraries should work closely with faculty to help teach those skills.

We have a department in the libraries called Information and Instructional Services, and its members work primarily as teachers. They work with faculty to think about the kinds of research skills they want their students to obtain. Often, they’ll contribute to research assignments designed to help students develop those skills. They’ll visit classes to work with students, and sometimes they’ll even embed themselves in a class, participating in the curriculum. I want our students to know that there are good, smart people at the library who want nothing more than to work with them and teach them essential life skills.

| TT H H EE G G RR EE EE N N

Super Silver Building a Better Metal

More efficient solar cells, lighter airplanes, and safer nuclear power plants are among possible applications of this research.

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ENGINEERING | A team of scientists has made the strongest silver ever—42 percent stronger than the previous world record. But that’s not the important point.

“We’ve discovered a new mechanism at work at the nanoscale that allows us to make metals that are much stronger than anything ever made before—while not losing any electrical conductivity,” says Frederic Sansoz, UVM materials scientist and mechanical engineering professor who co-led the new discovery.

This fundamental breakthrough promises a new category of materials that can overcome a traditional trade-off in industrial and commercial materials between strength and ability to carry electrical current. In addition to UVM, the research team included scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, the Ames Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and UCLA. Their results were published in the journal Nature Materials.

By mixing a trace amount of copper into the

silver, the team showed it can transform two types of inherent nanoscale defects into a powerful internal structure. “That’s because impurities are directly attracted to these defects,” explains Sansoz. In other words, the team used a copper impurity—a form of doping or “microalloy” as the scientists style it—to control the behavior of defects in silver. Like a kind of atomic-scale jiu-jitsu, the scientists flipped the defects to their advantage, using them to both strengthen the metal and maintain its electrical conductivity.

Sansoz is confident that the team’s approach to making super-strong and still-conductive silver can be applied to many other metals. “This is a new class of materials and we’re just beginning to understand how they work,” he says. And he anticipates that the basic science revealed in the new study can lead to advances in technologies— from more efficient solar cells to lighter airplanes to safer nuclear power plants. “When you can make material stronger, you can use less of it, and it lasts longer, and being electrically conductive is crucial to many applications,” he says.

JOSHUA BROWN

M E D I A

|

A Vermont Original Across more than three decades, from 1941 to 1975, Senator George Aiken was a prominent voice on Capitol Hill during tumultuous times, helping to shape the nation’s course on issues from the Vietnam War to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

And throughout that long political career, from which he retired as senior member of the Senate, Aiken was what is now an increasingly rare animal—a legislator who consistently sought to bridge the partisan divide. A Republican, Aiken ate breakfast every morning with majority leader Sen. Mike Mansfield, a Democrat. (The Vermont senator always kept it simple, favoring an English muffin with peanut butter and coffee.)

Say We Won and Get Out: George D. Aiken and the Vietnam War by Stephen Terry ’64 details Aiken’s life and rise to prominence in the U.S. Senate—examining how his approach to politics stemmed from his early life as a farmer and horticulturist in Putney, Vermont. The author, whose credentials include working as a senate staffer for Aiken and serving as managing editor of the Rutland Herald, draws from historical records to weave a tale through Aiken’s early life, his rapid ascendance in Vermont politics, his public service in the nation’s capital, and his evolving views of the Vietnam war. The book includes Aiken’s “Declare Victory and Go Home” speech, in which he never actually spoke those oftquoted words.

As the Watergate cover-up unraveled and possible impeachment of Richard Nixon loomed, Aiken and other key senior Republicans decided they could no longer support the president. Nixon resigned his office after GOP senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott told the President that the Senate would convict him if the full House voted to impeach.

The book’s inclusion of a 1973 Vermont Life interview with Aiken conducted by a WALT WHITMAN, GEORGE C. COX/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

freelance journalist named Bernie Sanders offers a very different echo of today’s political headlines. In his capacity as an Aiken staffer, author Steve Terry was at the senator’s side for the interview as Sanders asked Aiken about the changing nature of Vermont, about businessmen running government, about corporations taking over Vermont businesses, and about all of the presidents that Aiken served with.

The story of George Aiken’s life and politics couldn’t be told without including a close look into the role of his second wife, Lola. The daughter of a Barre granite worker, she was also deeply rooted in Vermont and was a fierce advocate for her husband and his legacy for years after his death in 1982. Lola Aiken passed away in 2014 at age 102.

UVM student Louis Augeri worked with Terry as research assistant on Say We Won. The dual political science and history major won the 2018 Green Mountain Scholar Award for outstanding student research. An extensive companion website, senatoraiken.com, was developed by Eliza Giles, media director at CRVT. The Aiken biography is published by the Center for Research on Vermont and White River Press with support from the Silver Special Collections Library and Continuing and Distance Education at the University of Vermont’s George D. Aiken Lecture series.

GET YOUR ‘BARBARIC YAWP’ ON Once a literature professor, always a literature professor.

Professor Emeritus Huck Gutman continues to explore great poems and share his thoughts on them via his popular listserv poetry@list.uvm.edu. Current “students” on the listserv include hundreds of UVM alumni and many of the nation’s top political leaders, who Gutman connected with during his years in Washington, DC, as chief of staff for Sen. Bernie Sanders. To join, or re-join, go to poetry@list.uvm.edu, and click on subscribe in the righthand column.

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| C ATA M O U N T S P O R T S

Sisters Across Generations Endowed Head Coach Next Step in Proud History of Women’s Hoops BY | THOMAS WEAVER

PHOTOGRAPHS BY | ANDY DUBACK

Vermont joins a rare circle of teams who have an endowment in support of the head women’s basketball coach. Alisa Kresge is the Catamounts’ first Elizabeth F. Mayer ’93 and Paul J. Mayer M.D. Head Coach.

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On February 1,

before tip-off of the Catamount women’s basketball home game versus UAlbany, Director of Athletics Jeff Schulman ’89 G’03 shared landmark news: the largest gift ever made exclusively to a UVM women’s athletics program would permanently endow the Elizabeth F. Mayer ’93 and Paul J. Mayer, M.D. Women’s Basketball Head Coach at the University of Vermont.

“We would like to thank these beautiful and wonderful student-athletes for using both their basketball and academic skills,” said Betty Mayer as the news was released.

“Their drive for perfection and their special individual personalities working together as a team are evident. They share that personal relationship with us, their fans, and the young people who look up to them as role models.”

This next step for women’s basketball was years in the making, tracing to pioneering varsity athletes, the strides of Title IX in the early 1970s. Fittingly, the announcement of the gift was coupled with a broader celebration of girls and women in sports.

Considering Catamount women’s basketball, in particular, the breakout teams of the early nineties are foundational. Across the 1991/’92 season coach Cathy Inglese’s Catamounts piled up a 29-0 record in the regular season and earned a first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. Incredibly, the next season’s team repeated that undefeated regular season run.

“Looking back, we had such a level of trust and respect for each other that it became a transformative experience.

Maybe it’s a comfort level, maybe it’s a defining-who-you-are level, but we have

UVMATHLETICS.COM | THE LATEST NEWS

Betty and Paul Mayer, pictured with guard Emma Utterback, say they think of the Catamount basketball players as their granddaughters.

been through so much together that you feel you can just call each other up and it’s still like you are sisters,” Jen Niebling ’93 reflected in 2011 on the twentieth anniversary of the win streak.

Inglese, who passed away last year due to a traumatic brain injury suffered in a fall, also reminisced in 2011 on her thoughts competing in that first NCAA Tournament: “Win or lose, look at what we have accomplished. All these people are getting such joy and pleasure out of watching our team.

We changed the attitude of what women athletes could do.”

Changed the attitude and fundamentally redefined what Catamount women’s basketball could do. Inglese’s coaching tree would keep it rolling, as assistants Pam Borton and Keith Cieplicki each led the program, setting the stage for outstanding teams and players to follow: 1997-98, America East regular season champions; 1999-2000, America East regular season and conference tournament champions, earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament; 2001-02, America East regular season champions, WNIT Tournament; 2008/09 and 2009/10, back to back NCAA Tournament bids.

Dr. Karalyn Church, a major force on the Catamount teams at the turn of the century, recalls the conference championship vic-

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

Ten years later, May Kotsopolous ’10 would be among the players helping lift the program to another first, a victory in the NCAA Tournament, with an upset of seventh-seeded Wisconsin. She was among more than twenty former Catamount women’s basketball players, a sisterhood across eras, who returned for the celebration of the new endowment and women’s athletics.

Betty and Paul Mayer’s love for UVM women’s basketball team began during the years when Kotsopolous and teammates such as Courtnay Pilypaitis ’10, Alissa Sheftic ’10, and Sofia Iwobi ’10 flourished playing for Coach Sharon Dawley. The bond would strengthen, as Dawley’s successor, Lori Gear McBride, introduced having players mingle with fans after games.

“It is there we began to appreciate how really special these ladies really are, each with unique skill sets and aspirations,” Paul Mayer said.

A major health crisis in late 2016 left Betty Mayer unable to manage the Patrick

bleachers. But, with sideline seats in front of the band, the Mayers were in the gym for a men’s basketball game. When the Catamount women’s team, watching the game from the bleachers, spotted Betty, they came down and rallied for a group hug.

“That expression of love and concern was the ‘penicillin’ that facilitated Betty’s recovery and made us consider how we could give back to this program,” Paul Mayer said.

Second-year Head Women’s Basketball Coach Alisa Kresge becomes the first-ever women’s coach at UVM to hold an endowed position and also the first in the history of the America East conference. With their gift, the Mayers have added UVM to a short list of universities with endowed women’s basketball coaches that includes Stanford, Notre Dame, Cornell, Dartmouth, Drake, and the University of Miami.

The Cats defeated UAlbany by double digits on February 1, another big moment in a big day for UVM women’s basketball and another signal of a bright path ahead for the program. “As I look at our starting five who are playing today, I see flashes of that great team of 2008-2010,” Paul Mayer said. “We felt more was needed as a thank you to this team and the ones that will follow.”

VQ Andy Gardiner G’75 contributed to this article.

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| NEW KNOWLEDGE

The First Living Robots BY | JOSHUA BROWN

A book is made of wood.

But it is not a tree. The dead cells have been repurposed to serve another need.

Now a team of scientists has repurposed living cells—scraped from frog embryos— and assembled them into entirely new lifeforms. These millimeter-wide “xenobots” can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient)—and heal themselves after being cut.

“These are novel living machines,” says Joshua Bongard, a UVM computer scientist who co-led the new research. “They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”

The new creatures were designed on a supercomputer at UVM—and then assembled and tested by biologists at Tufts University. “We can imagine many useful applications of these living robots that

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other machines can’t do,” says co-leader Michael Levin who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts, “like searching out nasty compounds or radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque.”

The results of the new research were published January 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

People have been manipulating organisms for human benefit since at least the dawn of agriculture, genetic editing is becoming widespread, and a few artificial organisms have been manually assembled in the past few years—copying the body forms of known animals.

But this research, for the first time ever, “designs completely biological machines from the ground up,” the team writes in their new study.

With months of processing time on the Deep Green supercomputer cluster

at UVM’s Vermont Advanced Computing Core, the team—including lead author and doctoral student Sam Kriegman— used an evolutionary algorithm to create thousands of candidate designs for the new life-forms. Attempting to achieve a task assigned by the scientists—like locomotion in one direction—the computer would, over and over, reassemble a few hundred simulated cells into myriad forms and body shapes. As the programs ran— driven by basic rules about the biophysics of what single frog skin and cardiac cells can do—the more successful simulated organisms were kept and refined, while failed designs were tossed out. After a hundred independent runs of the algorithm, the most promising designs were selected for testing.

Then the team at Tufts transferred the in silico designs into life. First, they gathered stem cells, harvested from the embryos of African frogs, the species Xenopus lae-

On the left, the anatomical blueprint for a computer-designed organism, discovered on a UVM supercomputer. On the right, the living organism, built entirely from frog skin (green) and heart muscle (red) cells. The background displays traces carved by a swarm of these new-to-nature organisms as they move through a field of particulate matter.

vis. (Hence the name “xenobots.”) These were separated into single cells and left to incubate. Then, using tiny forceps and an even tinier electrode, the cells were cut and joined under a microscope into a close approximation of the designs specified by the computer.

Assembled into body forms never seen in nature, the cells began to work together.

The skin cells formed a more passive architecture, while the once-random contractions of heart muscle cells were put to work creating ordered forward motion as guided by the computer’s design, and aided by spontaneous self-organizing patterns— allowing the robots to move on their own.

These reconfigurable organisms were shown to be able to move in a coherent fashion—and explore their watery environment for days or weeks, powered by embryonic energy stores. Turned over, however, they failed, like beetles flipped on their backs.

Later tests showed that groups of xenobots would move around in circles, pushing pellets into a central location—spontaneously and collectively. Others were built with a hole through the center to reduce drag. In simulated versions of these, the scientists were able to repurpose this hole as a pouch to successfully carry an object. “It’s a step toward using computer-designed organisms for intelligent drug delivery,” says Bongard, professor in UVM’s Department of Computer Science and Complex Systems Center.

Both Levin and Bongard say the potential of what they’ve been learning about how cells communicate and connect

extends deep into both computational science and our understanding of life. “The big question in biology is to understand the algorithms that determine form and function,” says Levin. “The genome encodes proteins, but transformative applications await our discovery of how that hardware enables cells to cooperate toward making functional anatomies under very different conditions.”

To make an organism develop and function, there is a lot of information sharing and cooperation—organic computation— going on in and between cells all the time, not just within neurons. These emergent and geometric properties are shaped by bioelectric, biochemical, and biomechanical processes, “that run on DNA-specified hardware,” Levin says, “and these processes are reconfigurable, enabling novel living forms.”

The scientists see their recent work as one step in applying insights about this bioelectric code to both biology and computer science. “What actually determines the anatomy towards which cells cooperate?” Levin asks. “You look at the cells we’ve been building our xenobots with, and, genomically, they’re frogs. It’s 100 percent frog DNA—but these are not frogs.

Then you ask, well, what else are these cells capable of building?”

“As we’ve shown, these frog cells can be coaxed to make interesting living forms that are completely different from what their default anatomy would be,” says Levin. He and the other scientists in the UVM and Tufts team—with support from DARPA’s Lifelong Learning Machines program and the National Science Foundation—believe that building the xenobots is a small step toward cracking what he calls the “morphogenetic code,” providing a deeper view of the overall way organisms are organized—and how they compute and store information based on their histories and environment.

Many people worry about the implications of rapid technological change and complex biological manipulations. “That fear is not unreasonable,” Levin says.

“When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don’t understand,

we’re going to get unintended consequences.” A lot of complex systems, like an ant colony, begin with a simple unit—an ant—from which it would be impossible to predict the shape of their colony or how they can build bridges over water with their interlinked bodies.

“If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules,” says Levin. Much of science is focused on “controlling the lowlevel rules. We also need to understand the high-level rules,” he says. “If you wanted an anthill with two chimneys instead of one, how do you modify the ants? We’d have no idea.”

“I think it’s an absolute necessity for society going forward to get a better handle on systems where the outcome is very complex,” Levin says. “A first step towards doing that is to explore: how do living systems decide what an overall behavior should be and how do we manipulate the pieces to get the behaviors we want?”

In other words, “this study is a direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences,” Levin says—whether in the rapid arrival of self-driving cars, changing gene drives to wipe out whole lineages of viruses, or the many other complex and autonomous systems that will increasingly shape the human experience.

“There’s all of this innate creativity in life,” says UVM’s Josh Bongard. “We want to understand that more deeply—and how we can direct and push it toward new forms.”

VQ

SOUND FAMILIAR? As UVM released news of this study in midJanuary, it received extensive media coverage worldwide. The hundreds of outlets spreading the word on this ground-breaking research included BBC, National Public Radio, NBC Eurovision, Smithsonian, Wired, The Guardian, L’Express, El Mundo, and The Boston Globe.

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UVM PEOPLE DANIEL FRENCH G’14

by Thomas Weaver Photograph by Glenn Russell

TEACHER’S MIND Defining the traits of a skilled educator, curiosity seems a solid place to start. Describing what initially intrigued him about Asian cultures as an eighth grader, Daniel French, Vermont’s Secretary of Education, puts it simply: “It was just a thing I didn’t know about, and I wanted to know more.” History, technology, there are many things French has wanted to know more about throughout his life, joking that if he isn’t intellectually engaged, it can be bad news for his wife and daughter. Innate curiosity coupled with an early knack for making complex concepts plain—he was the kid you called when struggling with your calculus homework—are at the root of French’s career in education.

Selected for the secretary post by Gov. Phil Scott ’80 in 2018, French brought broad and deep experience to the job—high school social studies teacher, principal (sole administrator of the preK-12 school with three hundred students in Canaan, Vermont), superintendent in two Vermont supervisory unions (Essex North and Bennington Rutland), and fifteen years as a consultant focused on strategic change and technology.

That knowledge served him well as he stepped into a challenging job during challenging times. “Vermont is a very small system in some ways. But we’re also a very complex system, because we have many school districts, many board members, many teachers,” French says. “My experience does give me a lot of fluency on issues that I can engage on pretty efficiently. I know who the players are, and I know the dynamics.”

CONVENING EXPERTISE Leaning on lessons learned as a superintendent, French says a key part of the secretary’s role is building out strong leadership throughout the agency. “I think the role of the state is best leveraged by helping to create that coherence in the complexity and be a convener of expertise. One of the things people should count on us to do at the state level is the data piece, provide clear indicators of outcomes for kids,” French says. “Under Vermont’s constitution, the state is ultimately responsible for the education of students. As much as we’re all conveners, we are also sort of insistent conveners: this isn’t really optional.

We’re not going to say ‘here’s the right way to do it,’ but we want to make sure that the results are positive.”

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Asked how much Act 46, Vermont state law regarding school district mergers, has consumed his life, French smiles. Juggling educational opportunity and economic efficiency as demographics shift is a trick French was deeply familiar with from his years as a consultant assisting with mergers. Speaking to the work of the state board in dealing with these issues, French says, “Honestly, I’ve spent a lot of time with boards over the years. It was really amazing to watch them do what they did, reconciling diverse requirements and the larger responsibility to ensure students had opportunity. I couldn’t have imagined a better group of people to engage in that.”

CANAAN TO BEIJING As a Northeast Kingdom principal in the 1990s, French had his first interaction with the university via the Asian Studies Outreach Program. Professor Juefei Wang, who led the program at the time, found a likely friend and ally in French, who had followed that early interest in Asia into language study in college and service as a Korean linguist in the U.S. Army. With funding from the Freeman Foundation, Wang and colleagues worked to bring Asian studies into schools throughout the state. French was quick to join the cause, helping build connections for his students in Canaan and throughout the state.

Under mentorship from professors Ray Proulx and Judith Aiken, French earned his UVM doctorate in education leadership and policy studies six years ago. His ties to the university remain strong in his state secretary role, building partnerships with Scott Thomas, dean of the College of Education and Social Services, and finding resonance in President Suresh Garimella’s affirmation of the university’s land grant mission.

VQ

The University of Vermont and our home state share a founding year. 1791: consider it chiseled in Barre granite. Throughout the ensuing 229 years, the landscape, people, culture, and singular soul of the Green Mountain State have enriched the experience of UVM students in ways that are distinct, yet maybe beyond definition. But, hey, let’s have a go: our collective ode, in words and pictures, to what makes Vermont Vermont.

GRANITE QUARRY, Barre; RIGHT, LONG TRAIL, Mount Abraham

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green mountain

SOUL text by

Cairn Cross, Elise Guyette, Maria Hummel, Garret Keizer, Lucy Rogers, Ben Rose, Meg Little Reilly, Tom Slayton, Thomas Weaver

principal photography by Bear Cieri

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WALKING THE RIDGELINES My daughter was fourteen when we walked north on the Long Trail for thirteen days. Eleven were rainy. We walked and talked, about nothing and everything. We assigned names to each frog and snake we encountered. When we reached The Inn at the Long Trail in Sherburne Pass on night seven, coming down off the misty mountain to a crackling fire, we felt like hobbits reaching Rivendell. On the last day, we raced a thunderstorm over Camel’s Hump, then skidded four thousand feet downhill, drenched, to where Mother and Brother collected us along the Winooski. The kids are grown now and far away, but Vermont is in their bones. The Long Trail, draped across the highest ridges of home, is in their souls.

Ben Rose G’90 Past executive director of the Green Mountain Club, current section chief at the Vermont Division of Emergency Management

LABYRINTHS OF MAIZE With miles and miles of backwoods, Vermont hosts some of the country’s premiere places to wander, but the state’s many autumn corn mazes raise meandering to an art form. Aerial views of Danville’s grand diva, the Great Vermont Corn Maze, reveals the letters, mythic beasts, mascots, and puzzle pieces carved by twenty-four acres of trails through ten-foot corn. Inside the maze, the green-gold corridors stretch endlessly, populated by tribes of dazed visitors, all looking for a way out, and finding, at the center, incredible views of the hills around. You know you belong here if you can’t wait to come back next year and get lost again.

Maria Hummel ’94 Author of Still Lives, her third novel, published in 2018, UVM assistant professor of English

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LITTLE RIVER STATE PARK, WATERBURY

TUNBRIDGE WORLD’S FAIR

SUGARING SEASON, Fairfield

DEER SEASON, Stannard Mountain

RAY ALLEN ’59, owner of the multi-generational Allenholm Farm in South Hero, founded by his ancestors in 1870 FA L L 2 0 1 8 |

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BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER, Glover

VERMONTERS ALL The colors of Vermont are bountiful and bright: amber syrup, golden eagles, light-speckled waters.

Crimson barns and startling sunsets over green mountains. Blaze orange autumns and hunting vests, icy blue winters and shimmering whiteness. Ahhh yes, the whiteness. The whitest, they say. Forgetting the yellows of Abenaki sunflowers developed over millennia. Shards of broken gravestones in black burying grounds. Reds of Roma tomatoes in Italian gardens. Browns of Lebanese men cutting ice and of Hispanic dairy farmers. Greens of Burundi eggplants cultivated by women in brightly colored scarves. Scarlet seeds of Vietnamese bitter melons. Elaborate designs of vibrant dashikis. Bold and multi-layered. They are Vermont too.

Elise Guyette ’71 G’82’92’07 Author of Discovering Black Vermont: African American Farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790-1890 WARREN FALLS, Mad River

LITTLE QUEBEC The Kingdom Trails snake over the sandy soil of East Burke, mile after mile of mountain biking rapture. Though I love the twist and swoop of the single-track (particularly that place where you squeeze between a couple of pines and into the clear at the bottom of Coronary Bypass), I feel a similar joy when we drive into the crowded parking lot and pull the bikes down off the roof rack, surrounded by cars with Quebec plates and the burble of Quebecois French. Shared passion with our neighbors to the north—gnarly and wordly in one.

Thomas Weaver Editor, Vermont Quarterly

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HUBBARDTON

TUNBRIDGE WORLD’S FAIR

VQ

LANDSCAPE AT WORK Vermont is known for its pastoral landscape, that mixture of the works of nature and the works of man that gives us a harmonious blend of open fields and working farms, compact villages and small cities. Our signature landscape is beautiful, but we need to remember that it was created and is supported today by a working land-based economy: farming and forestry. We must help our struggling farms and forest operations survive and prosper. Because if we lose our land-based economy and culture, we risk losing not only the landscape it produced, but also part of our identity.

Tom Slayton ’63 Vermont Public Radio commentator and editor emeritus of Vermont Life

OUR SUPER POWER Snowboarding was born when Vermonters Jake and Donna Carpenter joined proprietary design to rebellious attitude to create Burton, then convinced skeptical ski area operators to allow snowboarders to use lifts and trails. Recently, two enterprising Vermont women, Sascha Mayer ’93 and Christine Dodson, joined design ethos with lactating activism to create the Mamava lactation suite, then promoted the subsequent installation of Mamava units at more than one thousand locations across the country, creating a new mom movement. Stellar design coupled with activism and community engagement are the Vermont entrepreneurial super power. Where would Ben and Jerry be with no dough boy?

Cairn Cross Co-founder of Fresh Tracks Capital and part-time lecturer in the Grossman School of Business PERRY HILL TRAILS, Waterbury

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CURRIER’S QUALITY MARKET, Glover

MARSH-BILLINGS-ROCKEFELLER NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK, Woodstock

ALCHEMIST BREWERY, Stowe

TOWN MEETING DAY, Waterville

IN THE SAWMILL Tucked into the mountains of Fletcher is LSF Forest Products, a small, custom-pine-and-hemlock sawmill. I work there when the legislature is not in session. I love the smell of freshly sawn wood, the way the boards move differently on ninety-degree days versus on five-degree winter mornings, the delicacy with which heavy equipment can sort a pile of half-ton logs. The mill supports independent loggers, who cut on local woodlots. The mill sells to local timber framers, who create employment and sustainably-sourced homes. In a working landscape, two concepts are united: forest conservation and economic opportunity.

Lucy Rogers ’18 Vermont State Representative, Lamoille-3

DEFIANTLY DECENT There is no other here, no one to fear. We cast our ballots differently in November, but the plow guy clears my driveway just as pristinely as my neighbor’s; and if you don’t get a permit for your burn, you better be sure to keep it low. Town Meeting Day is sacred as first snowfall—a ritual still remarkably untarnished by the fires that burn outside this state. We debate zoning and dog parks, then break for cider. It’s long and tedious and radically, defiantly decent. The faces in the room are changing for the better. Almost no one speaks Quebecois anymore, but a few speak Spanish, Vietnamese, and Somali now. Small miracles of kindness abound.

Meg Little Reilly ’01 Author of The Misfortunes of Family, her third novel, published in February

NEW FARMS FOR NEW AMERICANS, Intervale, Burlington

WILD NEIGHBORS Last night my daughter and I took a walk on the dirt road where her mother and I live. Snow was falling. Deer tracks abounded, along with those of smaller animals, and in one place we came upon the tracks of a bear—so fresh we could see the imprint of its claws. The sight was remarkable enough for my daughter to take out her phone and snap a picture but it didn’t alter our conversation or our stride. I love having large wild animals for my neighbors. I love thinking of their private lives in the nearby woods.

Garret Keizer G’78 A 2006 Guggenheim Fellow and author of nine books, the latest: The World Pushes Back, a volume of poetry.

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TOWN HALL, GLENN RUSSELL; NEW FARM, SALLY MCCAY

BOLTON VALLEY

ROUTE 108, Jeffersonville

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GREEN

SCHOLARSHIP BOOSTS VERMONT’S BRIGHTEST

ETHAN TAPPER ’12 CHITTENDEN COUNTY STATE FORESTER

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&GOLD

… AND HELPS SHAPE OUR STATE’S FUTURE

At every one of Vermont’s high schools each fall, a student begins senior year with a head start on what’s next, the news that by virtue of holding their school’s highest academic distinction, they’ve earned a full-tuition Green & Gold Scholarship to the University of Vermont.

This financial support is built on the generosity of the late Genevieve Patrick; part of her $9 million bequest, realized in 2000, created the foundation for the scholarship. More than four hundred Vermonters have since earned their UVM degrees on the strength of this support, many of them graduating to careers in their home state. In this issue, we catch up with several Green & Gold alumni and a current scholar.

By Thomas Weaver and Janet Franz Photography by Sally McCay

ABBEY ROULEAU ’10 PALLIATIVE CARE NURSE PRACTIONER, CENTRAL VERMONT MEDICAL CENTER

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A BETTER PLACE

JESS BULLOCK ’12 ATTORNEY, DINSE P.C., BURLINGTON

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Standing along Route 2 in Bolton, Ethan Tapper ’12 considers a question about his work as the state’s forester for Chittenden County. In particular, if there are different duties and challenges for the forester in this, the most “urban” of Vermont’s counties. Gesturing east toward Bolton Valley, he makes the point that there are 70,000 acres of habitat unbroken by roads, clear over to Stowe. And to the west, another 70,000 acres unbroken across Camel’s Hump, Robbins Mountain, and parcels of private land.

Point made. Even in relatively populous Chittenden County, the forests of Vermont are still a vast and vital part of the economic, recreational, and visual landscapes of the Green Mountain State.

Later, walking up a steep slope on a piece of land he owns in Bolton, Tapper points out the damage wrought by poor logging practices decades ago and details how, with a little help and lots of time, the forest can regenerate in a healthy way. One key aspect of his job, Tapper says, involves having similar conversations with private land owners, helping them to better know and manage their forests.

Tapper grew up in Saxtons River, attending Vermont Academy on scholarship as a day student. Looking back, he says he wouldn’t be a forester today or, very likely, even living in Vermont, without the financial support and direction of the Green & Gold Scholarship. John Shane, emeriti faculty member, was a key influence on Tapper, who

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recalls Shane’s lectures for their direct style, wisdom, and lasting impact: “No slides, no PowerPoint, just a piece of chalk in his hand. He would talk to us and everybody was riveted. We used to call it ‘John Shane Explains the Mysteries of the Universe.’”

Teaching, whether it’s adult education courses in dendrology or in discussion with landowners, is part of Tapper’s work, and Shane’s example still guides his approach. The chance “to demonstrate what good forest management looks like” is a powerful motivator in his life. “I get to do the business of making the world a better place while I’m at my job, which is pretty incredible,” Tapper says.

TAKING CARE Full disclosure, this is Abbey Rouleau’s second turn in Vermont Quarterly related to the Green & Gold Scholarship. Thirteen years ago, she was Abbey Lamos, a first-year nursing student featured in an ad for the UVM Fund—“Investing in UVM students is investing in Vermont’s future.”

Vermont’s future now Vermont’s present, Rouleau ’10 has just finished a Friday morning shift as a palliative care nurse practitioner at Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, sitting down in the lobby to discuss her career and reflect on her undergraduate years. Rouleau was a sophomore at Richford High School, the oldest of six kids in a family with deep roots in Franklin County, when she learned about the Green & Gold Scholarship. Her words in 2007 and

2019 are virtually identical: “When I realized what the scholarship could mean to me and to my family, I worked extra hard to become first in my class.”

In addition to the Green & Gold full tuition scholarship, Rouleau earned a Freeman Nursing Scholarship that covered her room and board, setting her on solid footing financially as she set out on the career in nursing she envisioned. Her interest in the field was initially sparked by helping care for her grandmother and, as she gained education and experience, she was particularly drawn to end-oflife care. A palliative care nurse at Central Vermont for the past six years, she recently completed her master’s online from Drexel University and became a consulting provider for palliative care in the same department.

“If our team can make it a little easier for patients and their families, I find a lot of fulfillment in that,” she says. “If the patient is more comfortable or they are feeling like their values are being heard or we’re helping get them home where they want to be for end of life, I feel like I can leave work that day and say, ‘OK, I made a difference.’”

Rouleau and her husband, Jason Rouleau ’05, with his own family roots deep in central Vermont, live just down the road from the hospital with their two young daughters, Livia and Myah. As Rouleau was quoted in Vermont Quarterly in 2007 regarding her love for her home state, “I can’t picture myself anywhere else.”

CATALYST Expect a one-time college debater and current practicing attorney to be prepared. Sitting in Kestrel Coffee on lower Maple Street in Burlington, waiting on a late-afternoon appointment to discuss her college days and current career, Jess Bullock ’12 has sketched a timeline of key moments in her young life. “I appreciated the Green & Gold at the time,” she says. “But through the lens of somebody who is now twelve years past high school graduation, I can look back and see how being offered that scholarship was a catalyst for what came next, so many links in my life trace to that point.”

Though Bullock was involved and, clearly, strong academically as a student at Mill River Union High School, just outside of Rutland, she says she was still apprehensive about college. Receiving news of the Green & Gold as she entered senior year began to shift that perspective. “It felt like UVM put a vote of confidence in my abilities, the sense that I had a voice that was worth being developed,” she reflects.

The next UVM door that opened for Bullock would be, literally, the hefty front door of Huber House, 475 Main Street, home to the university’s Lawrence Debate Union. She recalls, in detail, hauling it open for the first time, joining an event for novice debaters, and meeting the late great Professor Alfred “Tuna” Snider, guiding light to scores of debaters at UVM and beyond. Through UVM debate, she would travel to competitions worldwide, find her voice, and

LEONARD BARTENSTEIN’17 ENGLISH TEACHER, MOUNT SAINT JOSEPH ACADEMY

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MARIAH NOTH ’17 OUTREACH AND COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR FOR THE VERMONT FARM & FOREST VIABILITY PROGRAM

deepen her confidence, gifts that she would later pay forward by founding SPEAK Inc., a non-profit providing debate and public speaking training for traditionally underrepresented groups, particularly inmates in Vermont correctional facilities.

Bullock and her husband, Liam Donnelly ’12, are at home in Burlington now. Following a two-year clerkship with Justice Harold Eaton on Vermont’s Supreme Court, Bullock is working in private practice for a year with the law firm Dinse P.C. before a return to Rutland next fall to pursue a second clerkship.

BOUND BY BOOKS Love of writing, reading, and talking about literature drew Leonard Bartenstein ’17 to The Book House community in Living/Learning as a first-year student. Picture a “live-in book club,” Bartenstein says. But if “book club” conjures visions of a chardonnay-sipping circle, consider instead the UVM undergrad take on the concept: competitive writing fight nights, book-themed cafe crawls, all-night writing marathons, a punk rock show in Billings Library, and daring to discuss whether “some of the Star Wars spinoff novels are better literature than anything James Joyce ever wrote.”

Those first friendships from the Living/Learning suite held firm throughout college (and beyond) and led Bartenstein to related passions—president

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of the Quidditch team and editor of The Water Tower newspaper. And the residential learning experience deepened his desire to do exactly what he’s doing now, teaching high school English.

Bartenstein found inspiration and support from a number of faculty, including Lia Cravedi, Jennifer Prue, and Alan Tinkler in his secondary education classes and field experience. As both advisor and English professor, Tony Magistrale was another key influence.

“His good humor, guidance, and keen insight have helped reshape my perspective on literature,” Bartenstein says, adding that they’re still in touch, “following up on discussions of literature neither of us wants to leave behind.”

For the past three years, Bartenstein has passed on that love for literature and writing as a teacher at Mount Saint Joseph Academy, his high school alma mater in Rutland. (Children of the seventies may be hearing a faint echo of the “Welcome Back, Kotter” theme right about now.) He acknowledges some initial apprehension at standing in front of classes in the same school where he was in a student’s seat not so long before, his teachers now his colleagues. But, appreciating the small classes and close community, he’s found a happy teaching home. This year, Bartenstein’s courses include American Literature, AP Literature & Composition, and religion classes for sophomores, in addition to supervising the staff creating MSJ’s yearbook.

Some of the best moments for a teacher, Bartenstein says, are “when a student is able to finally ‘get’ it.

It’s great to see things click in the students’ minds.”

PLACE, PEOPLE, POTENTIAL Invariably, new college students are urged to dive in, get involved; Mariah Noth ’17 could be Exhibit A for the wisdom of taking that advice. She rattles off the names of faculty who influenced and inspired her—Dan Baker G’95 ’07; Jane Kolodinsky; Josh Farley, “his ecological economics course was paradigmshifting;” Kelly Hamshaw ’06 G’11, “a crucial mentor to this day;” and the late D. Brookes Cowan, “the embodiment of empathy.” Study abroad and service learning courses took Noth to Peru, Italy, and Brazil. “These opportunities allowed me to expand my knowledge and understanding of different perspectives and bring that back to Vermont. The work I do today is very much influenced by those experiences and the people I learned from.”

By sophomore year, Noth was clear that she’d

found an academic home in Community Development and Applied Economics and built in a focus on food systems.

“UVM was a wonderful and supportive place to explore, and this program was an applied version of all of my passions combined,” she says. Noth returns to campus to share the experience of a recent grad with current students: “One of my personal tenets is always give back, always help people not only find but explore and engage with their passions. The support I’ve received has made the difference for me, and I want to pay that forward.”

After working as a community planner in the Mad River Valley, she moved to a new job last summer, outreach and communications coordinator for the Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, helping connect Vermont working lands businesses and citizens with expertise and advising to empower keystone entrepreneurs and strengthen the state’s rural communities.

Noth, who grew up in the Champlain Islands and graduated from Colchester High School, is a strong advocate for her home state, a deep believer in this place, its people, and its potential. “Vermont should be the place where people come to test out and hone their skills in sustainable agricultural production,” she says. “We have the right land base. We embrace connection, collaboration, and have the learning-community ethos.

Concerted efforts will enhance the process and we are realizing that: it’s unfolding before us. And I’m excited to be part of Vermont’s progress with such a passionate and caring group of colleagues across the state.”

ONE STEP CLOSER Choosing the nursing program at UVM came easily to Thong “Key” Nguyen ’21, but it was music, not medicine, that led him here. Nguyen was a Winooski High School student and a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus when his vocal coach held his recital at Wake Robin retirement community in Shelburne. The melody he sang prompted a Wake Robin resident to suggest that he become a nurse.

“An older lady approached me with eyes full of tears, she held my arm with her hands shaking, needing my support to stand up. She told me I reminded her of a nurse she once knew who had a beautiful voice. She said, ‘your voice is so beautiful,’ and she asked if I would consider becoming a nurse.

I thought it was just a fun compliment, but I looked

into her eyes and I realized it was a serious question.

It stuck in my head a lot after that,” Nguyen recalls.

Soon after that experience, Nguyen’s parents, who speak no English, asked him for help at the Social Security office to discuss their future, and he realized that his parents will need his support.

The Nguyen family emigrated from Vietnam to the United States in 2013, and Key’s parents are ineligible for government retirement benefits. “The image of the lady in Wake Robin reflected back to my mind. My parents depend on me for basic needs,” he says. “With skills as a nurse, I can provide care for my parents and give them financial support.”

Beyond the demands of the nursing curriculum, Nguyen has carved out time for an array of activities, including membership in UVM Boulder Society and keeping his voice in shape with the Catamount Singers.

Nguyen has also worked as a tutor-counselor for TRIO Upward Bound, a federally-funded program that helps young people—particularly those whose parents did not attend college—successfully complete high school and pursue post-secondary education. Discussing this experience, Nguyen says, “I wake up every day full of happiness and excitement, knowing that I will get to help forty-five high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds to be one step closer to a better future. And who knows, I might be able to inspire some future nurses.”

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THONG “KEY” NGUYEN ’21 NURSING STUDENT

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Melody Walker ’05 G’11 reimagines what it means to be a Native Vermonter today

Becoming Indigenous it was 2011, and Melody Walker had a car accented with several fresh bullet holes. What she also had: recognition, for the first time, from the State of Vermont for two groups—the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, and her own tribe, the Elnu Tribe of the Abenaki. Two more Abenaki bands received recognition the following year.

By ANDREA ESTEY Photograph by BEAR CIERI

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The Abenaki people can trace their history in this region back more than ten thousand years; it’s been fewer than ten years since these four bands have been recognized by the state.

Walker is former chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American affairs, and was vice chair at the time her tribe was recognized, highpressure positions that earned her scrutiny and, yes, a shot-up car, likely perpetrated by individuals who disliked the state’s decision. “I don’t think that anything I’ve done could be more important than getting recognition,” says Walker, who earned her undergrad degree from UVM in 2005 and her master’s in history in 2011, around the same time the Elnu received recognition. “It’s all about making sure that the people who are coming up can succeed. You struggle to make sure they don’t struggle.”

Her connections to UVM faculty and her research on topics including personhood, cultural revitalization, and first contacts between Abenaki people and

that, says Walker, was a key finding of her master’s work. “I hope people think about the past in a different way. It wasn’t all death and destruction.”

It took decades for Walker’s understanding of how to be an indigenous person to develop, and it’s still evolving today. “John Wayne is saying, ‘this is what an Indian looks like,’” laughs Walker.

“But I don’t have to wear buckskin to be part of the community.”

She can remember this understanding first taking shape at the funeral for her brother, who tragically drowned at age four. Surrounded by Abenaki families, she saw what it meant to be supported by a community. Walker became involved with the Abenaki Cultural Center in Swanton, her entry point into cultural work. From there, her identity became centered around practice, learning, and teaching.

Walker, who was born in the Missisquoi tribe, married into the Elnu band. A central tribal tenet: everybody needs to be useful, and to teach other people. Walker learned the art of fingerweaving from an Elnu elder, Rose. “From the one per“I tried to piece together what we Abenakis believed at the time son who taught me, I kept a list of all the people I taught and where they of contact,” says Walker, including Abenaki concepts of moved to, and how many people have learned from that one lesson.” personhood and identity. And these moments of first contact (Walker estimates it at thirty people.) Today, she makes bags, beaded are still happening, right here in Vermont, with the arrival of pieces, and historically informed outfits, like a seventeenth-century New Americans in cities and towns every year. piece crafted from leather, paint, and sinew. “When you know your gifts, what your ancestors did, even these small little acts can change commusettlers helped her assemble a scholar’s panel to nities,” says Walker. appear before the state. “I coordinated the academic The tension between preserving tradition and piece, finding scholars who would vet our applica- reimagining the role of indigenous people in today’s tion,” Walker explains.

America is something Walker struggles with, a The recognition isn’t just an identification card. dilemma central to being part of a living culture.

With the title comes real impacts for tribes, includ- “I’m trying to bring back traditions and also help ing the ability to sell their goods labeled as Indian people think in a different way about the everyday Arts and Crafts. Today, there are still bands unrec- world they live in.” ognized in the State of Vermont; none of Vermont’s When she entered UVM in 2001, Walker was still tribes are federally recognized. wrestling with how to explain her identity. “I can “In the beginning of your life, you don’t under- pass. I was too afraid to put anywhere that I was an stand how to be a mixed person,” says Walker, who indigenous person,” says Walker. “I’d always heard, is of European and Abenaki descent. She’s traced her you can’t say this if your tribe’s not recognized.” She family’s roots to the Swanton/Highgate area “as far found a home in the ALANA Center, now known back as we possibly can,” all the way back to mar- as the Mosaic Center for Students of Color, where riages between indigenous and European ancestors. director Bev Colston always made space.

“They were cultural ambassadors,” says Walker. It’s “I was a first-generation student. I should have a first contact story devoid of violence, different failed. I was poor as all hell,” says Walker. But her than those gory clashes commonly taught—and mom prioritized a college education for Walker and

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her sister. “I wouldn’t be here without the people that helped me succeed.” Over ten years, she earned two degrees and made an impact in offices across campus, working in the registrar’s office and student life, among others. “I was full-blown ‘Groovy UV,’” laughs Walker.

Mentors in the Anthropology Department included professor John Crock and the late professor Jim Petersen. “Jim is probably the most important person,” says Walker through tears. “That’s how you can be an ally. Through friendship.” Petersen played a fundamental role in Vermont’s archaeology community and was a champion for indigenous communities in the state and around the world; his archaeological discoveries demonstrated sophisticated farming practices and long-standing ties to land. Petersen died in 2005 while conducting field research in Brazil, shot and killed during a robbery in a small town near the Amazon River. His legacy is remembered with the Fleming Museum’s James B. Petersen Memorial Gallery.

For her master’s research, “I tried to piece together what we Abenakis believed at the time of contact,” says Walker, including Abenaki concepts of personhood and identity. And these moments of first contact are still happening, right here in Vermont, with the arrival of New Americans in cities and towns every year. “That’s the reason I wanted to study the colonial period and first contact,” explains Walker. “It’s not something that happened centuries ago. There’s a lot of lessons we can learn.”

When asked if this feels like an especially important time to be talking about first contacts given the rhetoric surrounding refugees and immigration, Walker resists. “It’s always an important moment in time to be talking about this,” she says. Her work, she says, isn’t about claiming or taking anything for the Abenaki people. “This isn’t about, ‘we’re the first Vermonters, this is ours.’ We never thought of it that way.” Instead, she says, she hopes others will try to connect to their own past. “We all have a story to tell.”

Oral history is another practice Walker has embraced, telling stories and passing knowledge to the youngest members of her tribe, or anyone who calls on her with specific questions about time periods or traditions. “Our idea of power is that you

never keep it for yourself. The only way you retain power is by giving it to people. It all comes back to responsibility and the responsibility you have with ten thousand years of history. I take it seriously.”

Since finishing her master’s, Walker has collaborated with faculty at Northern Vermont UniversityJohnson to reconstruct lifeways and run educational programs, including an effort to recover and restore crops grown by indigenous communities in Northern New England and parts of Canada. The crops are called the “Seven Sisters,” ancient varieties of corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers.

In Haymarket, Virginia, some six hundred miles south of her native Highgate, Walker is now growing these Seven Sisters. She’s on a farm she calls “Indian Walden,” cultivating several varieties grown by her ancestors thousands of years before. Her move is one way Walker is pushing herself to reimagine identity, sparked by a challenge from Maori friends who asked, “Do you know what you have if you’ve never gone anywhere?”

In quite literally new territory, she is finding new roles. “How do you become an ally to someone else?” asks Walker, who’s working as an adjunct professor and advisor at two local universities. It’s the farthest she’s ever lived from home, and while the daily gardening rituals are peaceful, “you can’t be a solitary native person. The center of our existence is each other.” But, she says, for now it’s a chance to write a new story, to reinvent.

She discusses the Abenaki creation stories that bring her comfort in a faraway place; indigenous people were, at one time, also new. “We’re told that Gluscabi beat back the ice monsters so that we could walk here. We were immigrants in this story.

And Corn Mother gave her life so that her children, the People, could survive.” These creation stories recount key moments in time, from the days of ice to the arrival of corn. “We were remade in these times.

We have to have a new story, and we have to think about ourselves in new ways. What are we now?”

Which leads to the question, as Walker sits hundreds of miles from her ancestral home: what does it mean to be a Native Vermonter? It is, Walker says, possible to become indigenous to a place.

Here, she quotes Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass. “It means ‘living as if your children’s lives matter and as if the place matters.’

We’ve loved this place for ten thousand years and we’ll love it for another ten thousand. The type of people we want to share our homeland with are the people who love it, too.”

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FIELDTEST Vermont farmers have an advocate and friend in Professor Heather Darby

Story and photographs by JOSHUA BROWN AUGUST 30, 2019 I’m driving north on Route 2 to look for Heather Darby.

“Not going to be on campus,” she told me very early this morning. “I’ll be at Borderview all afternoon. You can find me in the field or I might be in the barn.”

After crossing the bridge off North Hero Island, I pass the tiny public library and St. Amadeus Church in Alburgh, out through the open pastures beyond the village, and pull over for a moment at a farm stand stacked with tomatoes and squash—the 130-acre Darby Farm. Here, Heather Darby and her husband raise dairy heifers, tend bees, and sell fruits and vegetables by the side of the road. Her great-great-greatgreat-grandfather, Jonathan Darby, started farming on this shore of Lake Champlain in 1800. The farm passed down to George Darby, then Ransom Darby, Aubrey Darby, Arthur Darby, and Alan Darby, Heather’s dad.

In 2003, she took over the farm—father to daughter.

But professor Heather Darby is not tending her own farm today. She’s busy tending all the farms across Vermont—which is why she’s driven her truck two miles north to Borderview Research Farm.

A sharp left, within feet of the Canadian border, then a rough ride along Line Road leads to a neat white barn and hundreds of green rows and rectangles— corn, oats, rye, and dozens of other plants: research plots marked with pink and orange surveyor’s flags.

Heather Darby comes bustling out of a shed, carrying a yellow box. “You found us,” she says with a big

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Hops for Vermont’s thriving craft brew industry, new approaches on old practices such as planting cover between corn rows, exploring different varieties of standard crops—and entirely new ones for the state—are among the dozens of experiments Heather Darby and her team take on every year in efforts to help the region’s farmers.

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smile, and, without pausing, walks between long rows of harvested hops stretched out on a blue tarp, noting that these are a variety called Centennial. “A lot of brewers like them,” she says, and begins to explain how—with her crop and soils coordinator, John Bruce ’13— she’s been testing the fertility of hops with different amounts of nitrogen.

“We’re just starting to check out a bunch of wild hops varieties too, from all over the state,” she says. “Oh yeah, we also have a couple of interesting studies where we’re looking at the terroir of hops. Are the hops’ aromas and flavors influenced by where they’re grown?”

Darby grabs a handful of hops and takes a deep whiff. “I do like an IPA,” she says. Then she’s on the move again. “Let’s find Roger,” she says, heading into the barn.

Roger Rainville has long farmed Borderview, milking dairy cows for forty years. He knew Heather’s father, also a dairy farmer, and he’s known Heather since she was four years old. Loading a bag of hops onto a table in the barn, he says, “She was always smart— and just always doing—doing, doing. And now she’d do anything she can to help farmers. It’s a lot of work, but I guess you could say it’s inspiring because Heather’s so sincere about doing this, all this work, for others,” he says, a bit mournfully. Then he suddenly laughs. “I thought I knew everything,” he says, “but now she’s the boss.”

The Borderview Research Farm is a remarkable partnership between them—perhaps unique in the United States. In a way, it began when Darby left Vermont to study agronomy in New Hampshire and Wisconsin and complete her doctorate in crops and soils at Oregon State University. Eventually, she returned home to the farm she grew up on and joined UVM’s faculty as an agronomist and soils specialist. As a professor in UVM Extension with a secondary appointment in the Department of Plant and Soil Science and as a fellow in the Gund Institute for Environment, she’s clear about who she works for. “I do all this research, all this science, for the farmers,” she says.

The transformation of Borderview from a conventional dairy farm to a research site began in 2004 when Darby and Rainville started a field trial, growing different strains of canola for oil to brew biodiesel to power his equipment. It succeeded.

Over time, the farm produced thousands of gallons of fuel—and more and more of its acreage was dedicated to research. Today, Darby’s grant funding allows UVM to rent the whole farm.

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Darby sees great value in conducting her research on a regular Vermont farm in northern Grand Isle County, working side-by-side with Rainville, where farmers can see the trials on familiar ground. And where she (and her technicians and staff—now at seventeen employees) can run experiments that respond directly and quickly to what they’re hearing from bakers and brewers and chefs, as well as farmers.

(Randy George, of Red Hen Bakery in Middlesex, told me that Darby’s work to found the Northern Grain Growers Association and to open a crop testing lab at UVM has radically improved how regional farmers grow wheat—transforming local flour from “unusable” to “delicious; far better than I could have imagined,” he said.)

“I’ve worked on a lot of research farms at different universities. Everybody’s done on Friday at 4:30,” Darby says. “That’s fine, but I’m a farmer and I run this place like it’s a farm. If the ground is ready, it doesn’t matter what time of day or day of the week it is. And Roger’s right there with me, you know. I couldn’t do it without him.”

As she’s talking, Darby carefully counts out one hundred hops cones on the table. Then she puts the hops in a bucket, weighs them on a scale, and writes the data on a clipboard. And it’s not just hops. Darby has more than fifty agronomic experiments going each year—looking for seeds and crops that have the best quality, highest yield—and for new ways, she says, “to keep our remaining farmers from going under.”

“All told, we’ve got almost a thousand varieties,” she says—and then she and Rainville start listing: “spring and winter wheat,” she says. “Oats and rye,” he says. “Short-season corn, long-season corn, organic corn silage. Flint corn too,” she says. “Soybeans,” he says. “And organic soybeans—and now there’s lots of interest in hemp,” she says. “Fifteen varieties of canola,” he says. And one they didn’t list: not far from this barn, Rainville has planted fifty acres of milkweed. A few years ago, Darby heard from a Canadian start-up that proved the silk inside the milkweed pods makes great insulation for coats—so they’re testing that too.

A few hours later, Darby has picked corn, picked up her six-year-old at school, and is now picking up handfuls of green forage—clover, alfalfa, bird’s-foot trefoil—that Rainville dumps out the back of an outsized riding lawnmower called a flail chopper.

“There’s been a lot of growth in grass-only milk,” Darby says, shouting over the engine. “Those farms only feed with forage—no grain; their cows have to get all their protein from grass.” So she secured a $1.2 million grant from the USDA to work with

these all-grass dairies and study what forages will be most nutritious.

Darby stops to eat a piece of raw sweet corn. “It’s so good that I haven’t cooked any all summer,” she says. But she’s at least as pleased by what’s growing between the rows of corn. “Most farmers, right now, if you ask them, would say that the climate is their biggest challenge. Of course, milk prices suck, but it’s even worse if you can’t grow a good crop and you’re losing soil every year because the weather has gone crazy with eight-inch rainstorms.”

Which is why she’s been studying the best new methods for farmers to return to an old tradition: growing cover crops between their corn—to hold the soil, increase organic matter and, sometimes, to harvest another crop after the corn. When Darby started her cover crop experiments in 2004 she estimates there were fifty acres of it being grown in Vermont. Now there are thirty thousand—roughly a third of all the corn in the state.

Rainville cuts the engine on the flail chopper and we can hear the voice of a small boy from the far side of the fields: “Mommy, I’m hungry.” Darby smiles.

“Some days, he likes to come out and help,” she says, looking at her son, tumbling in the grass.

JANUARY 21, 2020 A winter wind blows past the windows of VFW Post 758 on the outskirts of Saint Albans. “Go into ‘Fields,’” Heather Darby instructs about twenty farmers sitting in front of laptops inside a darkened meeting room. “You should have your soil test in already,” she says, explaining what screen of goCrop software they’re supposed to be on. “It’s going to ask you for the average soil loss for that field.” Darby is leading a six-week course to train these farmers how to write and file a nutrient management plan now mandated by state water quality regulations for many Vermont farms.

“Are you paying attention, Earl?” she says, ribbing a gray-haired farmer. But she’s feeling dismayed. A few minutes ago, she gave them what she’s calls “the talk.”

“A lot of farmers feel powerless and I’m telling them that they’re not,” she explains. “They need to stand up for themselves and show how the whole state rides on their backs.”

“We all need clean water. It’s a public good and so we—the people—should all be in this together,” she says. Darby understands that phosphorus and other pollution is fouling Vermont waterways and contributing to algae blooms in Lake Champlain.

“We all have to do better,” she says.

“But farmers are not always well represented, and so it’s hard for a lot of people to understand what

they’re doing,” Darby says. “People just keep turning to farms to do more—until all the burden of cleaning up the water has been put on the farming community. Apparently, that’s the easiest and cheapest thing to do. But where does the problem begin?”

Here’s what Darby wants people to think about: “When you go to a store and buy food—you determine what type of agriculture we have in our country. It wasn’t the farmers who decided that we should have CAFO’s and fast food—and that where your food comes from doesn’t matter as long as it’s dirt cheap and that all the milk would be owned by a few companies,” she says.

“We’re losing farms by the boatload,” she says.

Indeed, when Roger Rainville started milking cows as a boy there were more than six thousand dairy farms in Vermont. Today, 652 remain. They still contribute about two-thirds of Vermont’s farm sales— and dairy farmers manage some eighty percent of the state’s much-loved open farm land, the foundation of Vermont’s tourism and recreation economies. But only twenty percent of that land is conserved. “Farming in general is undervalued in our society—but especially in this environmental conversation,” says Darby. “With climate change and all kinds of global troubles, how do you feel about having most of our food come from California or just three companies?”

Heather Darby gets up and goes across the room to help John Tiffany enter data from his soil tests.

He’s twenty-three, and he and his wife just bought a herd of thirty-one organic dairy cows in Fairfax. “This is our first year shipping milk,” he says, looking out from beneath the blue visor of a New Holland Agriculture hat. “I grew up on a farm. It’s always what I’ve wanted to do.”

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Winter work: At the Saint Albans VFW Post, northern Vermont farmers gather for Heather Darby’s six-week course on maintaining nutrient management plans, a key step in meeting state water quality regulations.

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| BACK ON CAMPUS

NICOLE STATA ’91

Find your super-power, own it, and develop the ability to tell your story well, alumna Nicole Stata advises business students.

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As a recent member of the Grossman School of Business Board of Advisors, Nicole Stata ’91 has helped Dean Sanjay Sharma enhance experiential learning and create events such as the Dean’s Lecture Series, in which successful alumni return to campus to talk with students and faculty.

Last October 10, it was Stata’s turn to bring her own story to the front of the class, in this case Ifshin Hall’s Keller Room, packed with students eager to learn from the general partner and co-founder of Boston Seed Capital, provider of seed-stage funding for consumer digital and data start-ups. Stata also founded Deploy Solutions in 1996, leading the web-based human resources company for eleven years as CEO through its sale to Kronos.

Past honors include being named one of the top twentyfive most influential women in tech in Boston in 2013, and, in 2015, she received the “Rising Star Venture Capitalist” award.

Over the course of her noon-hour talk, Stata informally recounted her life and career story, along the way sharing bits of advice that a senior about to embark on a business career would be wise to highlight.

Entrepreneurialism runs deep in the Stata family.

Nicole’s father, Ray Stata, along with the help and support of her mother, Maria, co-founded Analog Devices. Her brother, Raymie, sold his first company to Yahoo where he went on to be Yahoo’s CTO until leaving to start Alti-Scale,

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which he then sold to SAP. Frank about both the advantages and the challenges of being surrounded by such savvy and success, Nicole Stata told the UVM gathering, “Early on I started to develop something that has helped me throughout my career—a big, big, big chip on my shoulder. So as my parents became more and more successful, I got in my head that I could show them, and when it was my turn, I didn’t need any help from them, I was going to go out and crush it.”

Though her CV includes founding two companies and prior corporate experience, Stata built the foundation of her work ethic long before. Early in her teen years, she spent the summer packing and shipping computer chips at Analog. Stata loved the sense of team, hard work, and pride in that work—all lessons that would shape her career. Another job you won’t find on her LinkedIn profile, but also formative: waitressing at Rasputin’s, a Burlington bar popular with students in the late 1980s and still going strong today. It was there that Stata found that personally connecting with customers, and hustling hard all evening, meant that on twenty-five cent beer night she’d get handed dollar after dollar after dollar and told “keep the change, Nicky.” Simple math: hard work pays.

Today, at Boston Seed Capital, Stata and her colleagues sift through thousands of business pitches a year. Among very early concepts, how do you decide who is ready to take it to the next level, one student asked. Stata said that, far more than innovation or market niche, it comes back to the founder/CEO and team. “We always pick the person(s). That’s it. End of story. That’s the secret.” For example, Boston Seed was one of the very first investors in DraftKings, a fantasy sports betting business now rumored to be worth over $1 billion in value. “The reason we invested in DraftKings, against potential obvious headwinds, was because of their three-person leadership team,” Stata said. “We were blown away by them.”

That personal metric guiding Boston Seed jibes with another core message Stata shared—as a person and as a professional, find your “super-power,” own it, and develop the ability to make it abundantly evident by telling your story well. Speaking of her own experience, and to great extent her own super-power, Stata said, “Find exceptional people and convince them to work with you.

Tell them a story, make them like you, and get them to come on board. If you can do that, you can do anything.”

GLENN RUSSELL

CLASS NOTES Life beyond graduation

NEW AND IMPROVED!

CLASS NOTES The UVM Alumni Association just rolled out a new site for online classnotes. You’ll find personal and professional news and photos from your fellow alumni, all presented in a user-friendly format, searchable by class year, school or college, and type of note. Of course, you can easily share your own updates, as well. And for you class notes fanatics who find it difficult to wait between print issues of Vermont Quarterly, the online version will refresh as new notes are posted.

alumni.uvm.edu/notes

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It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Daan Zwick on November 21, 2019. He was an outstanding member of our class. You probably remember him as the editor of the Cynic. He was a leader at UVM, and a leader in life. He continued to be a student all his life, taking courses into his eighties. He was also instrumental in the completion of the Long Trail. Volunteering was his joy. We are so proud to say he was a member of the class of 1943. I must say again that I would welcome a hello from other class members, We miss you!

Send your news to— June Hoffman Dorion 16 Elmwood Drive, Rutland, VT 05701 junedorion@gmail.com

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Rose Boyarsky’s husband, Saul Boyarsky ’44 MD’46, passed away in January 2019 at the age of 95. She lives in Durham, North Carolina and would love to hear from classmates. Penelope Easton lives at the same continuing care retirement community.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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Send your news to— Mrs. Harriet Bristol Saville

Apt. 11, 1510 Williston Road South Burlington, VT 05403 hattiesaville@comcast.net

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Send your news to— Louise Jordan Harper 573 Northampton Street, Holyoke, MA 01040 louisejordanharper@gmail.com

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Elizabeth “Betsy” Cayey Schultis enjoys independent living at Birch Hill in Manchester, New Hampshire.

She edits the resident newsletter with the skills she learned as an English major at UVM. Joanne Howard Kouris’s best memories are of the 1948 UVM Marshall Plan trip to Europe. After, she remained in Europe and worked four years in Germany at U.S. Army Special Service Clubs. She went on to receive a master’s in social work from the University of Denver. Her three daughters were born and live in Denver. Joanne married Tom Bell, and they traveled to Europe, China, Japan, and Peru. The couple participated in the National Senior Games five times in tennis and swimming. She now lives in a countrystyle retirement community near Denver.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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70th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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Robert and Mary Ann Mooney Chaffee ’60 have been at Wake Robin in Shelburne for a year. They enjoy the views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks, renewing old friendships, and making new ones.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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65th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Edith “Babette” Cameron had a wonderful reunion with former UVM roommate Joanie Wislocki McKenzie at The Providence Art Club in September. Joanie and three other artists hosted a successful opening reception. Edith shares, “Her oil paintings are beautiful; some will show at a gallery in New York City. Fun time, as well, at their lovely home in Little Compton. Many laughs and great memories!” Judy Ramsden Husk ’57 and Bill Husk ’58 have settled in Burt Lake in northern SPRING 2020 |

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| CLASS NOTES Michigan. They visited campus and found themselves a bit lost with how different it is now with the incredible changes. Marilyn Stern Dukoff and Helene Widder Chusid, UVM roommates, are enjoying their frequent get-togethers in New York City and Great Barrington, Massachusetts, during the summer. Both are well and busy with family, various activities, and volunteer work. Your class secretary Jane Battles hosted the yearly gathering of Tri-Deltas in Connecticut. She writes, “hard to believe we gals haven’t missed a single year for 63 years now.” This year’s attendees included Bob ’54 and Sandy Willey ’56, Nancy McGoughran Blanchet ’56, Greg and Ann Harriman Hill ’56, Betsy King Beasley ’56 and Bill Morrison ’60.

Jane shares that the loss of Lew Dan ’55 MD’59, Carol Coen Dan’s spouse, this past summer was a heartbreaker to all, as well as the loss over the summer of 2018, of both Bill and Lorrie Farwell. Jane writes, “Sure hope some of you will venture back to UVM Alumni Weekend, October 2nd of 2020— yours truly is planning on it! Book lodging soon!

Warm wishes to all, do send me a note.”

Send your news to— Jane Morrison Battles Apt. 125A, 500 East Lancaster Avenue Wayne, PA 19087 janebattles@yahoo.com Hal Lee Greenfader Apt. 1, 805 South Le Doux Road Los Angeles, CA 90035 halisco@att.net

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Judy Silon Hershberg serves on the Board of Directors of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Each summer, the festival brings 200 high school and college-aged musicians to the UVM campus for a fourweek intensive music study program. The festival offers faculty concerts in the UVM Recital Hall and free student performances in various venues around the city.

Send your news to— Jane K. Stickney 32 Hickory Hill Road, Williston, VT 05495 stickneyjane@gmail.com

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June Sherwin’s home economics degree served her well. She taught in Connecticut and Missouri and is currently involved in church and family activities with her husband of almost 63 years. June and Phil visited the Dorset Playhouse in Vermont for a fun afternoon. See their picture in the Online Class Notes: go.uvm.edu/notes.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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With sadness, Nancy Breiner Breed ’62 shares news of the death of her husband of 57 years. John Lincoln Breed, Jr. ’59, G’62, Tau Beta Pi, passed away on August 13, 2019.

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Send your news to— Henry Shaw, Jr. 112 Pebble Creek Rd, Columbia, SC 29223 hshaw@sc.rr.com

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60th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Jean Fraser ’61 has had a hard year. She lost her husband, Howard “Jack” Fraser, in April. The couple had almost 14 years together after reuniting; they had initially had been together at UVM in 1960.

Jean writes, “He so enjoyed the last reunion and seeing old classmates, especially Ray Wiener and his wife. He will be missed by all who knew him.”

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

Robert Denner had a ‘bittersweet’ visit to UVM over Columbus Day weekend. His first time back in more than 50 years, he visited his old fraternity house AEPI on 275 South Willard Street and discovered it is now a dorm. Despite this disappointment, Robert wrote that, “the two days spent at UVM were great.” He saw new buildings, and sat in on a math class. He would love to hear from his brothers. Paul Murphy and his wife, Angela, celebrated his 80th with a trip to London and chunneling to Paris. He continues to work full-time but has his eye on retirement in June, which will be his fiftieth year of practice. Paul is still in contact with Bob Goldman, Pete Nelson, Pete Weiss ’64, Lou Hronek ’60, and Al Peterson ’60.

Liz Elkavich Wester and Bill Wester celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary with family in Nashville in July. Liz is recovering well from a June hip replacement. She looks forward to Florida in October and playing golf. In February, Roger Zimmerman and his wife, Lynne, led a backcountry ski trip in Yellowstone National Park. They’re involved in various environmental struggles, as well as “efforts to get rid of our esteemed Twitter-in-Chief.” John Simonds spent two delightful nights at the Basin Harbor Club in August. He worked there as a ‘boat boy’ in 1957 and shares, “it remains a magnificent place to enjoy the sunset over Lake Champlain. The memory lingers as I face the harsh winter that has descended on Chicago.” Linda Sack Fossier notes the passing of Betsy Samuelson Greer in November. Linda knew Betsy because her mother went to UVM with Betsy’s, Class of ’29. Linda shares, “Betsy was a remarkable person who advocated for mental health.” Mary Prespare Maloney has lived in an apartment in a community called Peter Cooper/ Stuyvesant Town for 50 years. She writes, “It’s quite lovely. Lots of greenery, beautiful old trees, etc.”

In October Theta Chi, Delta Nu chapter, fraternity brother, retired USAF Colonel Dick Aldinger ’62 and wife Janet stopped by for lunch with Joe Buley.

Joe writes, “We had 57 years of catching up—a real joy.” Your class secretary Steve Berry and wife Louise joined Ray and Jean Gianarelli Pecor ’62 G’78 for dinner in September. “We try to make this an

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annual event and enjoy swapping stories about our UVM memories and growing up in Vermont.”

Send your news to— Steve Berry 8 Oakmount Circle, Lexington, MA 02420 steveberrydhs@gmail.com

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John C. Holme, Jr., (Theta Chi) and his wife, Diane S. Holme (Alpha Delta Pi) bought a home in Springfield, Vermont, from Andrew C. Clark ’76 (Theta Chi) and his wife, Penny who now live in Windsor, Vermont.

On recent travels to southern and central California, Richard Aldinger and his wife, Janet, visited with Geri and Joe Buley ’61. They caught up on all that has happened since their last visit 50+ years ago. At UVM, they both majored in civil engineering, were members of Theta Chi fraternity, and cadets in the last Air Force ROTC class to graduate from UVM. On August 2nd, Barbara Fiddler of Durango and Richard Mahoney of Telluride were married. They met while working at Johnson State College in the eighties, and lost track of each other for 27 years.

The “magic of Facebook” brought them together in 2015. They spend winters in Telluride at their skiin-ski-out condo—Barbara’s “idea of assisted living.” Dick skis over 50+ days a year; Barbara goes out on bluebird days. The rest of the year, they are in Durango. Barbara still plays tennis and had the pleasure to be in Mallorca last spring for some red clay practice and a day at the Rafa Nadal Academy. She is “happy playing singles.”

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

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After 55 years, Kae Gleason Dakin and her husband, Don, took their family of eleven back to Kenya, where they had served in the Peace Corps—they even found the house where they had lived. Kate was inspired when JFK famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

She joined the Peace Corps, and since she had won a cow milking contest at UVM, she was assigned to an agricultural project. James Durrell, former bank executive, enjoys retirement in Melbourne, Florida.

He’s been married for 62 years, has four children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. For the eighteenth consecutive year, Owls convened last spring in Ocean City, Maryland, for the Lambda Iota Golf Classic. This skins tournament is played over six select golf courses in Maryland and Delaware. Participants were Doug Clark, Spencer Baker ’67, Bruce Cornish ’60, Jamie Jacobs ’61 MD’65, Tom Keppel ’65, who passed away in September 2019, and J.J. Saliba ’60. Course arrangements were handled

by Preston Crandall ’64. Richard Burgess shares that life is good and his health is fine. He’s busy with lots of reading, gardening, yoga, more reading, choral work, library volunteer work, and daily workouts. Joan and Arnie Kerzner MD’63 moved to Edgewood, a retirement community in North Andover, Massachusetts. They happily settled in and are

embracing their new lifestyle and friends. There are plenty of intellectual, artistic, and outdoor activities there, including kayaking and 100 acres of trails and woods to explore. Joan continues to teach English to refugees and immigrants in Lowell, and Arnie still works part-time at a school for children with special needs in North Chelmsford. Their granddaughter Elana ’22 is a sophomore at UVM. Last year’s travels took them to the Canadian Maritimes with Mary (Bunting) and Reiner Decher—what fun!

Ted Jones is a retired municipal recreation and park department head, life member and Hall of Famer for Dixie Boys Baseball, 50+ year member of the North Charleston Lions Club, 13+ year volunteer for Water Mission, and 20+ year board member for Heritage Community Services. Your class secretary Toni Mullins sends greetings. I’ve moved from my home of 21 years to a townhouse in Highlands, a change that was unexpectedly traumatic. I continue to love sports, especially dance, skiing, golf, and working out. Also, my longtime love of Pilates occupies a lot of my time, and I continue to compete in International Latin Ball Room Dance. The bottom line: I may not have a full-time paying job anymore, yet I will never consider myself retired!

Send your news to— Toni Citarella Mullins 27 Lighthouse Point Road, Highlands, NJ 07732

tonicmullins@verizon.net

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After 47 years, Linda Sparks retired from her active career in real estate with Four Seasons Sotheby’s in Burlington, Vermont. She continues to handle real estate referrals. Linda looks forward to catching up with long-time friends and traveling—starting with a trip to New Zealand with UVM’s Discovery Travel program. A class mini-reunion was held in Charleston, South Carolina, on the weekend of October 18-20. Rich Berliner, Howard Jacobson, Alan Mintz, Pete Oppenheim, Bob Sommerfield, and their lovely ladies attended. Activities included a buggy ride, museum visits, a Charleston-style home tour, and delicious meals. Alan shares, “The best part was sharing UVM memorabilia and an AEPI pinning ceremony!” They hope to continue having mini-reunions sooner rather than later. Robert Scrivener is an independent sales representative for RJ Matthews, an animal health distributor. He covers New England, New York, and Florida, focusing on the equine market. Your class secretary Sue Barber writes, “Our 55th Reunion has come and gone. Those who returned participated in many fun activities. Being back on campus for a beautiful autumn weekend was delightful. Meeting our new president and hearing his

ideas confirmed that UVM will be in good hands going forward. We are now members of the elite Green and Gold group. Although we don’t have a designated class party, we can participate in joint events. If you do return, you will be amazed at all the beautiful changes to campus. Certainly, growth is happening in abundance.”

Send your news to— Susan Barber 1 Oak Hill Road, P.O. Box 63, Harvard, MA 01451 suebarbersue@gmail.com

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55th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

While vacationing in Saint Maarten, Michael “Biddy” and Susan Biddelman had a lovely dinner with Stephen Burzon ’62 and his wife, Nancy.

Michael and Susan live in Boynton Beach, Florida, and would like to hear from classmates. Rose Levy’s 13th cookbook, Rose’s Ice Cream Bliss, will be published in May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

Green Living

At Wake Robin, residents have designed and built over four miles of walking trails. Each spring, they make maple syrup in the community sugar house, and each fall they harvest honey from our beehives. Residents compost, plant gardens, use locally grown foods, and work with staff to follow earth-friendly practices.

We would love to share with you all the new and exciting changes that are happening throughout the community!

To learn more about our vibrant lifeplan community and our current incentive pricing, visit wakerobin.com or call to schedule a tour.

802.264.5100 / wakerobin.com

2 0 0 WA K E R O B I N D R I V E , S H E L B U R N E , V E R M O N T

SPRING 2020 |

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| CLASS NOTES

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Joyce Ann Smith recently toured the west coast of Ireland, The Wild Atlantic Way, with The Ohio State University Alumni Association. Her initial trip to Ireland was in 1981 with the UVM Alumni Association. She shares, “The west coast had a different flavor than the more traditional venues of the southern and eastern coasts of Ireland.” Joyce looks forward to a sojourn in 2020 to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In July, six members of Kappa Alpha Theta gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for a 75th birthday celebration.

Carol Neiman Spatz hosted the four-day party at her lovely home overlooking the Tetons. Attending the festivities were Marcia Ely Bechtold, Judy Claypoole Stewart, Claire Berka Willis, Anne Appleton Weller, and your class secretary, Kathy Nunan McGuckin. Carol planned terrific activities for the group, including a full day in Yellowstone, river rafting on the Snake River, and touring the Jackson area with a trip to the top of the beautiful ski area. Kathy shares, “There was never a lack of conversation among us! It was a memorable gathering for us who are now three-quarters of a century old. In the not too distant future, we all hope to meet up again for more celebrating and reminiscing of our days at the Theta House.” After 51 years working for the State of Vermont, Tom McCormick retired. Most recently, he was a senior assistant attorney general. Tom writes, “Not having to go to work will make for less urgency with respect to snow shoveling!” Donald Sawyer has joined the “Bionic Generation” with a right total knee replacement in March, followed by a left reverse shoulder replacement in July. He shares, “I have done very well after both procedures with amazing pain relief.

Best wishes to all.” Lois Dodge Woodard coached the boy’s singles, doubles, and team state champions for her local high school in Dillon, Montana. She was named Coach of the Year.

Send your news to— Kathleen Nunan McGuckin 416 San Nicolas Way, St Augustine, FL 32080 kkmcguckin@comcast.net

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Send your news to— Jane Kleinberg Carroll 44 Halsey Street, Apt. 3, Providence, RI 02906 jane.carroll@cox.net

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Jack Rosenberger recently received a Top Shot Award for a photo that has the highest total time viewed and has served as an inspiration for others. Additionally, Jack’s work was selected from 478 entries as one of 55 artists for the Maryland Federation of Art Fall Member Show Exhibition.

Send your news to— Diane Duley Glew Unit 2, 23 Franklin Street, Westerly, RI 02891 ddglew@gmail.com

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James Betts ’69 MD’73 writes, “We had a fab, as they say, 50th Reunion!

There were opportunities to catch up

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with each other, share family news, and enjoy time seeing the campus—certainly transformed since our days a half-century ago. The spectacular Alumni House was the venue for our reunion repas, where Steve Kunken the venerable, aspiring stand-up comic, had a chance to move the evening along with some of his best shtick. We re-elected him, again, to be our forever Prez, which he most humbly accepted. Let’s not wait until our 60th to return to campus.” Michael King works part-time in the power line industry. He has worked in all facets of the trade including hot line, transmission, and tower line projects. He’s married to Diane Smith King ’71.

The couple has four children and ten grandchildren.

They reside on a farm in Rose Prairie, British Columbia. Robert Moeller never expected to live in New Hampshire. He lives “not far from Mount Washington, a peak I used to see from the top of Mansfield.”

Send your news to— Mary Moninger-Elia 1 Templeton Street, West Haven, CT 06516 maryeliawh@gmail.com

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HGOLDENH 50th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Paul Trono writes, “2020 will mark our 50th Reunion. Plans are underway for the festivities of Oct. 2-4. More to follow as the plans progress.

Please see alumni.uvm.edu to find hotels that have rooms blocked off for our class. Remember, this is foliage time so rooms will go quickly! More to follow in the weeks ahead. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions, 802-373-4342, paul.trono@gmail.com” Send your news to— Douglas Arnold 11608 Quail Village Way, Naples, FL 34119 darnold@arnold-co.com

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Rose Riel would love to hear from friends and students who knew her during the years 1969-1973. Milo Shelly’s granddaughter Kaylin is a UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences student who is loving her experiences at the university. Milo will spend time skiing and visiting Kaylin and UVM friends this winter. Peter Spear continues the pursuit of happiness phase of his life in semi-retirement. A hunter and sportsman, he completed the Grand Slam of North American Wild Sheep and the North American Super Slam, the taking of all 30 huntable North American big game species. The Grand Slam Club honored Peter at their annual convention in Las Vegas in January 2020. In October, class secretary Sarah Sprayregen had a fun dinner, which allowed for excellent catch-up time with Susan Hynes Taylor in Summit, New York. Sue has two granddaughters: Waverly, who is almost six, and Rowan, who is three and a half. Sarah is thinking about those alums who were “regulars” in this column: “Tom Reilly whom I missed in New York last time I visited; Jason Robards (is he in Thailand still?); and my local friend Owen Jenkins! Knowing that both Owen and Wendy Reilly Jenkins ’73 G’86 are

retired, perhaps they’ve been spending time away (?). Please send your notes. I promised to keep to the deadline to get them published.”

Send your news to— Sarah Wilbur Sprayregen 145 Cliff Street, Burlington, VT 05401 sarah.sprayregen@uvm.edu

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George Cook ’72 G’78 received the Lynn Reynolds Leadership Award from the International Maple Syrup Institute in recognition of outstanding leadership in education and extension activities for maple producers. He retired from UVM Extension in 2017 after 39 years, first as a county agricultural agent and then as a farm safety and maple specialist. Robert Miller shares that Larry Kull is New Jersey Auto Dealer of the Year and in contention for the national award.

Larry and his wife, Debbie, divide their time between Mendon, New Jersey, and Delray Beach, Florida. Both share a passion for golf. Kevin and Susie Cheeseman Lynch ’74 were in Burlington for her 50th high school reunion. Susie, Jane Cutting Miller, and Bob “Rocky” Miller shared a lovely dinner at the Burlington Country Club, the site of the Lynch wedding reception. Kevin and Rocky also played a one-sided but fun round of golf together. (Yes, Kevin won handily.) Charlie Russo continues to thrive personally and professionally at his Long Island residence and law firm. For many years, Charlie has played Santa to thousands of needy children. Bravo! Ed Yurica is a Costa Rica resident, often on the road to pursue his love for music. An accomplished guitarist, Ed spent a sunny summer day with Jane and Rocky Miller at Shelburne Farms this past summer. Jane Miller, former Vermont Teacher of the Year, is an active member of the Vermont Writing Collaborative. In addition to professional development, her group is working on their second book for teachers. An avid bridge player, Jane belongs to the Burlington Bridge Club.

Now that golf season is over, Rocky is a bridge widower. In October, Pam Kovacs ’73 shared a lovely lunch at their Trapp Family Lodge condominium with her husband, David, and mother, Vi. Pam is a “happily retired” University of Virginia Commonwealth professor of social work, living in Richmond, Virginia. David and Pam are true citizens of the world, traveling for a large portion of the year. Bruce Taylor is an Immigration Judge for USDOJ in the U.S. Immigration Court in Florence, Arizona. He’s been married for 47 years, to Nancy Matteson Taylor, with three children and six grandchildren. He misses Vermont. Christopher Blair continues happily in his role as principal/chief scientist of Akustiks, LLC. Current projects include the redesign of David Geffen Hall, formerly Avery Fisher Hall, at Lincoln Center, as well as new concert halls in Seoul and Sao Paulo. On the musical side, he enjoys guest conducting several concerts a year with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Falcon in Coro, Venezuela and his professional chamber orchestra in Connecticut. Malcolm H. Pope G’72, professor emeritus at the University of Aberdeen, visiting professor at the University of Staffordshire and Hong Kong University of Education, has been elected a Fellow of the renowned European Academy of Sciences. This nom-

ination acknowledges Professor Pope’s great efforts in promoting fundamental research and excellence in biomedical engineering. Your class secretary Debbie Koslow Stern joined the board of UVM Hillel, a growing, dynamic organization that welcomes all UVM students and strives to provide a safe environment where students can explore what being Jewish means to them. Located in the former Phi Delta Theta house on College Street, Hillel is completely renovated. Debbie shares, “After 22 years working at UVM, it is a pleasure to keep connected by working with staff and students.” She teaches at the Community College of Vermont and fits in some fun—bowling, mahjong, pickleball, and traveling. Aside from visiting family in various states this year, she’s traveled to London, and cruised the Caribbean.

Send your news to— Debbie Koslow Stern 198 Bluebird Drive, Colchester, VT 05446 debbie2907@gmail.com

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After working for 38 years in custom service and tech support for the transportation industry, Bob Blanchard retired. He runs a small internet business providing logistics for trucking firms engaged in cross-border traffic. Bob has a Facebook group, Burlington Area

History, that features hundreds of photos of Burlington through the years as well as many articles giving histories of Burlington people, places, and institutions. John Burton sold his interest in NPI Technology Management and started a new encore business called Stormseye Associates, LLC. He consults around economic development with the Vermont Futures Project and the Distributed Ledger Governance Association.

Send your news to­— Deborah Layne Mesce 2227 Observatory Place NW Washington, D.C. 20007 dmesce@icloud.com

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David Bowman represents sellers and buyers of businesses with Marathon Capital Advisors in Reading, Pennsylvania. Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos will speak at the Council of State Governments Annual Meeting on Privacy & Cybersecurity Policy Academy on “Readying for 2020 Elections: Disinformation & Election Security.” He is the national co-chair of CSG’s Overseas & Military Voting Initiative. Scott MacKay is a political analyst at The Public’s Radio, the NPR affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island. Scott began his career at the Burlington Free Press, then

A rich, independent lifestyle... with just the right amount of care.

spent 25 years covering politics for the Providence Journal before moving on to NPR. Scott lives with his wife, Dr. Staci Fischer, an infectious disease specialist, on Narragansett Bay in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Scott and Staci were at UVM for a series of Renaissance Weekend seminars honoring emeritus professor Mark Stoler. Scott shares, “The campus looked great in its autumn vestments, and the alumni center at the former Delta Psi house was a great venue for the seminars.” Melanie Choukas-Bradley’s sixth nature book will be published this summer, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island. She continues to lead nature trips, and forest bathing walks in the Washington, D.C., area and will lead her third trip to the Dakota Badlands in September. In June, Melanie celebrated her 45th wedding anniversary with husband, Jim Choukas-Bradley. The couple met as students at UVM. Paul Vey sends a quick note to friends from Buckham and Hamilton halls. He’s in his 40th year of defending physicians and hospitals in civil litigation in Pittsburgh. Paul keeps in touch with Irwin “Goldy” Goldberg and sends congratulations to Coach John Becker for the rise of UVM’s basketball program. Len Berdan retired from a 40-year real estate appraisal career in upstate New York. He looks forward to traveling with his wife, Meg, and being responsible stewards of their 200 acres in Schoharie.

Independent, Assisted & Memory Care Living

...it’s Senior Living your way.

Call us to schedule a tour and enjoy a complimentary lunch!

SPRING 2020 |

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| CLASS NOTES Their daughter, Kate Berdan, is in a dual master’s degree program, one in environmental law and policy from Vermont Law School and one in natural resources from the UVM Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. Any classmates can find him at PO Box 68, Schoharie, NY 12157 518-231-3603. Margo David DiIeso of Jupiter, Florida, and Emily Schnaper Manders of Framingham, Massachusetts, received the Outstanding Alumnae Award 2019 from Delta Delta Delta Sorority. The awards were presented during Reunion Weekend

by Marilyn Berkman Sturman ’73. Alums present included Robin Bossi Moore ’73 of Wallingford, Connecticut, Cathleen Doane Wilson of Milton, Delaware, Shelly Bouchard Richardson ’75 of Shelburne, Vermont, and Sally Cummings ’72 of South Burlington, Vermont. In November, Marilyn Berkman Sturman ’73 and Irene Kwasnik Kowalski ’73, came from Thetford, Vermont, and Burlington, Connecticut, respectively, to see the play Come From Away in Boston with Emily Schnaper Manders of Framingham, Massachusetts. They met for lunch first to catch up on what’s been happening in their lives.

Send your news to— Emily Schnaper Manders 104 Walnut Street, Framingham, MA 01702 esmanders@gmail.com

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Cindy Hall Condos and David Dodge ’76, married on October 5, 2019. The two met for the first time at Cindy’s UVM 40th Reunion in 2015, thanks to their mutual friends, Petter Kongsli, and Becky Pardee Davis.

Dave is co-founder and co-owner of Dodge Carbon Fiber Ski Boots, where they’ve developed a remote fitting system that allows them to custom fit and ship boots around the world. Cindy enjoys partial retirement working as a tax assistant for a Burlington accounting firm, working out at her local CrossFit gym, and spending time with her two grandchildren. Dave and Cindy, now Cindy Hall Dodge, spend their winters skiing at Stowe and their summers hiking and road biking. They live in South Burlington. David Entin, Price Hutchins ’74, and Paul Mazonson, members of the Experimental Program, were together to celebrate Price’s son’s wedding in Maine, in October. Two original oil paintings by Candace Lovely, have been donated to the UVM Foundation by Delta Delta Delta Sorority, classes of 1972-1976. The paintings of UVM scenes, were presented to Foundation CEO Shane Jacobson at the chapter house during Reunion Weekend 2019 and will hang in the Alumni House.

Send your news to— Dina Dwyer Child Unit 102, 26261 Devonshire Court, Bonita Springs, Fl 34134 dinachild@aol.com

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Richie Sobel celebrated his 65th birthday at a restaurant in Carlsbad, California. He made fast friends with the couple from Toronto sitting next to him, Catamount head hockey coach Kevin Sneddon’s par-

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NEW AND IMPROVED!

CLASS NOTES A new online user-friendly format— searchable by class year, school or college, and type of note—that will be kept updated.

alumni.uvm.edu/notes

ents! Theodore Perry Landry unleashed his experience from three career fields and is licensed as a private investigator by the New Hampshire State Police. His agency, Good News Investigations, is based in New London and specializes in elder abuse and insurance fraud cases. After 50 years in nursing and health care, Mary Jane McMahon retired in January. Her bucket list includes travel to U.S. states, national parks, baseball parks, and landmarks she is yet to visit. Then, on to foreign travel with warm and sunny climates at the top of her list. Instead of retiring, Virginia Aronson Goss took on a new role as the director of a foundation. Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation supports individuals, communities, and non-profit organizations, helping them improve our food system with nutrition education and school gardens, sustainable farming practices, zero food waste, farmworker rights, and food justice. Two of the foundation’s books have been published in Europe by the activist press Dixi Books. After leaving her position in the equestrian program at Mount Holyoke College as instructor and coach of the dressage team, Meg S. Hilly is back in Vermont full-time. She’s returned to her family home in Waitsfield to teach and judge dressage in New England. Retirement has given Paul Prior more time for travel. This year started with his sixteenth trip to Jamaica for the annual Little Feat Excursion. Following the band also brought him to The Flynn Theatre in Burlington in October.

Paul would love to hear from any classmates from the ‘75/’76/’77 era. Tom Humphries enjoys life in the Pacific Northwest with his wife De, their two boys, and De’s family. De and Tom have small businesses: CD3 Studio and 360 Signs. Tom writes, “You cannot beat the commute downstairs to my office with a view of Puget Sound.” He’s adopted a daily routine of meditation, work, yoga, five-mile walks in the woods with his dogs, and volunteering at the Teen Center. They are grateful for friends and family that visit and send an open invitation to anyone in the area. They see fellow area residents Dave Leonard and Elena Leonard ’77 and Paul Zuckerman and Peggy Dickens. Tom shares, “In the year that I, like most of us, turn 65, I have so much to be thankful for. De and I are planning a cross-country trip for the 2021 Reunion, and I look forward to seeing many of you there.” Like the Energizer Bunny, Don Nelinson keeps on running. He’s working fulltime as the chief scientific officer at the American College of Osteopathic Internists. Don is thrilled to be moving to Wilmington, Vermont, in Spring 2020. All alums welcome! David Katz is still practicing law at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in Washington, D.C., where he co-heads the firm’s financial institutions group. His youngest son is a freshman at Tufts.

David and his wife recently purchased an old farmhouse in beautiful Weston, Vermont, where they

plan to spend time skiing in the winter and enjoying all the summer activities that Vermont offers.

Ruth Ann (Emmons) Abrahamson and her husband enjoy more time at their second home in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Ruth Ann is a licensed realtor practicing in upstate New York and South Carolina, where she services the HHI/Bluffton areas.

She invites all to come down and enjoy the island’s 14-mile-long pristine beach, myriad outdoor activities, casual and fine dining, and tons of social and cultural entertainment.

Send your news to— Pete Beekman 2 Elm Street, Canton, NY 13617 pbeekman19@gmail.com

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Joanne Tremblay Clavelle is a Fellow for the 2019 class of the American Academy of Nursing. After 40 years in health care administration, William Shakespeare retired. William got his master’s in Public Health at the Columbia School of Public Health and went on to consult in Minneapolis, D.C., and the North Shore. In 1990 he returned to Vermont with his wife Tina Willette Shakespeare ’75 G’81 and two children, Justine and Nick, where he continued to work in the health profession. William runs a small farm with a large garden and fruit orchard in Marlboro and recently opened an Airbnb. He writes, “Love skiing, running, biking, gardening, hiking, cooking, writing and hanging with good friends. We welcome old UVM friends to drop by Marlboro for a visit.” Ronald Nye is practicing for retirement by taking road trips with his daughter, Carlie, and her cat, Milo. They traveled cross-country to see his son Dane and family in Denver for Thanksgiving. They plan on hiking in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks this summer in prep for their trip to New Zealand next year. Ronald shares, “Still fighting Lyme disease, but not going to let it slow me down!” The Kaplan University School of Professional and Continuing Education, in conjunction with Think2Perform®, awarded Jay Bigman ’77 G’79 the Behavioral Financial Advisor™ designation. The BFA™ designation acknowledges Jay’s additional training on the integration of behavioral techniques founded in traditional finance, psychology, and neuroscience. Abby Mandel continues to teach neuro rehab and kinesiology to physical therapist assistant students at NoVa Community College.

In her spare time, she hikes, skis, reads mysteries, and travels to Boston and New York City to visit her four grandchildren. Wendy Nelson is not retired.

She’s “still living the Rocky Mountain High” as a busy photographer focused on commercial work, including work with a local lifestyle magazine CS STYLE Magazine. Her “most joyful position of all is as Mimi to my two grandchildren!” In celebration of his 65th birthday, David Gates took a monthlong trip to Africa. His adventure included summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro, scuba diving in Zanzibar with his son, Jamison ’15, and visiting his sister, Susan Gates Pottinger G’92, in Cape Town. He and his wife, Stacy, live in Manchester, Vermont, where he GLENN RUSSELL

PROFILE IN GIVING

From a young age David Blittersdorf ’81 had a vision for a more sustainable world, an environmentally and economically secure future focused on resource conservation and renewable energy—and he’s made it his life’s work to help build it. Over the past four decades, the entrepreneur and engineer has founded companies and led development projects in wind and solar energy across Vermont and has been a tireless advocate for better energy policy. “People say we’re a small state, but Vermont is the example,” says Blittersdorf. “If we can do it here, others can follow.” At UVM, he’s brought his knowledge and experience to bear through volunteer leadership and has made philanthropic investments that are aligned with his ethos of sustainability: He’s established an endowed scholarship and an endowed professorship—renewable resources, if you will— that will benefit the University in perpetuity.

has a hand in no fewer than 12 Vermont-based companies and development partnerships under the AllEarth umbrella.

GIVING

Blittersdorf is entering his 15th year on the Rubenstein School’s board of advisors, having served as its chair since 2016. He played a pivotal role in the “Greening of Aiken,” a renovation project through which the school’s Aiken Building became Gold LEED-certified.

In 2007 he established the Blittersdorf Scholarship, a merit-based fund benefitting Vermont students studying environmental sustainability. To date, the endowment has provided over $100,000 in scholarships to the most promising students in this field. In 2014 he created the David Blittersdorf Professorship of Sustainability Science & Policy in hopes of fostering more collaboration between the Rubenstein School and the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences to address widespread problems in the areas of fossil fuel resource depletion and renewable energy.

GREEN

A native of Pittsford, Vermont, Blittersdorf grew up practically in the shadow of the world’s first utility-scale wind turbine and developed an early fascination with wind and solar energy. He founded his first renewable energy venture, NRG Systems, just a year after graduating from UVM with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. In 2008 he stepped down as CEO to establish AllEarth Renewables, which designs and manufactures high-tech solar tracking systems. His leadership in both business and sustainability advocacy is felt throughout the state—he serves on eight non-profit governance and advisory boards and

To put a fine point on his sustainability focus, Blittersdorf was also the first donor to have his endowment invested in the UVM Foundation’s Green Fund. Investments in this fund are chosen based on corporate environmental responsibility, and those related to fossil fuel and nuclear energy are excluded. He is keenly aware that his carefully considered philanthropic investment will leave footprints for generations to come. “It’s longterm,” says Blittersdorf. “It will survive beyond me.”

| C L CAATAMOUNT S S N O T ENATION S UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

79 Karen Galfetti Zecchinelli ’84 and Brian Zecchinelli ’81 If it’s possible for a restaurant to be simultaneously old school and “woke,” then the Wayside, on the Barre-Montpelier Road, is that restaurant. Old school in that it is, well, old—102 years, to be precise, one of just 240-some restaurants in the nation that have reached the century mark in a legendarily tough business. Old school in the glow of the rooftop sign, the large “W” marked in gravel on the hillside adjacent, the counter and booths that say “diner” louder than they say restaurant. But also decidedly modern Vermont-style woke with a commitment to local eggs, dairy, meat, and produce. And, as Montpelier’s first green-certified restaurant, the Wayside lightens its footprints through practices such as composting, diverting sixty-five tons of food scraps from the landfill annually.

Catamount couple Karen and Brian Zecchinelli own and manage the operation, which has been in the Galfetti family since 1966, when Karen’s parents, Eugene and Harriet, purchased the Wayside. Tradition keeps locals coming back to gather around the two horseshoe-shaped counters to drink coffee and talk weather, politics, or the Red Sox. And the menu also draws fans from afar. The New York Times says, “Yankee cooking at its best.” And, just last fall, the Food Network declared The Wayside’s maple cream to be Vermont’s “iconic pie” in a state-by-state survey of the nation’s pie landscape.

is still plugging away at GateHouse Financial Advisors, LLP. Elena and Peter Carnes ’75 bought a house on Cape Cod several years ago and spend most of their time there. She’s grateful that her job allows her to work from home. Not so great, “that retirement seems a few years in the future.”

Elena shares that it’s pretty special to walk every morning on the beach. After two years volunteering with the YMCA Colombia, work that supports the objectives of his foundation, Robert Dent purchased a finca (farm) that produces coffee and avocado. Additionally, he started a small tourism business called Experience Quindio. He has a small hotel that can accommodate small groups of up to twelve. Robert writes, “So many reasons to visit Quindio, the most beautiful mountainous region of Colombia. Birding, hiking, horseback riding, and pueblos that take you back in time in this culturally rich country.” See photos at go.uvm.edu/alumnipics.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association

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61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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Karin Tilberg has been in Maine since 1979 and serves as executive director of the Forest Society of Maine, a statewide land trust holding nearly one million acres in conservation easements. She is grateful for her time at UVM, and her bachelor’s in wildlife biology.

She “has relied on it and a law degree in wonderful ways over the years.” Karin Nordic skis, paddles, hikes, and is an avid angler—activities inspired during her time in Vermont. She writes, “It is a pleasure to see UVM grow and evolve and bring opportunities to new generations of students.” For the past 40 years, Susan Montague has practiced as a pediatric physical therapist, which she loves doing. Her 20-year PT/OT/ST private practice sold six years ago.

She now works in an out-patient clinic with Advent Health. Susan lives at the beach, and has three children and six grandchildren.

Send your news to—

Carol Bengis Goldman, Carol Sturnick Burns, and Karen Siegel Propis took a road trip to UVM for their 40th Reunion. They took a walking tour of campus, had a delicious dorm lunch, and took a walk downtown, where they found much better shopping and restaurant choices than 40 years ago (although it will never be the same without Hannibal’s and What Ales You). They attended a nice dinner/reception for their class at Waterman, and were thrilled to see some familiar faces, including Lisa Rosen Ryan. Finally, they visited the Kappa Alpha Theta house and remembered many happy times with their Theta sisters. Their goal is for a repeat experience at their 50th Reunion. Greg Boardman retired from Stanford University and lives outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Beth Gamache sends a big thank you to the Alumni Office for the planning of the 40th Reunion in October. Beth writes, “A great get-together at the Alumni House and a lovely evening at Waterman for the class of 1979!

Beth enjoyed reconnecting with fellow Pi Phis Anne Trask Forcier and Larry Forcier, Mary Kay McGuire Conte and Chuck Conte, Susan Thomas Englander and John Englander, and Candis Perrault Kjelleren. She’s inspired to plan a Pi Phi reunion for next year. Dinah Minot married fellow alum Whip Hubley ’80 32 years ago and raised three kids in Santa Monica, California, and on the Gold Coast of Australia, where Whip had a starring role in the PaxNet TV series “Flipper.” Now empty nesters, they moved to Maine in 2015, to begin a new chapter. Whip works at Barrett Made, a designbuild company, and Dinah is executive director of the non-profit city of Portland’s arts agency, Creative Portland. She’s also artistic director of “Hear Here,” an annual live concert showcase of exceptional local talent at Merrill Auditorium in January.

Contact her at dinah@creativeportland.com. John Brooklyn received the prestigious Nyswander/ Dole Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to opioid treatment, at the October 2019 American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence Conference. The presentation was a moving tribute to individuals who have been nominated and selected by their peers for extraordinary service in the opioid treatment community.

Over the decades, Dr. Brooklyn has worked with the Howard Center, the Community Health Centers of Burlington, the University of Vermont College of Medicine, BAART behavioral service, and Vermont Alcohol and Drug Abuse programs to make opioid treatment widely available in Vermont. Alan Steinman is the co-editor of a new book, Internal Phosphorus Loading in Lakes: Causes, Case Studies, and Management.

Send your news to— Beth Gamache bethgamache@burlingtontelecom.net

C ATAMOUNT NATION

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40th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Aunt Sadie’s Candles, co-owned by Gary Briggs, began its 22nd year in business this February.

Founded in Boston, Aunt Sadie’s moved to Lunenburg, Vermont, in 2010. The candles are made in the company’s 1865 barn and sold to retailers throughout the U.S. and Canada. Since moving back to Vermont, Briggs has served as president of the Vermont Gay Tourism Association. He also started Twin Oak Antiques. For more information visit www.auntsadiesonline.com. Val Dorfman Allen writes, “Hello Fellow Classmates! Please mark your calendars for October 2-4 for our 40th Reunion! Let’s all come back to campus and relive our memories while having some fun together. Book your hotel now—see the Alumni Weekend discount accommodations at alumni.uvm.edu. Let me know if you can help contact classmates: valalleninc@gmail.com, 914-2820682. See you in Burlington next October!”

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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Thomas MacWilliams (aka Ras Tom) has lived in Kenya for the past 37 years, doing various jobs and raising a family. He’s working in western Kenya, on Lake Victoria as a solar station development manager for a social enterprise called We!Hub Victoria Limited.

Tom would love to contact Stewart Osbrack, Walter Latham ’80, and a host of other old and dear friends. He sends “greetings from East Africa. Peace and love the planet!” Catamount couple William and Chris Schneider ’80 celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary on the beach in Naples, Florida.

Grace Christie Devine and her husband, Jack, are happy to welcome their first grandchild, Owen Gleeson. Grace writes, “So happy to join the grandparents club.”

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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After three decades apart, Joddi Leipner and Sally Hunt Hobart ’82 G’15 were reunited this summer. They had a great time catching up, sharing many great UVM memories, and send a shout out to their KKG sisters. Rosalind Cross gathered with about 35 other UVM alumni and their guests on campus on October 19th and 20th to discuss the critical challenges facing American society. Her favorite sessions were The Mass Media in the Age of Trump and America’s Foreign Policies: The Dangers of Going It Alone.

Rosalind writes, “There were so many good topics.

Professors from the ’80s spoke as well—Mark Stoler, Tim Bates, Jane Knodell. I saw Gary Nelson and reacquainted myself with some classmates. All in all, it was a fun, interesting, and enlightening weekend!”

Send your news to— John Peter Scambos pteron@verizon.net

Lilly Devlin ’96 and Gene Devlin ’96

Mutual love for the outdoors brought Gene and Lilly Devlin together during their UVM undergrad days. While Gene earned his degree in education and Lilly in human development, they both loved to snowboard and rock climb, among other pursuits. “We hiked Camel’s Hump more times than you could count,” Gene says.

Post-graduation, working in summer camps for kids evolved into a love for and commitment to working more broadly with families.

The couple took a leap on that front in 2018 when they became majority owners of Quimby Country, the oldest family/sporting camp in the state of Vermont, founded 1893. It’s a place rich in history, nestled in Northeast Kingdom balsam woods. Located on Forest Lake and Great Averill Pond, the nineteen cottages at Quimby create a refuge where families come together to reconnect with nature and one another.

Running a place like Quimby is intense work in-season, but fulfilling, the Devlins say. “This feels like such a calling for us,” Lilly adds. “To see the depth of connection that people make, coming together in magical ways in the timelessness of this place. We appreciate that on a daily basis.”

Read a Yankee Magazine story about Quimby Country: go.uvm.edu/quimby

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Daniel Kelin is in northeast India on his second Fulbright-Nehru fellowship as guest faculty with the National School of Drama, Theatre-in-Education wing. Matthew Cohen published a book, Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture: A Critical Reconsideration. See Online Class Notes (go.uvm.edu/notes) for links to two articles about the book—one from his later alma mater, Harvard and one from his current employer, Washington State University.

Send your news to— Lisa Greenwood Crozier lcrozier@triad.rr.com

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Jamie Wechsler Fenster ‘85 and Laurie Colon had fun seeing Debbie Harry, who was promoting her new biography at the Miami Book Fair! There is a picture of them on the train from Fort Lauderdale to Miami in the Online Class Notes (go.uvm.edu/notes).

Send your news to— Abby Goldberg Kelley

kelleyabbyvt@gmail.com Kelly McDonald Jasna-vt@hotmail.com Shelley Carpenter Spillane scspillane@aol.com

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This fall, Jamie Wechsler Fenster had a great time at UVM visiting her daughter Emilee Fenster ’22. She enjoyed spectacular weather and was thrilled to watch Emilee play on the Women’s Rugby team.

Jonathan Bean MD, MPH, a physician-researcher in the field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, was appointed a full professor at Harvard Medical School. He is most proud of his son Asher Bean ’19 who works at Massachusetts General Hospital as a research coordinator focusing on heart failure.

Together, Asher, Jonathan, and family shared a festive Thanksgiving at the home of Dave Bean ’85 in Bethel, Maine, where he lives with his family and works as a skate park designer and educator.

Send your news to— SPRING 2020 |

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| CLASS NOTES Barbara Roth roth_barb@yahoo.com

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Chris Gardephe was appointed chief professional resources officer at Proskauer Rose LLP, a global law firm based in New York. Judith MacDonald is excited to share that her youngest daughter, Sarah MacDonald ’23, is a student at UVM. Judith writes, “She is loving the university and the Burlington experience, and I certainly enjoy visiting whenever I get a chance.” Paul Grieco is pleased to announce the opening of Grieco Law LLC, a litigation law firm headquartered in downtown Cleveland, providing legal representation throughout Ohio.

Send your news to— Lawrence Gorkun vtlfg@msn.com

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Blanche Ranch held an informal meeting during the Jet/Giants game on November 10. Attendees included Sven Lapiner, James Aug, Tim Paisley, Dan Stolbof, Erik Jolly, and Mark Singer and Tom Paisley ’85. Karim Kuzbari ’86, Dmitri Nayduch, and Ron Morgan were unable to attend. Gene Greene phoned in from Denver. Scott Roberts and Erik Akopiantz sent texts from out-of-state. Good times were had by all, who caught up in Ranch fashion.

Great stories were shared, and the tailgate was a big success. Go Cats Go! Send your news to— Sarah Reynolds sarahreynolds10708@gmail.com

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Sonna Allen teaches chemistry in New York, at an independent high school and the college level at Adelphi University. Her daughters are grown and out on their own, one in Philadelphia and one in South Carolina. Their second grandson was born in May. Sonna was thrilled to see the recent article on classmate Alma Ripps, and hear of all the great things she is doing! Jonah Houston recently became a design strategy director for the Ford Motor Company. He lives in the Bay Area and enjoys building the future of mobility. Linda Cornell Hatcher met up with classmates Pat Collins Finaldi, Beth Simpson Hahr, Andrea Melanson Weilbrenner, Janet Lavoie Hall, Tracy Keller Meeker, Julia Volcjak ’90, and Johnna Thackston Scepansky in Newport for a 21st-consecutive UVM girls’ weekend!

Send your news to— Cathy Selinka Levison crlevison@comcast.net

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Michael Levine MD’s son Jonas Levine ‘22 is a sophomore in the UVM Grossman School of Business.

On November 5th at Bryant Park Tent, Michael Buccellato unofficially launched his Executive Yoga Healing website. Look for ExecutiveYoga.net in 2020. Michael works with CEOs and Wall Street clients providing true yogis that travel to their business or event. He writes, “Roll out your mat in 2020.

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Namaste.” Kimberly Carboneau is the director of human resources at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. She’s worked in health care human resources for more than sixteen years following an eight-year law career. Don Dempsey, a financial advisor in South Burlington, published a murder mystery novel, Underfunded: The Fourth Solution. The story is about a small-town public pension plan that is deeply underfunded. When an unusually large number of the town’s citizens start mysteriously dying, a nationally acclaimed financial blogger begins to suspect a sinister plot. Don lives in Shelburne, Vermont, with his wife, Betsey Green Dempsey. They have two children: Aaron, 18, and Katie, 20. Thanks to an amazing opportunity through work, Patrick Houle lives in the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia. This October, Ray and Wendy Tayler Quesnel became grandparents for the first time when their daughter Kelly and her husband Travis welcomed Sebastian Bruno Cotton to the world. Sebastian is the first great-grandchild of John Quesnel ’64 and the first grand-nephew for AnnMarie Quesnel Swenson ’87. Andrew Malkin shares that the affinity group in Fairfield County continues to host a fun range of events from a Two Roads beer tasting/tour, to a beach club happy hour, and their second yoga workout/social. He thanks Abbey Chase ’93 and fellow Delta Psi Mike Buccellato for helping with the yoga event at Abbey’s studio, Westport Hot Yoga. Andrew and his wife, Ellery Stokes Malkin, are in touch with other area alums, including Kathy Clark, Scott McCain ’88, Rich Perkin ’03, Sadhana Joliet ’91, and Sean Martin ’90. Alums in the area can reach him at armalkin@gmail.com or 203-739-5850 if they have ideas or want to help plan an event.

Send your news to— Maureen Kelly Gonsalves moe.dave@verizon.net

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Nan Bambara is the new director of advancement at Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home in southern Vermont. She shares, “I like that Hildene is educating the whole family, from a toddler’s first touch of a baby goat to grandparents learning how to prune an apple tree. The opportunity to support work that is having a meaningful impact on more than 40,000 guests annually is powerful.” Eliza Cain returned to Vermont after nearly ten years in Portland, Oregon, working in the field of domestic violence. She would love to connect with folks from Coolidge or Wright halls. Eliza and husband, Randy George, co-own Red Hen Baking Co., now in its 20th year.

They deliver fresh hearth-baked, naturally leavened, organic bread throughout Vermont, and have a café in Middlesex. She writes, “Stop in for some great coffee, food, or to see where it all comes from!” Ron Piscione tried to gather classmates this fall as he ushered his son into his first year at UVM. Eliza hopes to make that happen this year with Meg Laferriere Horrocks and Gregg Pokraka. Elisa Rinnig Reeves lives in central Pennsylvania and celebrated her 25th anniversary with her husband, Michael. Their oldest son, Matthew, graduated in

May from Brandeis University, Michael’s alma mater.

Elisa is “super excited” that her other two children are attending UVM. Daniel Reeves ’22 is a sophomore and Ashley Reeves ’23 is a first-year. After a 25-year business career, David Schoenberger is now a psychoanalyst, counseling executives in New York City. He encourages classmates to reach out.

Send your news to— Tessa Donohoe Fontaine tessafontaine@gmail.com

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Benilda Rosa Avila Fenton, nicknamed Nini, would like to organize a Hindsight is 2021 for the upcoming 30th class reunion. Nini recalls having a blast in the UVM Band with Anya Boyd, Jonathan Clancy, and Jackie Desany, and how exciting it was to cheer using the cowbell with Rosina Zaretzki ’90 in the UVM Pep Band at the Men’s Hockey Tournaments.

She writes, “It was awesome when our star hockey player, classmate John LeClair scored big-time after our motivating tunes were played!” She hopes to see other UVMers at the beautifully restored UVM Alumni House and urges Juan Brenes-Chittenden ’92 to get people from New York City there for a reunion. Nini sends thanks to everyone in advance for helping out and wishes everyone good health and happiness always. Her current email address is benildafenton@gmail.com. David Kelly retired from the Westfield, New Jersey, Fire Department in March and relocated to Stowe, with Karen Majeski Kelly and their youngest Josh. He’s enjoying retirement and being back in Vermont full-time.

Barbara Boutsikaris turned 60 and celebrated by hiking Yosemite with her new husband, John Gaydos. She commutes 17 miles, each way, to work on an e-bike when the weather is good.

Send news to— Karen Heller Lightman khlightman@gmail.com

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Christine Bauer-Ramazani became the director of English language programs at Saint Michael’s College in 2018. She manages and teaches in the academic English program and intensive English program with students from Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Colombia, Vietnam, India, and other countries around the world. She is celebrating the 20th anniversary of co-founding the Electronic Village Online of TESOL, which offers free, distance/online sessions on cutting-edge topics in English language teaching and learning to more than 35,000 English teachers around the world. Sebastian Sweatman is painting for the general public of Los Angeles. He also has paintings, synographs, featured in Restoration Hardware. Jay Czelusniak had a great weekend in New York City with fellow alums Jaidip Chanda, Nate Beck, Craig McLaren, John Newton, Damon Webber ’94, Andy Kahn, Brandt Rider, Crawford Hubbard, Darren Henry ’94, and Matt Pezzulich. They watched UVM Beat St. Johns in a great basketball game, then had dinner at Smith and Wollensky.

Send your news to—

Lisa Kanter jslbk@mac.com

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gretchenbrainard@gmail.com

Paul Arciero’s new book, The Protein Pacing Diet, was featured in Women’s World magazine in November. It is a #1 Amazon Bestseller in three different categories and reached a high of #45 in Amazon’s largest book category (over 3 million) of “weight loss/diet” books.

Paul presented at the Spring Nutrition Symposium at the New York Chiropractic College in March 2019.

Ronald Hirschberg is hosting a new show at Home Base, a partnership of Massachusetts General and the Red Sox Home Base Nation. The podcast highlights conversations with authors, artists, politicians, athletes, and inspirational veterans and military families who stand up and fight for us every day. Season One features conversations with awardwinning author/combat journalist Sebastian Junger, Academy Award-winning director Spike Lee, ABC News journalist Bob Woodruff, and more: homebase-nation.simplecast.com Send your news to— Gretchen Haffermehl Brainard

MAKE IT

EPIC

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In October 2019, Nikki Harding was named Transportation Security Lawyer of the Year by the Federal Bar Association for her groundbreaking regulatory and compliance work with the TSA. She started her work with the TSA after serving as an assistant district attorney for 18 years in New York City.

Send your news to— Cynthia Bohlin Abbott cyndiabbott@hotmail.com

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25h Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Ted Cotsen sends greetings from San Francisco.

Four years ago, he listened with envy as classmates Alex West and Scott Bevill told him tales of the 20th Reunion. He made an oath to himself to do everything possible to make it to the 25th Reunion, October 2, 2020. Ted writes, “The more people who go, the more fun it will be! I hope others join along.

See you in Burlington.” Valeri Pappas writes, “Class

of 1995: we are coming up on our 25th Reunion, can you believe it? A few of the class members performed research for the event by shadowing the Class of ’94 during their reunion weekend. They took copious notes on how to improve the celebration as they moved from Rasputin’s to RJ’s to Kountry Kart.”

Rally your crews and book your hotel now for October 2020! Find more information at alumni.uvm.edu/ alumniweekend. Marie Schowalter Schnell is part of the Rose Andom Center at Denver Health, serving the holistic needs of victims of domestic violence.

This summer, Kelli Shonter, Tim Abrahamsen, and Valeri Pappas got together in Boulder, Colorado, to see Dead & Company before being chased out of Folsom Field by a thunderstorm. Northwestern Mutual is honoring North Andover-based wealth management advisor James Pettorelli for his commitment and drive to help families and businesses plan for and achieve financial security. Pettorelli will be inducted into the company’s elite membership, the 2018 Forum Group. Forum award qualifiers represent the top tier of Northwestern Mutual’s industry-leading financial representatives.

Send your news to—

With amazing finalists and one big winner we have to wonder, what will UVM’s EPIC event be? Check out the great ideas at: go.uvm.edu/epic2020.

And mark your calendar for the EPIC PITCH 2020 on October 3, 2020.

SPRING 2020 |

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| CLASS NOTES Valeri Susan Pappas vpappas@davisandceriani.com

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Dawn Symonaitis Barry’s public benefit corporation, LunaPBC, partnered with the Vermont Health Network to drive a virtuous cycle of patient health and community health through responsible health data sharing for research.

Send your news to— Jill Cohen Gent jcgent@roadrunner.com Michelle Richards Peters mpeters@eagleeyes.biz

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Send your news to— Elizabeth Carstensen Genung leegenung@me.com Great to see familiar faces at the NYC UVM Holiday Party. Elizabeth Marvin, Ben Stockman, Dana Demas, Kevin Donner, and Adam Levy we’re all there reliving old and new glory!

Send news to— Ben Stockman bestockman@gmail.com

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Send news to— Sarah Pitlak Tiber spitlak@hotmail.com Brennan Barnard co-authored a book about college admission, THE TRUTH ABOUT COLLEGE ADMISSION: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together. Oliver Ellsworth and Jenn Ellsworth celebrated their marriage in Chicago in August. Oliver was joined by fellow UVM alums Sarah Scruggs and Greg Olson, Leslie Wood, Lenny Milligan, Jason Bourgo ’01, and Roberto Beall ’91. Floyd Brownewell G’00 is a professor of practice in the Department of Biology and Biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, following eight years as a validation and verification engineer, product quality leader, and analytical lab leader with General Electric. Beth Pinker who joined Paramount Pictures in 2010, was promoted to SVP of field publicity and targeted marketing. She oversees the field marketing team and leads multicultural publicity and promotional efforts for all Paramount Pictures U.S./Canada releases.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

01

Alex Chaykin and Lovallo Chaykin ’05 welcomed their son Benjamin Chaykin in May 2019. They live in Chatham, New Jersey, where Alex is a talent agent working in New York City and Julia runs a creative marketing business. Lindsey Haven Talarico married Bob Talarico in Lake George, New York, in

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

NEW AND IMPROVED!

CLASS NOTES A new online user-friendly format— searchable by class year, school or college, and type of note—that will be kept updated.

alumni.uvm.edu/notes

November. Attendees included Amanda Briggs Calpin, Jessie Arthur Campbell, Cheryl Russo Baumann, Morgan Baumann, Danielle Gardiner Goodrich, and Trevor Goodrich ’00. Keith Mug was honored to be among 102 St. Louis-area educators who received an Emerson’s Excellence in Teaching Award for their vital role in shaping students’ lives.

Send your news to— Erin Wilson ewilson41@gmail.com

02 03

Send your news to— Jennifer Khouri Godin jenniferkhouri@yahoo.com Bryan Carnahan ran his first full marathon in May and qualified for the 2020 Boston Marathon. He shares, “The owner of our small company said that if I qualify, he will make that day a company holiday in 2020 so colleagues can watch. Since colleagues in the New York/New Jersey area would have to travel, I thought I’d try to qualify for the New York City Marathon as well.” Bryan did just that, running a qualifying time at the Staten Island Half marathon to secure a spot in the 2020 New York City Marathon on November 1. Ross Feitlinger had two life changing events. First, he moved his family to New Hampshire for a job as a middle school science teacher at The Derryfield School in Manchester. Second, in October his second daughter, Ruby Kathleen, was born. Ross writes, “It has been crazy, but everything has been going well and it has all been well worth it!”

Send your news to— Korinne Moore Berenson korinne.d.moore@gmail.com

04

Kerry O’Connor welcomed a baby girl, Wren Violette Scriffignano, on October 29, 2019, in Morristown, New

Jersey.

Send your news to— Kelly Kisiday kelly.kisiday@gmail.com

05

Lovallo Chaykin and Alex Chaykin ’01 welcomed their son Benjamin Chaykin in May 2019. They live in Chatham, New Jersey, where Alex is a talent agent working in New York City and Julia runs a creative marketing business. Carl Marks Advisors promoted Scott Webb to partner. Since joining the firm in 2007, Scott has held positions of increasing responsibility and for the last two years has led the firm’s investment banking restructuring. Brian Leaman

survived an extreme drug addiction. Four-years clean, he’s built his life back up using the entrepreneurial spirit he learned at UVM. Brian has created two successful businesses: a medical equipment company and a debt collection firm. He writes, “Anyone that needs help in addiction and thinks they are stuck, feel free to reach out for help, brian.leaman@gmail.com or 201-574-5369.” After eight years with UVM’s Department of Student Life, Laura Megivern ’05 G’10 moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to become the director of community engagement at Dickinson College’s new Center for Civic Learning and Action. She misses real maple syrup and Burlington, but loves living in Pennsylvania and her new job. After ten-plus years in classrooms, Zachary Wright is an assistant professor of practice for Relay Graduate School of Education.

He supports first-year teachers in Philadelphia and Camden. He is also a communications activist for Education Post, commenting on national education issues and fighting for hyper-local activism.

Send your news to— Kristin Dobbs Schulman kristin.schulman@gmail.com

06

Jennifer Vogler’s non-profit dedicated to helping the local Parkinson’s community thrive, Parkinson’s Pointe, is now open in Denver, Colorado. Learn more at parkinsonspointe.org. Molly Gray returned home to Vermont, where she’s assistant attorney general in the Office of the Vermont Attorney General and on the adjunct faculty at Vermont Law School, where she teaches international human rights law. Molly joined UVM students and the public in welcoming former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara to campus in November as part of the Aiken Lecture Series. See her photo at go.uvm.edu/alumpics. In September, Stephanie Hainley married Joshua Clarke ’10, surrounded by family and friends. Paran Quigley, Maegan Olsen, Faye Conte Mack G’12, Drake Turner G’13, Pat Gallagher ’09, Cassidy Hooker ’08, and Annie Canu Vanslette were among the wedding party, with many other UVM alumni present. The daughters of Nina Marsie Soriano ’07 were flower girls. Josh and Stephanie love the Vermont life and live in Burlington’s New North End. On September 22, 2018, Emily Taradash joyfully married Joseph Zabinski at the Holy Trinity Church in Tiverton, Rhode Island. Alums Jessica Pescosolido Dalton, Caitlin Conne Goss, Amanda LyonsLi, and Ricca Gaus ’05 were in attendance. Emily Lahteine ’09 was a fantastic day-of coordinator, Melissa Taradash Pelletier ’89 was maid of honor, and Ben Taradash drove them to the reception in one of his antique cars. Emily writes, “The weather and the company were perfect! We honeymooned in Ireland, and are enjoying year two of our marriage!” Steve Sweet is director of student conduct and community standards at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. In his new role, Steve is responsible for providing leadership for the student code of conduct system, updating student policies, serving as the senior student conduct officer, and educating members of the university community

Where should we go next?

Share your bucket list with us: alumni.uvm.edu/travel

travel-ad-spring-2019.indd 1

LUB

THE

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PE

12/3/2019 10:48:11 AM

30 W. 44th Street, New York, NY 10036

The Penn Club of New York, located in the heart of midtown Manhattan, is an exclusive private club for alumni, students, parents, family members and business associates of the University of Pennsylvania and our select affiliate schools and organizations. The clubhouse offers members a wide range of facilities and services to enhance their visits to New York City. The Penn Club is a true “home away from home” for all of our members.

THE PENN CLUB

YOUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME IN NEW YORK CITY MEMBERSHIP IS RICH WITH BENEFITS, SOME OF WHICH INCLUDE: • Two complimentary all-you-can-eat and drink parties each year!

• Socialize & network at our monthly programs and events • 39 well-appointed guest rooms at discounted rates for members

“As an alumnus, I think it’s great to have a UVM home in New York City. The Penn Club is centrally located, has a great team working there and lots of good food for you and your guests to enjoy. I highly recommend anyone to join the Penn Club of New York.”

– Giacomo Landi ’93 Member, UVM Alumni Association’s New York Regional Board

• Business Center with complimentary wi-fi • 150+ reciprocal clubs in the United States and around the world

For more information contact the Membership Department at membership@pennclubny.org or 212.403.6627

| CLASS NOTES about their rights and responsibilities.

Send your news to— Katherine Murphy kateandbri@gmail.com

07

Thomas Wheeler has spent the past two years living with his mother in rural Vermont, where he’s developed an affinity for growing tomatoes and marijuana. In 2004 he was arrested for organizing the controversial 4/20 protest. He shares, “After 15 years, I don’t regret fighting back against laws that incarcerate non-violent offenders. Let’s continue forward in all forms of justice. It does come around in time.” Douglas Helal is celebrating his digital advertising agency’s first anniversary. If you own a business, you can contact him for a free consultation: 860-922-0464 or Doug@thepatriotagency.com. Jonathan Webb married Evelyn Alvarenga in July 2018, and they welcomed a son, Nathaniel, in May 2019. In September 2018, Jennifer Granger Sullivan married Benjamin Sullivan in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Fellow UVM HESA graduate Christopher Purcell G’07 was in attendance and performed a reading during the ceremony.

Send your news to—

Elizabeth Bitterman bittermane@jgua.com

08

Ryan Guthrie’s family is under contract to purchase 20 acres of land in Dover, Vermont, roughly five miles from Mt. Snow Ski Resort. They plan to build a Mongolian style yurt and rent it out as a glamping campsite. He writes, “If any UVMers are interested in getting involved with this type of project, please connect me at Economy1985@gmail.com.” Rachel Gillie Hopkins, her wife Molly McGraw G’12, and their five-year-old daughter, Jude, moved to Montpelier in June and welcomed twins, Sidney and Harriot, in August. This November marks Rachel’s tenth anniversary working for the State of Vermont in child welfare.

Send your news to— Elizabeth Bearese ebearese@gmail.com Emma Grady gradyemma@gmail.com

09

Jamie Seiffer shares that this summer Angus Mudge married Lisa Fredette ’10 on her family’s farm in

Wallingford. Gabe Grant officiated the ceremony.

In addition to Jamie, alums in attendance included Tom Abdelnour, Dave Purcell, Jamie Seiffer, Steph Brontman, Ben Sandri, John Bennet, Ross Nizlek, Justin Grieco, and many other Catamounts who remember their formative years in Moose Hall fondly. In November, Nydia Guity’s Unchain Me Mama: the forgiveness factor lessons learned on my journey to understanding made the Amazon Bestseller’s list. William McLeod Haywood and his wife, Aska Shiratori-Langman ’11, live in Victor, Idaho.

In June, they celebrated the birth of their son Leo. Send your news to— David Volain david.volain@gmail.com

10

10th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Jennifer Lucches married Joe Ramonas at the Farmer’s Daughter in Rhode Island in September.

In attendance were many UVM alumni including Caitlin Bricker Shapiro, Anna Bresnick Kosiba, Jesse Kosiba, Leigh Galligan Robinson, Hannah LeMieux Hall, Emily Clifford, Taylor Trudeau ’11, Vic Pulie Carron ’11, Karia Young-Eagle ’11 and

GREEN & GOLD & AMBER Since 1946, UVM’s Proctor Maple Research

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60 |

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

Dan Riley ’11. In August, Maxwell Semler married Brigid Connolly at Bliss Ridge Barn in Moretown, Vermont. Benny Stoddard married Sarah Swerdloff at 5 Birds Farm in Woodstock, Vermont in September. Many Catamounts were in attendance at both events. Dana Gulley and her fiancée, Anya Tyson G’17, will be married in Seeley Lake, Montana, in June 2020. They relocated from Montana to Bend, Oregon, where Dana will continue managing her consulting practice in social enterprise, and Anya will work as the sage-steppe conservation specialist with The Nature Conservancy. They are forever grateful to UVM—the place where they met and fell in love. After receiving her master’s in medical sciences at Boston University in 2017, Kelly Harmon MacPherson returned to Burlington in 2018 to begin her medical degree at the Robert Larner, MD, College of Medicine at UVM. Kelly married Dan MacPherson of Waltham, Massachusetts, in July on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland, Maine. Congrats to Sam Levine and Jenn Levine on the birth of their daughter Ava. Send your news to— Daron Raleigh raleighdaron@gmail.com

11

360°

12

Happiness starts here.

Nicole Regan and Colin M. Regan ’09 welcomed their first child, Theodore Rhys, in November. Nicole writes, “We are thrilled with our little Catamount in the making.” Katherine Galterio is CFO and broker/partner at Breckenridge Associates Real Estate in Breckenridge, Colorado. If you’re in the Rocky Mountains, stop by her office on Main Street to say hello. Lily Grenn is “doing wonderful” in her hometown of New Orleans as an optimal transformation health coach and a massage therapist. She writes, “Loving on life and would love to connect with old friends and make new ones.” Rikki Saperstein married John Liberti in July on Lake George.

They met teaching high school and continue to live and teach in Westchester, New York. Grace Weaver married Eric Degenhardt this summer in Brooklyn, where they live and work. Grace is an artist, represented by James Cohan in New York City and Soy Capitan in Berlin, Germany. Following concurrent solo shows of her paintings at two museums in Germany in late 2019, Grace will have her second solo show with Cohan soon, opening at the gallery’s Walker Street location in Tribeca in late April.

Send your news to— Troy McNamara Troy.mcnamara4@gmail.com Peter Bohjalian and Candra Bohjalian ’14 welcomed their daughter Keegan Jade Bohjalian to the family in October. They hope she’ll be a Catamount one day. Sara Whittaker Rzepka shares that Chris Chaya ’03 and Gabrielle DaGama Chaya, two UVMers who found love in San Francisco, were married surrounded by family, friends, and of course, their UVM crew! Sara Whittaker and Ryan Rzepka were married in Charlotte, Vermont, in September. In attendance were Sam Hart ’13, Lauren Baecher ’13,

Let the entire UVM Alumni House be the stage for your very special day. Virtual tour online at: uvmalumnihouse.com UVM Alumni House | Burlington, VT For more Information contact Jessica.Dudley@uvm.edu 802.656.0802

SPRING 2020 |

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| CLASS NOTES Mike Voelpel ’18, Veronica Peters ’13, Kelly Melancon ’13, Micah Botkin- Levy ’15 G’19, Holly Smith, Gabrielle Dagama Chaya, Jake Saunders, Gain Robinson. John Repucci, Francis Oggeri, Chris Green, Kellie McMahon, Matt Guild, Brigid Hennigan ’11, Jason Parker ’11, Andrew Derrig ’11, Courtney Giles G’12, Sam Parker ’09 G’18, Laura Gardner ’11, Matt Blanchard ’14, Julia Snapp ’06, Erin Michaud ’04, John Buckley ’19, Kayla Dorey ’14, Hap Giraud ’15, Megan Kibblehouse ’17 and Chris Chaya ’03. Ivy Buena graduated from Boston’s Wheelock College with a master’s in educational studies. She worked at a traveling exhibit at Boston University’s Wonder of Learning, which focuses on early childhood education using the Reggio Emilia approach. She recently switched gears and is settled into a new position at Lahey Health in Massachusetts. Amanda Burdick and Harrison Stokes ’13 were married at a beautiful outdoor ceremony in Boston in August. Latimer Hoke helped coach the Lincoln County High School cross-country team to its first-ever state championship. The race took place in Great Falls, Montana, in October on a snow-covered course. After seven wonderful years in Washington, D.C., Sydney Lucia and Brendan Sage ’13 packed up their dog Brownie to begin a new adventure in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont. Brendan graduated from Georgetown Law in May and is clerking at the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Sydney is using her French skills in the Department of French and Italian at Dartmouth College. She writes, “We love being back up in the northern woods and are enjoying the cold and the mountains.”

Send your news to— Patrick Dowd patrickdowd2012@gmail.com

ing couple. Devon Meadowcroft received his PhD in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State and is a postdoctoral research associate at Penn State.

Chloe King moved from Burlington to Boston to work as the event coordinator for Flatbread Company Brighton. She was an event coordinator in Burlington for the past five years at WaterWorks Food + Drink and the Farmhouse Group. She is grateful for everything Burlington provided and excited to start a new chapter. Lauren Donahue and Timur Steis ’15 were engaged in Ireland on September 3, 2019.

Arline Weaver is a fifth grade therapeutic teacher at the Serendipity Center in Portland, Oregon. After moving up from the Bay Area several years ago, Arline earned her master’s in special education at Portland State while working in the Portland Public Schools.

Send your news to— Grace Buckles Eaton glbuckles@gmail.com

15

5th Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Sara Forsythe graduated from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in 2019 and works at the Animal Hospital of Lynnfield in Massachusetts.

Allie Straim ’14 and Daniel Parsons are engaged and planning a Vermont wedding in spring 2021.

Like his father, Kyle Fischbach is a licensed private wealth advisor at New Jersey-based Summit Financial, LLC, a privately owned, 250-plus person independent financial planning firm considered to be one of the preeminent firms of its type in the country.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

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Craig Reising-Guild ’13 G’14 received his master’s of library and information studies from the University of Alabama. He works as the reference and instruction librarian at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich, Connecticut.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association 61 Summit Street, Burlington, VT 05401 alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes Natalie Slack and Dillon Baker tied the knot in July in Waitsfield, Vermont.

They reside in Brooklyn but celebrated their union in the state where it all began. Many UVM alumni attended and celebrated this amaz-

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

Emily Hadley Strout has finished her residency at UVMMC this year and is a primary care physician and assistant professor at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine and UVMMC. Conor Davis moved from Vietnam to Taiwan. He is an athletic trainer at the Taipei American School.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes Jennifer Morley is thrilled to share that she got married and changed her name. She met Scott Rainville, a 2018 Champlain College graduate, when she was a junior

at UVM. Four years later, they tied the knot in Fairlee, Vermont. They live in Massachusetts, where she works in the biotech industry, and Scott works in cybersecurity.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

18

Julie Stasiuk joined the Peace Corps in August. She will serve in Namibia, Africa, for 26 months. In August, Katie Hayes was sworn in as an agribusiness Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

19

Zero-Year Reunion October 2-4, 2020

Jay Hayden is a teaching artist and company actor at the Rose Theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Using the valuable experiences bestowed from the secondary education program, Jay is combining two personal passions: pedagogy and performance. In June, Jonathan Coleman and Stratton Coleman DeWitt were married in Laconia, New Hampshire.

Send your news to— UVM Alumni Association alumni.uvm.edu/classnotes

| IN MEMORIAM 1939 1941 1943 1945 1947

1948

1949

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

1956 1957

1958 1959

Estaleen Perkins Fenn Arnold H. Becker MD’43 Daan M. Zwick Esther Weiss Buffum Allan Attwater Peter S. Mallett G’50 Elizabeth Rublee Scott Concetta Virgona Alberghini Mary Jean Cook Liston Philip Adler MD’53 Hammond Lloyd Livingston Mary Lou Sweet Helaine Berenson Allen G. Harvey Blackmer William Anthony Dempsey G’51 Elizabeth Norton Eagan Edith Seder Kaye Arthur E. Merrill Robert E. Tarleton Elizabeth Kerin Bouchard Bruce B. Bowman Frank Howard Lackey Frank G. Landry Malcolm I. Bevins George J. Brady Richard Carlton Carpenter James W. Gray Sonia Follett Fuller Helen Wippich Greene John William Hartman James E. Cassidy G’54 Allyn B. Dambeck MD’54 Howard G. Dolloff Beatrice Gates Griswold Barbara Hill McNaughton Shirley Hoover Pearse Keith H. Jampolis Sandra Perry Lovell John Samuelson Stanley I. Stein MD’59 Ray L. Merrihew Edward L. Austin Marion Fassett Baker Joseph O. LeBlanc Lauren H. Long John R. Osuch Stanley J. Shannon Andrew E. Skroback John L. Breed G’62 Albert W. Chaffee Frederick N. Cook Henry W. Ferry Adair Alan Graves G. Eleanor Fullarton Kendall Ruben A. Lamarque Nancy Getchell Martinson

1960

1961

1962

1963

1965

1966

1967 1968

1969 1970

1971 1972

1973

1974

Martha Hannum O’Connor John F. Power Judith Collins Stoehr Bruce Alan Bugbee John Roderick Lancaster Avery Leete Smith Betsy Samuelson Greer Robert P. Kaye John D. Stanton G’74 Ralph David Aserkoff MD’62 Loren D. Barr Robert C. Kelly G’62 Linda Hicks Deftos Barbara Dutton Ellingson G’66 James E. Foley Myron L. Jones Neil N. Mann MD’63 David R. Darling Rosemary E. Harvey Thomas G. Keppel Keith Conrad Stone Edward J. Hall G’66 Judith Cloud Johnson Albert R. Purchase Charles F. Belanger MD’68 Cynthia Gales Belden Shirley Davis Towne Irving W. Boucher Charlene Bensen Sundheim John Francis McGarry Alan Brian Feltmarch MD’72 Susan Brody Hasazi G’72 John Hersey Stowell G’76, ‘85 John G. Balzano G’73 Susan Helen Donnelly Pamela French Summers James J. P. Corcoran

1975

1976 1977

1978

1979 1980

1981

1983

1985 1988 1992

1993 1994 1995 1997

2006

2013

Raymond P. Jepson Carol Becker Stoveken Verne E. Batchelder James W. Gray Nancy A. Papademas Amy Powell Burt Ann Bailey Cain Jo-Anne MacKenzie David Allen Rogerson Shirley Marie Daniels William Edward Flynn Kevin Mark Hanlon Anne Morgan August Stephen Haskew Clayton Joan Locklin Cowan G’80 Mansfield W. Williams G’80 James King Kelly David Barry Pels Rebecca Fay Sausville-Smith Lester F. TitusI Patricia Brennan Leary Karen Stetson Newman Amanda Ruth Corwin Brian Michael O’Farrell G’98 Kathleen M. Bonilla Valerie Fassler Levitan G’92 John Emil Novotny G’92, ‘97 Kelly Lamere Stallings Edward Gould Domey Kirsten Elizabeth Moore Curtis Russell Karr G’95 David Lawrence Shea Joshua Cory Thermansen Peter Dahl MD’06 Christopher James Goldsbury Lucian Johnson Rogers

| UVM COMMUNITY SANDY FORD-CENTONZE, Vermont women’s track and field coach from 1986 to 1992, passed away in December after fiercely battling cancer for several months. As head coach, her teams captured three straight New England Outdoor Championships from 1987 through 1989, becoming the first school to accomplish the feat. She was named the New England Division I Coach of the Year in 1988 and 1989. Following her time at UVM, Ford-Centonze coached at Dartmouth College from 1992 through this fall.

Professor and rugby coach DECLAN CONNOLLY passed away from natural causes in February while traveling abroad in France. On the UVM faculty since 1996, Professor Connolly was program director of Physical Education and Sports Leadership and coordinator of the minors in Coaching and Sports Management. Connolly’s research and expertise in exercise physiology helped elite athletes push boundaries and provided greater understanding of human health and performance. Beloved by the squads of ruggers he coached for years, Connolly guided UVM Rugby to numerous championships and a perennial rank among the nation’s top teams.

SPRING 2020 |

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| EXTRA CREDIT

CATAMOUNTS IN VERMONT UVM alumni population county by county

Addison Bennington Caledonia Chittenden Essex Franklin Grand Isle Lamoille Orange Orleans Rutland Washington Windham Windsor

2,182 773 919 17,211 112 1,617 527 1,171 955 705 1,771 3,321 1,019 1,878

TOTAL 34,161

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

GLYNNIS FAWKES

Return home for your Reunion this fall.

OCT 2-4

2020

We’ll turn on the colors for you.

Gather with your classmates for special reunion celebrations.

alumni.uvm.edu/alumniweekend

NON-PROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID BURLINGTON VT 05401

VERMONT QUARTERLY

PERMIT NO. 143

617 Main Street Burlington VT 05405

For a window on life at an award-winning Vermont farm, check out @richardsonfamfarmer on Instagram. Richardson Family Farm in Hartland has a milking herd of sixty registered jerseys and a sugaring operation, in addition to manufacturing split-rail fence, says farmer Amy Mynter Richardson ’94. UVM ties run deep for the family, including Monica Richardson DiCarolis ’86, Julie Whalen Caterino ’90, David Caterino ’92, Scott Richardson ’93, Craig Richardson ’94, Jen McCarthy Richardson ’94, and Reid Richardson ’01.