Vermont Vignettes

Emerging Technologies
Located in Farrell Hall on UVM’s Trinity College campus, the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies is an independent nonprofit small-business development program affiliated with UVM and other entities around the state that is designed to foster the success of new high-growth, high technology firms in Vermont. VCET is expected to play a crucial role in diversifying the state’s economy.

It's Good for Business
The Vermont Business Center provides on-site custom training programs for organizations in the areas of management and leadership education, including language competencies (Japanese).

Mapping the Future
Researchers at the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Laboratory in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources have developed a predictive model of landscape change for Vermont towns. By visualizing the pattern and pace at which the landscape is being settled, communities can plan the layout of their town while ensuring for the future needs and services of their townspeople. Funded by the Orton Family Foundation, the project is providing town planners and policy makers a tool for shaping policy that encourages desired landscape patterns.

Masters of Math
The Vermont Math Initiative is a statewide, three-year, master’s-degree-granting professional development program for K-6 teachers, training a cadre of elementary teachers to serve as mathematics leaders in their schools and districts. Some 200 teachers from over 100 elementary schools and 50 school districts, representing 83 percent of all school districts in Vermont, have participated.

Every Student Counts
MathCounts is a nationwide program for 7th and 8th graders that addresses the problem of declining math skills among U.S. students. UVM hosts the annual MathCounts competition for the Northwest Region of Vermont every February.

Quality Care Anywhere
The University of Vermont College of Medicine Area Health Education Centers Program is a statewide network of community and academic partners working together through three AHEC centers and a Program Office to improve the health of Vermonters. The program's three AHEC Centers — in St. Johnsbury, St. Albans, and Springfield — cover the entire State of Vermont. In addition, the Telemedicine Program of the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Fletcher Allen Health Care provides regional access to high-quality emergency and trauma care, medical consultation, and education. Bringing specialty medicine to patients throughout Vermont and northern New York, telemedicine is especially important in treating patients in rural areas, who otherwise would not have access to specialists at an academic medical center.

Farming for Fuel
UVM Extension's Center for Sustainable Agriculture is fostering alternative energy production with an innovative project at State Line Farm in Bennington to produce biodiesel fuel from crops like canola, mustard, or sunflower, without relying on waste oil collection or on purchased alcohol. The Center has helped the farmers purchase a Swiss seed press to extract oil from their canola and mustard seeds, and is helping them to acquire financing from the U.S. Department of Energy. Now, the farm is producing its own vegetable oil, and can also produce alcohol in a homemade still (with the proper permits, of course). The project is viewed as a model for farms throughout the state looking for ways to decrease their reliance on fossil fuels.

Fancy This
Timothy Perkins and colleagues at the Proctor Maple Research Center in Underhill monitor the health of the forests and determine the impacts of environmental factors on maple trees and sap production. Work is ongoing to evaluate the impact of global climate change, acid rain, and other stresses on the maple industry of the Northeast.  

Oh, the Water
UVM Extension is helping to clean up the Lake Champlain basin and waterways by working collaboratively with farmers to reduce pollution. Dr. Heather Darby, the Field Crops & Nutrient Management Specialist for UVM Extension, works closely with the newly formed Farmer’s Watershed Alliance in Franklin and Grand Isle counties to help them develop and implement nutrient management plans that will reduce non-point source pollution.

Traditional Values
The University of Vermont Department of Social Work is providing technical assistance and faculty expertise to The Abenaki Child Welfare Project, which is focused on providing cultural competency knowledge, values, and skills to foster parents and social workers with the State of Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services (SRS). The training is being developed by the Abenaki tribal community of Highgate-Swanton with a goal of helping foster children maintain their connections to their community and native traditions.

Legislative Research
The UVM Vermont Legislative Research Shop is a supervised group of students linked to the resources of UVM for the purpose of supplying information and conducting research for the Vermont State Legislature. The service is the outcome of a collaborative project between Senator Matt Dunne (D-Windsor) and Professor Anthony Gierzynski of the UVM Political Science Department. Recent research topics range from an overview of snowmobile impact on the natural environment to attitudes toward "instant runoff" voting.

Coffee Service
If you’ve ever heard Bob Stiller speak about the role of volunteerism you know he’s passionate about the topic. The investment that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters makes in allowing employees to use paid time for volunteer work further proves the point. Like any astute president and ceo, he also wants to know more about how volunteerism relates to overall employee performance. Under the direction of David Jones, a management faculty member in the UVM School of Business Administration, the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Foundation is supporting research to learn more about the impacts of community involvement on employees, the company, and the community itself.

C'est Cheese
With the marketing group at Cabot Cheese and the Department of Tourism as their clients, students in Jim Sinkula’s Marketing Research Practicum in the UVM School of Business Administration conducted survey research to learn more about the relationship between an individual’s visit to Vermont, the tasting of Cabot Cheese while here, and the inclination to continue purchasing Cabot Cheese upon their return home.

Did Someone Say Cheese?
UVM's Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese provides scientific research that informs farmstead cheese makers and small entrepreneurs, instructs farmers in the art and science of specialty cheese making, researches the safety of raw-milk cheeses, and generates revenue opportunities for farms and food craftspeople. This public-private research and education partnership is changing the Vermont landscape and economy and boosting Vermont’s reputation internationally.

4-H Goes High-Tech
Middle schoolers in the Whitingham Wings 4-H Tech club in the town of Jacksonville, Vermont, in Windham County, learned basic GIS/GPS remote sensing skills, then applied them to create a visitor’s map to Lake Whitingham, with help from the UVM Extension, which reaches Vermont youth in every county of the state through 4-H.

UVM Extension reaches Vermont youth in every county of the state through programs like 4-H Growing Connections.

Fit for Life
Combating childhood obesity is the mission of the Youth Horticulture Project conducted by UVM Extension in Brattleboro. A pre-school gardening curriculum is also being piloted in Brattleboro and Burlington, with the plan to expand to every county in Vermont.

Preserving the Morgan
The UVM Morgan Horse Farm in Weybridge, designated as a National Historic Site, is dedicated to the preservation and improvement of the Morgan Horse through breeding and selection. For more than 50 years, the farm has provided education al experiences and training for students and visitors while perpetuating the fabled Morgan bloodlines.

Healthy Forests
Vermont Monitoring Cooperative is a unique state-university-federal partnership providing nearly 15 years of continuously collected forest health and atmospheric data managed and archived for scientific research, natural resource management, and public interest. VMC is a model program for collaborative partnerships in research, with more than 15 years of archived data from over 130 projects and dozens of collaborating institutions.

Learning for Life
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, developed by UVM with a grant from the Osher Foundation, provides intellectually engaging non-credit programming for older adults throughout Vermont. Sites include St. Johnsbury, Rutland, Brattleboro, Springfield, Montpelier, Newport-Derby, St. Albans, and Lamoille Valley, with more than 500 members statewide.

A Dr. in the Kingdom
UVM offers its doctoral program in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom for a cohort of students including school administrators, special education directors, literacy and math teacher-leaders.

Waste? Not!
UVM research spawned a unique business start-up in June 2006 — the manufacture of environmentally safe, clear wood finishes from cheese whey. “Waste” by-products of cheese-making whey are being converted into a valuable, environmentally sound, new product for home furnishings.