Then Berlin — a professor in UVM’s Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and director of UVM's Center for Sustainable Agriculture — and Limoges — UVM class of 2012 and now a graduate student in dietetics — move on to collect data about the skim milk. Next up: frozen broccoli.

At the other end of the small store, Bill McMaster, a UVM Extension professor, gathers information about bread. Whole-wheat and white? Lowest prices? Brand? Two or three shoppers move through the aisles with blue hand-baskets, looking quizzically at these researchers with clipboards.

“We’re interested in figuring out how to get more healthy, affordable, and regionally produced foods into markets like this one,” says Berlin.

As a first step, they want to know more about the price and supply of eight foods that are for sale here — a “market basket,” they call it, that includes ground beef (lean or not), broccoli (with or without cheese sauce), and peaches (canned with sugar or not). And they want to talk with local people who come to the store — to learn how they get (or fail to get) food now.

Into the desert

Outside, fine snow sweeps out of the spruce-fir woods and down Cross Street, the wide road through town. It’s cold and quiet; just a few people are out, readjusting snowmobiles on their trailer. It doesn’t look like a desert.

Yet, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Island Pond is a kind of desert. A food desert.

Defining a food desert is an inexact science at best, but the basic point is clear: these are communities with many low-income people — and few or no places to buy affordable, healthy food.

In the Ted’s Market parking lot, Island Pond resident Melanie Yasharian holds a small bag of groceries. “I just came in to pick up a couple of items,” she says — and patiently answers questions being asked by Kristyn Achilich — a graduate student in UVM’s new food systems master’s program — about her food buying habits and challenges.

Done with the survey, Yasharian volunteers to tell me her story: how she works hard to feed her two children, ages 2 and 3, now waiting in the car.

“I feel very lucky, “ she says with a broad smile as the wind whips snow and grit over our heads, “we have a large garden, we do a lot of canning, we started a root cellar this year, we freeze a lot, and we raise all our own meat; we don’t buy any meat at the store. We raise chickens, turkeys, and pigs, and my husband is a hunter and so we have venison,” she says.

But it’s not easy. “I do find it hard in town to get a variety of vegetables or fruits,” she says, and, “it’s extremely expensive to eat healthy and to provide your kids with healthy and with a variety.”

Where to shop?

And many of her neighbors probably have a harder time than she does. According to USDA statistics, all of the people who live in and around Island Pond, 1,260 people, have “low access” to food — meaning that a large grocery store is not within easy driving distance. Melanie Yasharian says she drives to St. Johnsbury, 20 miles away, to do some grocery shopping.

Of these 1,260 people, 241 of them, about 20 percent, are low-income. Many have limited transportation to get to the store, which means if they’re going grocery shopping at all, it’s likely to be at Ted’s Market or the other small food store two blocks down, at the other end of the commercial district. Here, Kingdom Market has a large “Welcome Ice Fishermen” sign inside the front entrance.

Kingdom Market sells many of the same foods and brands as Ted’s. And this is not surprising. Both stores are supplied by the same out-of-Vermont distributor.

Heading the other way on Route 114/105 out of Island Pond, it’s not too many miles to Interstate 91, and, from there, south to Boston and global markets beyond. And that’s the route, except in reverse, that much of the food that fills these stores’ shelves traveled.

“We have these two independently owned stores in Island Pond that are a component of our research,” Berlin says, noting that the owners of both stores have been willing partners and supporters of the project. These are the only two grocery stores in all of Essex County, the least populous county in New England, deep in the heart of Vermont’s famed Northeast Kingdom.

Food security

Unlike a spate of recent efforts to simply improve what is available at stores — so-called “healthy retailer” projects — Berlin’s research is far broader and more complex.

Island Pond is one of nine sites, three rural and six urban, throughout the Northeast that are being studied under the leadership of Stephan Goetz, a professor at Penn State. Drawing experts from the USDA and several universities, including UVM’s Linda Berlin and her students, the team’s goal is to enhance what they call “food security” in “underserved” places — often poor, urban neighborhoods — in a new way.

The researchers want to link what have often been seen as separate problems. On the one hand, 12 percent of the population in the Northeast, more than seven million people, are food insecure, according to the USDA. This means they face a challenge getting healthy, affordable food — and all the health problems, like obesity, hunger, and diabetes that are associated with this challenge.

On the other hand, regional farmers are struggling to stay in business, the land base for agriculture in the Northeast continues to decline, and a large percentage of fruits and vegetables eaten here — that can be grown in the Delaware-to-Maine corridor — are transported from farms in the Midwest, California, Mexico, and other parts of the world, using large amounts of fuel.

The researchers want to show that both problems can — and maybe need to be — addressed together. They’re exploring the entire supply chain, from farmer to distributor to retailer to consumer. The plan: build a powerful model of how the whole system works. The hope: enhance the supply and availability of foods grown in the Northeast region.

“Why are there not more regionally produced foods in these stores?” Berlin wonders. “We’re looking for the pressure points,” she says.

“We’re taking a systems approach,” she says. “If your supplier is in Boston, let’s go to the supplier and find out how they decide what to carry.”

“We can tighten the scale of the food system,” says Achilich, to help both low-income consumers on one end and farmers on the other. In an era of climate change and water shortages, the research team is testing the idea that regionally produced food — in place of globally produced foods — can alleviate environmental problems while improving food access and affordability for struggling communities.

This is the end of the second year of a five-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — and a key first step of building an insightful model of the food system, Berlin says, is listening carefully to the people who are buying the food.

Near the shopping carts at Kingdom Market, Kristyn Achilich is collecting more information with help from life-long Island Pond resident Bill Hawkins. He’s been working with the UVM team, reaching out to his friends and neighbors as they come in and out of the store, explaining the research project. They’ve been listening carefully to Sherman Allen, who came in “to get a few incidentals,” he tells me. He drove to the store from the settlement of West Charleston, eleven miles away.

“Here are some of our trees,” she says with a hint of a smile.

It’s conventional plastic tubing used in the maple syrup business. Each stretch is connected to a black spout sticking out of the side of a tree. Then the chest-high tubes run gently downhill, pulling sap, under vacuum pressure, to collecting tanks. Everything here looks like a modern maple sugarbush.

'Except the trees. They’re not maples. They’re birches. “It’s odd, isn’t it?” she says.

Up a long dirt driveway, off Route 7, in Leicester, Kevin New and his cousin have converted an old goat barn into a sugarhouse. “As you can see, we don’t win awards for the looks of our shack,” he says, laughing, “but we have won awards for our maple syrup.” A sweet steam rises off the evaporator pan and he runs a skimmer through boiling sap. Along one wall he’s tacked a pair of blue ribbons from the Addison County Fair. Against the back window, stand two neat rows of mason jars filled with rich reddish syrup.

Except the syrup isn’t maple syrup. It’s birch syrup.

These may be the only two places in Vermont where birch trees are tapped.

“I heard though Facebook that there is a guy up in Franklin County who was going to try it,” New says, looking out the window, “but as far I know I’m the first one.”

What’s in Birch?

If Abby van den Berg’s uncanny research project comes back with promising results, she expects to see more Vermont maple sugarmakers adding birch syrup production into their business.

Her two-year project proposal earned an $80,307 grant from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative because of its potential to offer integrated solutions to the social, economic and ecological challenges in the Northern Forest. In April 2012, van den Berg, her colleagues Tim Perkins and Mark Isselhardt and her work-study student Teague Henkle ’14, collected sap and data from 40 birch trees in five research plots. They didn’t actually boil much of the sap into syrup – just enough to make sure it tasted right. What they really want to learn is how much sap — and sugar — birch trees produce. Van den Berg interpreted the spring 2012 data during the rest of the year and will do another round of collection this spring, weather willing.

“We want to see whether there is enough sugar produced by birches here in Vermont, using modern tools and techniques — like vacuum and reverse osmosis — to make a profitable addition to an established maple operation,” she says.

“We don’t know a lot about birch here in the Northeast,” she says, “How long is the season? How much sap do different size trees make? How much sugar will they yield? How many trees and taps would you need to be profitable?”

What’s it Worth?

Kevin New is asking himself the same questions and he’s talked with van den Berg on the phone about what they’re both learning.

Birch sap is more watery than maple sap. Typically, 40 to 60 gallons of maple sap yield one gallon of syrup. For birch sap, it’s well over a hundred gallons to one. “I’m averaging 116 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup,” New says.

This adds a tremendous amount of fuel and time to the syrup-making equation — which is one of the reasons birch syrup is rare. There are four commercial producers in Alaska, a few in British Columbia and other parts of Canada and one established maker in New Hampshire.

But the other side of the scale is this: Alaskan birch syrup is now selling for $78 per quart. One major producer there sells gallons for $328. New is testing his prices at $50 per quart. 

“Is it worth it? Will people buy it?” he says. “That’s what I need to find out.”

He’s given samples to chefs at two restaurants, he’s telling his friends and he’s letting anyone who stops by take a taste for free.

If you take a spoonful of birch syrup expecting some taste cousin to maple syrup, think again.

“I wouldn’t ruin a pancake with it,” New says, with a broad grin as he opens three small jars (from his three boiling runs to date) for sampling.

“When you say syrup, for some reason, people think of maple. It’s not!” New says. “I think it’s fruity, myself. Some people call it tangy. Some call it spicy.”

A taste from the first jar seems overly sharp with a strange after-flavor, but the second is better, delicious: sharp and sweet, with a citrusy edge. The third is the sweetest but not as interesting.

New starts to list recipes he’s heard of for birch syrup:“you’ll find it in sauces and glazes. They use it on salmon, seared scallops, glaze on chickens. You can make a pecan pie out of it,” he says. “I have a friend down the street making birch bars instead of maple bars.”

Crazy weather

Abby van den Berg, a research assistant professor in UVM’s plant biology department, would like to know whether birch products can be produced just as the maple season is wrapping up, adding to producers’ bottom line. Maple sap runs when it’s freezing at night and warmer by day. Birch sap, driven by root pressure rather than stem pressure, only starts to run when it stays above freezing in the spring. For a typical year in Vermont, this means late March into April.

But 2012 was atypical, mid March registered a record-breaking 86 degrees at the Proctor Center followed by weeks of cold and a short sap run. “This year may be a dud, but I don’t expect this project to be a dud,” van den Berg says. “I expect the numbers for this will work out.” Part of the reason for her optimism is that birch syrup production could use a great deal of the equipment already in place in an existing maple operation, “your evaporator, your sap tanks, your pumps,” van den Berg says.

“Birch trees are already present in a lot of sugarbushes,” van den Berg says. Ambitious sugarmakers could follow up their six or eight weeks of maple syrup making with two or three weeks of birch. And that would have ecological benefits too. “If birch become a species of value,” she says, “producers are more likely to want to keep them and thus keep more diversity in our forests.”

Maple syrup production seems as established a part of northern New England as, well, maple syrup on pancakes. But it’s under threat. The cost of owning land is rising, as is fuel, and other production costs. Climate change too poses a threat as the sugaring season gets shorter and the long-term viability of maples comes into question.

“We’ve had calls and interest about birch from producers all over the place,” van den Berg says. “They’re very keen to find things that will extend the season, make a little extra money — and just experiment with something new. That’s the culture of maple producers.”

Like undergraduate Teague Henkle who is helping van den Berg on the experiment. “To be honest, I’m not a big fan of how birch syrup tastes,” he says, “but it’s really interesting to be part of adding a whole new business in Vermont.”

Between 2000 and 2010, Vermont’s Latino population grew 24 times faster than its overall population, and the two largest dairy producing counties, Addison and Franklin, tallied 73 and 111 percent increases respectively. That said, the actual numbers are small – an estimated 1,200-1,500 workers in a state of 626,000 people. Still, this represents a significant demographic shift for a state where Spanish is rarely spoken.

“Public concern about how migrant workers were being treated was raised in 2009 when a young Mexican worker was killed in an accident on a Vermont dairy farm. This accident highlighted the lack of objective data about how workers are faring in Vermont,” Dan Baker wrote in the “Journal of Agromedicine” in an article published in July 2012.

“Little is known about who these workers are, how they view dairy farm employment, or how they differ from dairy farm workers who from Vermont and what their health needs are,” says Baker a UVM assistant professor of community development and applied economics. That’s why he, research specialist David Chappelle are among the UVM faculty and staff who are conducting several studies and programs.

RESULTS MAY INFORM POLICY, CHANGE

Baker’s three-year, $60,000, USDA Hatch-funded project, which ended in 2010, tried to understand the broader issues faced by dairy farm labor in Vermont. Through surveys, analysis of secondary data and collaboration with partner organizations, he’s gathered statistics such as those below that build a picture of the state of Vermont’s work force. Most importantly, it includes the perspectives of both farm managers and farm workers and how they affect Vermont’s economy and communities. For example:

• 78 percent, of farmers surveyed believe that there is a shortage of domestic labor.
• Hispanic workers put in more hours than their domestic counterparts, 70 compared to 50 hours a week, and say they want to put in more hours.
• Although few farmers speak Spanish and few workers speak English, farmers report being pleased with their Hispanic workers and 90 percent of workers report they’re satisfied with their jobs and felt they were treated well.
• The main concern farmers expressed about hiring Hispanic workers was potential legal repercussions.
• The greatest challenge most workers report is isolation. And other studies point to workers suffering from a number of work-related injuries and diseases and high levels of depression and anxiety.

“The results of this study will contribute to a more detailed understanding of the situation faced by the state's farming sector and the policy alternatives available to address agricultural labor issues,” says Baker. “It is also of use to other states and regions facing similar changes in their farm labor work force.”

Baker has delivered survey findings at an annual roundtable discussion on the state of Vermont’s agricultural work force, testified before Vermont Senate and House committees, written articles and delivered remarks at conferences and meetings such as the Northeast Organic Farming Winter Conference, Vermont Farm Bureau annual meeting and to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.

The need for further research and discussion can only continue as does the increase in the Latino population and the need for solutions to make Vermont’s agricultural work force just and sustainable. In 2011, he led a one-year project investigating migrant health issues in Vermont. In 2012, Baker received a two-year, $30,000 USDA Hatch fund grant to study anxiety and depression among migrant farm workers.

Because omega-3 fatty acids and selenium have been recognized as nutrients of high biological value that impart health benefits, they represent promising functional food components enriched in milk and dairy products. Diets rich in these nutrients have been shown to be significant in lowering cholesterol and the risk of heart attacks.

“There is growing interest in the development of functional milk and dairy products to maximize their contribution to health promotion and disease prevention,” says Kraft.

Her two-year project began in October 2011, funded by $150,000 from UVM’s Dairy Center of Excellence. “For the current project, the plants for the oil to feed the cows were grown in Canada,” Kraft explains. “However, I’d like to see the plants grown in Vermont to encourage sustainable agriculture here.”  To incorporate the bonus of locally grown cattle feed part of the project, Kraft will ask grant funders to extend the project an additional year.

She’s supplemented her initial project with a $60,000 three-year Hatch Project ending in 2015 to test her hypothesis on an animal model and additionally “look at the cow level, that is, the objective is to improve the overall health of the cow through feeding omega-3 fatty acids,” she says.

NOT SO SIMPLE, BUT WORTH IT

Why not just add omega-3 fatty acids to milk and yogurt and skip running it through the cow altogether?

“The omega-3 fatty acids could be simply incorporated into the products,” Kraft concedes, “but one of our major goals is also to improve the cow's health, so with one strategy we will accomplish two goals: improving the healthfulness of milk and enhancing the health of the dairy cow.” Then there’s the suspended fat. “If you add fats to dairy products, you will need to emulsify it into the product,” she says. “A 'naturally enriched' product may be more appealing to or accepted by the consumer.”  Last but not least, there are a number of reasons having to do with milk chemistry. “Milk fats' composition is unique, for example, the milk fat globule membrane contains bioactive substances by itself. Milk fat is easy to digest and has a unique and desirable texture and flavor,” Kraft explains. “By simply adding the omega-3 fatty acids and/or removing milk fat, you may alter the typical and desirable flavor and texture of milk and the way it performs in recipes.”

Unfortunately, one can’t just feed cattle, say, fish oil, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, because the oil is toxic to the bacteria in the rumen that digest the feed in the cattle’s stomach, Kraft explains. Also, the rumen bacteria convert unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids – the opposite of our goal of adding healthful fatty acids to the diets of both cows and humans.

One “work-around” this obstacle is to add encapsulated rumen-protected oil to the feed. But ultimately, Kraft believes she will come up with a novel rumen-protected, feed source that is high in specific omega-3 fatty acids, will be good for cows that eat it and the beneficial acids will be present in their milk. To that end, she analyzes the milk for lipids and fatty acid analysis using gas chromatography to test variables such as what feed offers the highest levels of omega 3’s and what is the lowest dose cattle must receive for the benefits to show.

In related research, Kraft recently submitted a proposal to the New England Dairy Promotion Board/Vermont Dairy Promotion Council to collaborate with UVM College of Medicine to improve understanding of the role of milk fat from whole milk as an integral part of a balanced diet and its efficacy in modulating risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome. This study will be a human intervention trial.

Kraft feels that “milk fat is getting a bad rap. Milk fat contains a unique variety of bioactive fatty acids that may account for beneficial effects of milk fat. Whole-milk dairy products are an important part of a healthful diet. Balance is what is important,” she says.

“Many researchers focus on developing new products for the market, but overlook human nutrition as a component of those products,” says Kraft, who is an assistant professor of animal science. “My work is the interface between animal science and human nutrition.”

“Dr. Kraft’s research is innovative and timely with its focus on making dairy foods even more healthful in a natural way, and it fits with the multi-disciplinary expertise of the department in that it looks to improve both animal and human health,” says André-Denis Wright chair of animal science in UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

In 2003, when he was in the thick of writing American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide to Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses, he knew he needed a little historical context to help new farmstead cheesemakers understand the big picture. But Kindstedt easily realized that the 9,000-year history of cheese was an important story to connect today’s traditional cheesemakers with their ancient roots. What Paul Kindstedt didn’t realize is that writing that history would change the direction of his research 180 degrees.

Nine years and more than 250 pages later, in 2012, his Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization was published. This big cheese bible is a textbook, a rich backgrounder for cheese connoisseurs, a handbook for cheesemakers, a lens through which to understand history and "worth your time," high praise from "The Atlantic" magazine.

“It highlights the unique stories of traditional cheeses and thereby adds to their specialness, which is crucial for cheeses to command high prices in the marketplace,” Kindstedt says. “Several high profile cheesemongers have told me that Cheese and Culture helps them to sell artisan cheeses, and that's good for Vermont artisan cheesemakers.”

Great timing: in December, an interdisciplinary team of scholars published in the prestigious journal, “Nature,” a major discovery dating the earliest definitive evidence of cheesemaking at 5,500 B.C. in what is now Poland. As a result, Kindstedt receives requests from journalists worldwide for his comments and expertise. Kindstedt even became an animated cartoon at the hand of famed Fast Draw “investigative Cartoonist” Mitch Butler for CBS Sunday Morning on January 20.

Kindstedt built that expertise, over 26 years at UVM specializing in the chemistry, biochemistry, structure and function of cheese. Most notably, by figuring out the science behind eradicating naturally occurring calcium crystals that form on cheese, he helped major industrial cheese manufacturers produce smooth, uniform products for mass markets.

But by 2005, with the publication of American Farmstead Cheese and as co-director of UVM's Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese, Kindstedt was at the forefront of a burgeoning movement.  In 2011 he earned a Hatch Research Incentive grant to shift his research goals toward cheesemakers specializing in small-batch, farmstead cheeses, while building on the considerable body of research he had already accomplished.

The ‘Snowflake Bentley of Cheese’

And now, radically, he’s looking at cheese crystals in quite the opposite way.

“My previous work was all about eradicating crystals – the new work is to take that base of knowledge and look at crystals as the signature of traditional cheesemaking practices and their nature,” Kindstedt says. “The hypothesis is that traditional cheeses are much more prone to forming various types crystals because of the way they’re made and aged. ”

“In European cheeses, crystals are seen as a characteristic of proper aging, a cheese without crystals will tell you the cheese wasn’t aged for as long as it should have – it’s too young a cheese for the price,” chimes in Gil Tansman, Kindstedt’s graduate student working alongside him.

That’s what these researchers will need to demonstrate scientifically and then convince artisan cheesemakers and their customers.

And they’ve found the resources for this scientific inquiry in what, at a glance, may seem two unlikely places: UVM’s geology lab and UVM College of Medicine.

It is Tansman, says Kindstedt, who on his own initiative came up with some completely unexpected tools for studying cheese crystals – tools he found in Professor John Hughes’ geology laboratory.

“The tools and techniques John Hughes uses to study moon rocks, are useful to the study of cheese,” says Tansman. The pride of the Hughes lab is an x-ray diffractometer, which irradiates crystals causing beams to diffract in specific ways. By measuring the angles of the beams, a researcher can determine the identity and atomic and molecular structure of a crystal. Combining that information with various forms of microscopy, he can create a picture of the crystal. More on that picture later.

“The amount of probing power Professor Hughes uses hasn’t been used for food science before,” says Tansman. “While he is examining an extremely well crystallized piece from a mountain, we study a less well crystallized organic substrate and a more transient matrix, still we find that there’s an overlap. We may have to try harder, to find the right samples, press them properly and deal with instrumentation, but at the end of the day, the information is there if we use the techniques developed by other disciplines.” Tansman’s x-ray crystallography patterns suggest that each kind of cheese displays unique crystals.

Meanwhile, Kindstedt has asked the staff in UVM Medical College’s Microscopy Imaging Center to train Tansman this semester to use its electron microscopy instruments. ‘Some of the same equipment used to study cancer cells, such as dissecting microscopy platforms, are fantastic for cheese,” says Kindstedt.

Kindstedt is excited to see “food science research drawing bits and pieces from both geology and medicine,” in the same way that his books draw from the fields of archaeology and anthropology to bring new understanding and information to the very core characteristics that define artisan cheese.

What’s more, those cheese crystal images from the geology lab turn out to be, well, art, not unlike the famous snowflake images first photographed by Vermonter Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley in the early 1900s.

"Gil Tansman is the Snowflake Bentley of Cheese," says Kindstedt. "Gil is making it possible to see those crystals at the microscopic level – they’re really a thing of beauty – that’s what Snowflake Bentley was doing. Crystals show off some of the attributes that make these cheeses so desirable – their hand-craftedness – it’s a signature to be celebrated. And if you look at that at the microscopic level we show people that these are works of art.”


The 11 recommendations in the report of the advisory group, chaired by Nicholas Donofrio, former executive vice president for innovation at IBM, all advance the goals of creating a sustainable relationship between Vermont and UVM, while preparing students for the jobs of the future. Key among these is the concept of an innovation center, which would put UVM as a hub from which to reach across the state and beyond to public and private sectors in order to foster innovation, research, entrepreneurship and job creation. Work has been initiated to create a clearinghouse for resources already available at UVM, the state colleges, other institutions of higher education, state government and the private sector.  

John Evans, president of the Vermont Technology Council said the Technology Council was pleased to collaborate with UVM on the new center. “There are a tremendous number of resources already available, and we need to put them to work,” he said. 

Bramley served as UVM’s interim president from August 2011 to July 2012. Before that he was department chair of animal sciences, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and provost and senior vice president of the university. In 2006 he served as acting president during President Daniel Mark Fogel’s illness. From 2007 to 2011 he was president and CEO of the Windham Foundation, the largest private foundation registered in Vermont. 

The higher education advisory group’s report, titled “New Ideas for Changing Times: Strengthening the Partnership Between the State of Vermont and the University of Vermont,” was released in June.

This fall, students in a Community Development and Applied Economics research methods class (CDAE 250) surveyed the student body to determine their beverage preferences in an effort to help inform the University’s soon to come water bottle ban, effective January 1, 2013.

CDAE 250, taught by professor David Conner, had students conduct field research, literature reviews, interviews and surveys as part of their work with service-learning partner, UVM’s Office of Sustainability.

This Office was interested in clarifying UVM students’ perspectives on the water bottle ban — specifically defined as the elimination of all “plain, flat, unflavored bottled water” sales on campus. While this was a significant step towards UVM becoming more environmentally responsible, drafting this policy was not an easy process.

In the original policy of the water bottle ban, smartwater was not included because it had minerals removed and then added back in with electrolytes, putting it into a different category from plain water.

Through qualitative and quantitative research done by the CDAE 250 students that gauged over 900 UVM students’ preferences, results showed that UVM students opposed the exclusion of smartwater from the ban.

Gioia Thompson, head of the Office of Sustainability and the students’ main contact, listened to these results and advocated for smartwater to be included in the ban.

“In the drafting of this policy, we had heard a lot of different ideas going around about how to best implement this ban,” said Thompson. “Being able to take part in this service-learning experience, where the students themselves became experts in the field helped to clearly and confidently express through research what needed to be done.”

“Because this was an issue that students had a personal stake in, they were genuinely very interested in the research, which led to students actually owning the project,” Conner explained. “Students saw Gioia’s commitment as our service-learning partner, who came in for several meetings with the class throughout the semester.” 

On November 30, Richard Cate, Vice President for Finance and Administration at UVM, declared that “smartwater is the same as bottled water,” according to an email from the Office of Sustainability.

The intention was always that all unflavored water be taken out of the system, Cate said in an interview. 

"The bottom line is smartwater will not be for sale on campus and for me that was not a difficult decision to make," he said.

“Seeing our results already making a difference by adding smartwater to the ban is very satisfying. Through this relationship we formed with Gioia at the Office of Sustainability, we had a real input into this policy,” Ajla Afizi, CDAE senior, said. “That is what made this service-learning class so mutually beneficial.”

The Office of Sustainability is hosting a water bottle retirement party this Wednesday, December 5th from noon to 2 pm in the Davis Center Atrium. The party will feature speakers, games, taste tests, discounted water bottles and additional information about the ban of bottled water sales on campus.

Additional reporting contributed by Danielle Bilotta. Updated 12/10/12.

As philosophers are wont to do, he made his points Socratically, by asking audience members how they would react to a series of progressively thorny ethical dilemmas.

“There's a girl drowning in a puddle outside the Davis Center,” he began, gazing innocently at the audience. "Should you save her?" Of course, a woman near the front replied. “What if the puddle was very deep?” he added. Still yes. “What if it was burning hot, like lava,” he elaborated impishly. A nodding affirmative. “If it paralyzed you from the waist down?” Yes, again. “Is there any cost you would not pay?” he asked the impressively altruistic audience member with a smile, after pausing for effect.

Doggett's drift, in part, was to unpack an unspoken assumption behind an Economist cover story that had caught his attention titled “Feeding the World.” Unexamined by the magazine, Doggett pointed out, was the question of whether we should feed the world, especially when the many and varied costs of such an endeavor were taken into account.

“Everyone thinks you should save the child if there’s no cost,” he said, returning to his example. “It becomes significantly less plausible if you jack the cost up.”

But his real point was about the need for transdisciplinarity in addressing problems, including those related to the food system.

“Philosophy has nothing to say about what the costs are, but a lot to say about whether or not you should pay them,” he said. “Philosophy is important, but it’s not enough.” For example, an agro-economist, like Doggett’s fellow faculty member Ernesto Mendez, might be a good partner in integrating the “should” and “how” elements of the Economist cover story.

Such transdisciplinary coalitions of the willing –  where to find them, how to build them, how to make them work – were the theme of the day at the symposium, titled “The Cultivation of Collaboration: Increasing Our Impact on the Food System.”

“That’s OK”

Partnerships can evolve almost serendipitously, said John Barlow, assistant professor of animal science, who spoke about a new transdisciplinary project he participates in that addresses artisanal cheesemakers’ ability to minimize food safety risks and understand consumer needs. The project's six-member team includes Catherine Donnelly in nutrition and food science, an expert in foodborne pathogens; Jane Hill in engineering, an environmental engineer who focuses on microbial activity; and David Conner, an agricultural economist in the department of community development and applied economics.

Barlow met Donnelly through normal channels – both are faculty members in animal, nutrition and food sciences graduate program and colleagues in UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. But he met Conner at a new faculty oriention and Hill through the Vermont Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases (COBRE).

“Some of it was dumb luck and random chance,” Barlow said. “That’s OK. Another way to look at that is you’re watching and thinking about what’s going on, and identifying potential opportunities for future use.”

Power of partnering

Another presentation given by Linda Berlin, director of UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, was all about the power of partnering. Her project addresses how better to serve so called “food deserts” – places where people, often of low-income, have limited access to grocery stores and limited transportation, and so are "food insecure" in a variety of ways. Her research is part of a large USDA grant involving several schools, including UVM. 

The goal of the grant is to improve access to healthy food for underserved populations by better understanding what a regional food system means and how it works. The project encompasses nine communities in the Northeast, including Essex County in Vermont where it focuses on two independent grocery stores.

Ultimate transdisciplinarity

In the last presentation of the day, Amy Trubek, associate professor of nutrition and food sciences, gave an overview on the new food systems masters degree program. It is one of the most transdisciplinary programs on campus. 

Thirty faculty members affiliated with the program are doing many kinds of food systems research, she said, from the work Jane Kolidinsky, chair of community development and applied economics, is doing on obesity; to work by Chris Koliba, director of the master's in public administration program, on food systems policy. Students can work with any faculty member in the program, which is both an opportunity and, given their large number, a challenge. Discussions are under way, she said, to improve ways for faculty and graduate students to find one another.

The symposium also included a panel of representatives from Green Mountain College, Vermont Technical College and Vermont Law School on opportunities for cross-institutional collaboration. The symposium's keynote speaker, Wouter Van Hoven, who was to speak about African food security, was stranded in Boston by Hurricane Sandy. Diane Imrie, director of food services at Fletcher Allen Health Care, took his place. 

Douglas Lantagne, dean of UVM Extension and interim director of the Food Systems Spire, said he was very happy with the symposium, which was attended by about 100 people, but he is eager to do more. “When you get people together to network, great things come out of it,” he said. “I have to figure out how to do that more frequently, not just at the Food Summit and the Food Symposium. That’s what I’m going to be working on – more frequency and less logistical planning.”

Our College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) played a significant roll in the ceremony. Among attendees, Professors David Barrington served on the presidential search committee, Robert Tyzbir was University Marshal, CALS senior Maria Carabello carried the College's banner and Tom Vogelmann sat among the deans.

in perhaps prophetic remarks by Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, Vermont's U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, University of Minnesota President Emeritus Robert Bruininks and the 42nd U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale charged Sullivan with the tasks of making tough decisions and at the same time collaborating with and inspiring others. As Mondale said, “A president… must unite imagination and vision with practical know-how and be ready to make progress the old-fashioned way: through hard work and determination.” 

Sullivan outlined his plan for UVM, just as he has since his arrival in July to smaller groups on campusi, in his statewide travels,to the media and again Oct. 9 in an email to the UVM community:

1. “We must provide our students access to success through more scholarships and financial aid.  Affordability must be our top priority! 
2. We must advance academic excellence by rebalancing priorities and investing in this University’s strengths to create a distinctive teaching and learning environment. 
3. We must improve facilities and support creative endeavors and breakthrough research for our faculty and staff to attract and retain talent of the highest quality.
4. Central to our mission are public service, civic engagement, and outreach throughout Vermont to further economic development, health, civic life, and environmental sustainability.  We seek to inspire students to apply what they learn here and to build vibrant communities wherever they live.”

See the whole slide show of UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences people as they played their part in this historic rite of passage. (©Stephen Mease Photography).

Here is the UVM slide show by uvmphoto ©Sally McCay. 

But wait a minute. Words can't begin to describe the way photographs do how students, faculty and staff welcomed visitors and how much fun families and alumni had, so let's cut right to the SLIDE SHOW of cute animals and children and folks you know. Then read on, if you will.

On Friday in classes as complex as Laura Almstead's Survey of Biochemistry and Jenny Wilkinson's Horse Health and Disease, parents were spotted in the back rows. One anonymous couple who had majored in chemistry and biology respectively admitted they wanted to see if they could actually understand what their daughter was learning. An animated Almstead walked up and down the aisles waving her arms, challenging students to commit to answers with their iClickers, then shook her head, urging them to talk it over, do better. She could instantly see their choices on computer screen.

Saturday's rain made the indoor chat with Dean Tom Vogelmann all the more popular as dozens stopped by to hear about the College's continued rapid growth to 1,245 undergraduate and 146 graduate students this year, $3.1 million in research grants brought to the College by its scientists and some of the state-of-the art facilities where even undergrads can conduct research with their mentors in addition to classroom learning. But talk was informal. Families from Washington, Oregon, California flew to Vermont to see how their first-year students were doing. The answer was: doing very well. Alumni like John Vanderpol of Hudson, Massachusetts and Steve Hancock from Dartmouth, Massachusetts came back to campus to see old friends, former professors and how the place has changed. The both graduated in Plant and Soil Science in 1987. 

But a hub of activity was the UVM Farms where cattle and horses were on display and equestrian demonstrations were a hit even with folks not familiar with agriculture.

Thousands of visitors converged on campus for Reunion and Homecoming. Many came to see the ceremonial installation of Thomas Sullivan as the University of Vermont's 26th president on Friday, Oct. 5.

It's all about free dinner, live music and sitting around with friends.

On September 6, more than 250 CALS students made a beeline for the food tent beside Morrill Hall. With fully loaded plates teetering with burgers, dogs salads, they sat on the grounds in clusters, then returned for cake.

Upper classmen remarked how much better the weather was this year than last year's downpour that had folks dining on the Hall's wide three-story marble staircase.

CALS Reps., an organizer of the event, as well as UVM Horticulture Club and CREAM Dairy Club set up tables and did a brisk business gleaning new members. UVM Greenhouses sold mums and begonias.

A trio of faculty string players played music. CALS' Don Stratton and Jonathan Leonard let psychology professor Tim Stickle play second fiddle even though he teaches in the College of Arts and Sciences.

CALS Reps Izzy Cummings and Nicole Gruszczynski called out student ticket numbers till lucky raffle winners came forward to claim gift certificates to the UVM Bookstore.

Ja Yun Lee, Rose Laba and Josie Davis of the College's student services organized the event.

More photos in a slideshow sampler on UVM CALS Facebook page.

But in 2003, when he was in the thick of writing American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide to Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses, he knew he need a little historical context to help new farmstead cheesemakers today understand the big picture. But Kindsted easily realized that the 9,000-year history of cheese was, well, it's another story. He knew there was an important story to tell, one that would connect today’s traditional cheesemakers with their ancient roots, but it would require much deeper research.

Nine years and more than 250 pages later he tells that story in the recently published, Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization. This big cheese bible is not only a textbook, but a rich backgrounder for cheese aficionados, handbook for cheesemakers, lens through which to understand history and "worth your time," according to critics such as "The Atlantic" magazine.

Kindstedt's expertise is, according to his curriculum vitae, in the technology of cheesemaking physicochemical and biochemical processes that influence the functional characteristics of mozzarella. He built his career helping large industrial cheese producers perfect their products for a mass market.

But Kindstedt began to change course in 2005 with the publication of American Farmstead Cheese and his role as co-director of UVM's Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese.

Helping small producers flourish became the rationale for following a trail of sometimes obscure references to cheese in art, religion, literature, classics, archeochemistry, archeoclimatology and more.… areas both foreign and thrilling to Kindstedt. Wherever a specialist in one of these areas made a passing reference to cheese, the scientist, looking through “a different set of eyes,” found a piece of his complex puzzle (“Whoa, that’s global climate change shifting the whole direction of cheesemaking in Europe!” he said, as an example). Eventually, painstakingly he built, for instance, the first comprehensive narrative of when, how and why hard sheep pecorino cheese was developed in one region and soft-ripened cow’s milk cheeses in another.

Kindstedt tells the reader how the landscape, the climate, the economy, the politics shaped the cheese and, equally so, how cheese came to shape the cultural identity of the people and the place where it’s made. It’s not an understatement, Kindstedt says: “Cheese helped shaped everything in terms of who we are.”

Like Salt: A World History, Spice: The History of a Temptation, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World,  and several other comprehensive nonfiction history books on the likes of sugar, chocolate and even the banana, published since the new milennium, Cheese and Culture postulates that this food changed the course of history.

Molding tradition

Kindstedt's tale of cheesemaking began around 7000 B.C. as devastating overuse of land in the once Fertile Crescent of western Asia began to be used for grazing ruminant animals instead of growing crops. The advent of pottery allowed for collecting milk combined with the realization that adults (then universally lactose intolerant) could consume dairy foods if coagulated and the whey was drawn off —  cheese became a food staple.

Jumping forward several millennia, Kindstedt argues that the Roman Empire lasted 500 years, at least in part, because Romans were accomplished cheesemakers. “The reason why they were able to hold these vast areas,” he says, “is because when they set up a fort or new province they immediately established an agricultural installation. They took the technology of sheep milk cheesemaking — and wool production for blankets and clothing — and made that the basis of a military provisioning network that enabled them to permanently station a half million troops on a 10,000-mile border.”

A favorite example of Kindstedt’s that gets to the synergy between the place and the cheese is the rugged alpine cheeses of central Europe. That story begins around the start of the fourth millennium B.C. when there was a dramatic global climate shift that led to long, severe winters and warmer wetter summers in this part of Europe, wreaking havoc on the Neolithic peoples huddled in the river valleys along the Danube and the Rhine, most of the land being too heavily forested to cultivate crops or graze animals. But over the long term, the extreme cold caused forestlands to thin, enabling people to move to higher ground, clear and cultivate fields. It also caused tree lines to recede down alpine slopes as much as a thousand vertical feet. By 2500 B.C. there’s evidence of people moving animals up the mountaintops to graze in the summer, turning their milk into hard cheese to stockpile for the winter while cultivating crops below.

What began, then, as a survival strategy became an embedded part of the culture in many parts of Austria and Switzerland. “It persists to this day,” says Kindstedt, “because it’s part of local life, part of local identity. The movement of the animals up in the spring becomes this enormous cultural celebration  — when they come back down there’s another celebration. It’s part of the identity of the people themselves.”

Kindstedt believes that Americans have historically missed out on this deep connection between place and food that is demonstrated throughout the pages of his book, Cheese and Culture. “Those traditional technologies that did arrive (in America) from Europe were changed as the cheese industry changed,” he says. Americans’ lack of a shared identity around food, Kindstedt believes, is due to its relentlessly mobile society in contrast to Europe, where people have commonly lived and died in the same place where their great grandparents did. “We’re always moving,” he says. “Culture is shared collective experience over time."

The immense popularity and award-winning international respect of small-batch farmstead cheeses, especially from Vermont; the success of the nation's only center for teaching and research on farmstead cheeses — UVM's Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese; and the prestigious acclaim of Paul Kindstedt's Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization, a story told with the precision of a scientist and the devotion of a cheese connoisseur; are all signs that the tide of American food culture may be turning. And not a moment too soon.

~LeeAnn Cox and Cheryl Dorschner contributed to this article.

Refereeing this fierce debate with solid scientific data are University of Vermont research scientists at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC) – experts in cheese safety and food borne pathogens.

“I’m interested in making sure that we can forward traditional cheesemaking practices and ingredients in this era of food safety challenges,” co-director of VIAC, Catherine Donnelly said in a widely acclaimed video produced last year by the American Society for Microbiology.

 “We found the absence of large-cheese-associated outbreaks to be remarkable, because compared with other commodities that's not the norm.” she says. “But in studies looking at instances where cheeses made from pasteurized milk were involved in outbreaks, we realize that the most significant threat to cheese safety isn’t the use of raw milk – isn’t the cheese itself – it's actually post-process recontamination either from the aging environment or introduction by humans of pathogens on their hands after the cheese is made. It's really recontamination that poses a threat. It’s irrelevant whether cheese is made with raw or pasteurized milk.” Donnelly is one of the nation’s foremost experts on microorganisms affecting food safety, especially Listeria.

She concludes that Staphylococcus aureus carried on human hands or cows’ udders causes the most problem in cheeses. Staph aureus allowed to grow to high population levels produces toxins that people sick. Listeria and Salmonella are sometimes also problematic as well as, though very rarely, E. coli.

Another problem that cheesemakers encounter are viruses that live in the cheesemaking environment, called bacteriophage that attack bacterial starter cultures and cause the batch to fail. Cheesemakers guard against bacteriophage by keeping the cheesemaking facility sanitary.

Donnelly’s $45,000, three-year Hatch grant was renewed and her USDA APHIS grants have totaled more than $600,000 over several years. These continue to pinpoint both the vulnerabilities in the large-commodity food system that contribute to the spread of pathogens while simultaneously demonstrating that centuries-old techniques used in artisan cheeses rely on the culture of beneficial microorganisms.

Donnelly believes that while regulation is one way to control food borne pathogens, education is another. VIAC teaches food-safety practices and past grants enabled her staff to do on-site risk-reduction programs for cheesemakers.

Donnelly and Dennis “DJ” D’Amico, a senior research scientist and lab manager for VIAC, are poised to use their scientific findings to continue to inform the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada as they evaluate the food safety of soft-ripened, raw-milk cheeses.

Donnelly and D’Amico predict that the debate among the interests of small and large-scale cheesemakers and the FDA will intensify in the coming year over a circa 1940s federal rule that requires cheese to be aged for 60 days before it is deemed safe to eat. The law was aimed at hard cheeses such as Cheddar that become inhospitable to pathogens as they dry out during aging. When raw-milk cheeses age, the chemicals, acids and salt in the cheese also destroy harmful bacteria, and since types of cheese differ greatly, scientists such as D’Amico and Donnelly conclude that the 60-day rule is simplistic at best.

“The 60-day rule wasn’t based on real science,” D’Amico told “The New York Times” last spring. “The pathogens have changed and the cheeses have certainly changed. But the rule has not.” D’Amico’s research was the subject of much media attention, also including the “Atlantic,” ABC and Fox News.

The FDA is reassessing the rule as it applies to soft cheeses, so the regulations are likely to change.

Expect the debate to heat up – but not the raw milk used in cheesemaking.

'A great graduation gift for the Class of 2012 from honorary degree recipient Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami.

As a result, CALS' Class of 2012, families and friends arrived at 4:30 p.m. upbeat, warmed by the 88-degree temperatures and fueled by food and drink from a reception hosted by the College before the ceremony. College Marshal Jonathan Leonard and Dean Tom Vogelmann led the event. Faculty member Don Stratton read the names of every one of the 337 graduates as they received their diplomas. And three professors transitioned to emeriti status before the audience of about 1200 people.

Commencement speaker, Distinguished University Professor Susan Wallace contrasted her rise from student to scientist in a "man's world," with the sphere of CALS' graduating class, which is 73 percent women. She told graduates that they could be successful at whatever life's work they choose if they "love doing it and (are) willing to work hard at it." Here's the full story.

View the slide show of highlights and more than 40 photos of College of Agriculture and Life Sciences graduates who earned the top awards of the College and UVM. Among them:

• Shiren Chan earned the Keith M. Miser Leadership Award.
• Jeffrey Eng received the Elmer Nicholson Achievement Prize.
• Samantha Case and Julie L. Williams are UVM McNair Scholars.
• Rebecca Calder was chosen as College of Agriculture and Life Sciences banner bearer in UVM commencement.
• Liam Donnelly, Erika Hesterberg, Pamela Rooney and Brandon Vanasse received University of Vermont Mortar Board Awards.
• Summa cum laude graduates are: Dylan Badger, Lauren Fowler, Jennifer Kaulius, Pamela Rooney and Todd Stanley.
• Magna cum laude graduates are: Marie Burneko, Rebecca Calder, Erika Hall, Erika Hesterberg, Samantha Ogilvie, Clara Pedley, Kyriel Pineault, Morgan Powers and Jarrod Szydlowski.
• Cum laude graduates are: Jesse Ackemann, Page Atcheson, Meagan DiVito, Liam Donnelly, Jean Drolet, Christina Economou, Hannah Facey, Kelsey Haist, Hannah Hinsley, Samuel Hoadley, Katherine Ida, Hannah Kammerer, Julianna Kattermann, Allison Keller, Michele Langone, Laurie Lesage, Sarah McMahon, Sarah Moylan, Jillian Nyman, Kelsey Preston, Rachel Shapiro, Megan Taylor and Sara Ziegler.

Vogelmann noted that this class, the largest in CALS history and among the highest achieving – 18 hail from UVM's Honors College and eight earned University-wide accolades – "made excellent use of the rich resources and opportunities that our great College has to offer." 

Three UVM Extension leaders ceremoniously retired from service as Extension Dean and Director Douglas Lantagne read proclamations highlighting their years of service.

• Richard LeVitre's UVM Extension career spans more than 30 years. As associate dean, LeVitre increased his faculty and staff's grant funding from $1M to $7M. As Farm Viability Program leader LeVitre helped hundreds of Vermont farms stay in business. He especially loved his years hosting a call-in radio show. (And he was a "ringer" during any milking contest, leading his team to victory.)
• Chester Parsons, renowned sheep expert, retired from UVM Extension after more than 26 years. He often said, “Strive for the most advanced information that education has to offer, but to question all of it.”  But he was better known for his Willie Nelson impersonations, guitar playing, songs and laughter.
• Karen Schneider is well known in Extension circles for big-picture thinking, organization, early adoption of technologies and bringing her colleagues on board with enthusiasm, cajoling and humor. "Performing with ease, the classroom is your stage," said Extension Dean Doug Lantagne. She served UVM Extension for 26 years.

In sending off the newly minted group of alumni of UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Dean Tom Vogelmann said, "we feel lucky to have known you and lucky that your families allowed us to be your mentors.”

“Given UVM’s recent focus on food systems as a spire of excellence, Barbara has, in true Vermont food systems vocabulary, lived a life ‘from farm to plate,” observes Professor Philip Ackerman-Leist of Green Mountain College near Moore’s Vermont hometown. “Having grown up on an egg farm in Vermont’s Mettowee River Valley, Barbara never strayed far from the farm or its guiding principles of hard work, land stewardship and community responsibility. Those ideals, combined with her love of the fresh, local foods that she grew up with, have defined her food service career,” he added.

That's why on May 12, as UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni gathered at the campus Davis Center for their annual dinner, Barbara Moore '74, of Pawlet, Vermont and Rye, New York, was presented with a 2012 Outstanding Alumna Award by Dean Tom Vogelmann. Also receiving this award was Dennis Cannedy '75. Rebecca Calder '12 received the Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award. Emeriti faculty Mary Carlson and Frederick Magdoff were presented with the Robert O. Sinclair Cup for career achievement. 

In 2001, when Barbara founded The Good Table food service business headquartered in Purchase, New York, she was one of the pioneers of a business strategy that was at once new and as old as the hills – that is, buying food from local producers, showcasing foods’ sources and building relationships with both food producers and customers. It’s a strategy that recently became common. What has remained uncommon is her niche of serving restaurant quality food in corporate settings.

She calls what she does, "Restaurant Supported Agriculture." Her restaurant initiative includes offering high quality meals that feature serving organic produce to 1,000 or more people daily in corporate cafés at five locations in New York and Connecticut. As if that weren’t enough, she organized farm CSA farm share deliveries to her business locations.

Barbara’s appreciation of fresh food originated at the farm in Pawlet where she grew up, and which she now owns and lives on weekends. To keep this farm producing, she leases land to several farmers. She smoothed the way for an upstate New York farmer to move to Pawlet and farm a neighboring property.  She has arranged for the family farm and woodlands to eventually belong to the Vermont Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy. She also continues to support UVM with her time, efforts and annual donations to UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

"You can see that the picture of Barbara Moore emerging here, is one described by that ancient phrase 'right livelihood' – her ethics, career, homestead and generosity are all interconnected," said Vogelmann.

Justine Denison, a New York State organic vegetable farmer who supplies Barbara’s business, says, “Barbara has made possible many gifts for many people with her dedication to outstanding work in both her professional career and in her contribution to preserving Vermont farm and woodlands.”

Nominating Barbara for the alumni award, Gail Jokerst ’74, divulged another angle on her classmate when she wrote, “Barbara credits her UVM education as shaping her future – literally and figuratively. After reading about Jean Harvey-Berino's research and VTrim weight-loss program, Barbara enrolled and lost 28 pounds on the Vtrim program, volunteered as a VTrim ambassador, brought a VTrim speaker to one of her corporate accounts and has given copies of Jean Harvey-Berino's book, "The EatingWell Diet" to friends, colleagues and neighbors.”

Barbara graduated magna cum laude from UVM in 1974 with a degree in home economics education. She worked for a decade in teachin with a sideline in catering.

After earning her master’s degree from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration in 1985, Barbara worked in corporate food service. Barbara purchased the assets of her former employer of 12 years and expanded its business.

"Now that we’ve seen what Barbara has accomplished," said Vogelmann before presenting, aptly, a hand-turned wooden salad bowl, made of UVM Proctor Maple Research Center maple,  "we are certain that this business model that celebrates and benefits Vermont, preserves a sustainable lifestyle and benefits many people, can be replicated by others with the same values."

It was 1996 actually, and “the very first planning meeting for the 4-H Teen Congress the following summer. I had been to Teen Congress only once and was new on the board,” recalls Derrick Cram of Brandon. “I was nervous and afraid that (state-wide 4-H leader) Mary Carlson and the rest of the teen board would say ‘no.’”

Despite the fact that they had always hired a professional, Derrick Cram asked if he could be the disc jockey for the party cruise.

It’s the story of how the 4-H leader for all of Vermont left the planning of its biggest teen event of the year to, well, teenagers.

Everyone was skeptical.

But giving the teens both a say and responsibility worked.

In spite of her own reservations, Mary Carlson said ‘yes’ to this budding DJ.

It’s a classic teenage coming-of-age tale that has played out in Disney movies and television sit-coms – shy kid takes a risk, adults do too: much good comes of it.

Today, the near 30-year-old Derrick Cram is a remix artist and video DJ who operates Jam Man Entertainment, a multi operational company serving New England with 13 other DJ’s “three of whom are 4-H alumni,” he adds proudly. Last year he toured China for 12 days, playing seven shows in six cities. His seasonal day jobs are ski shop manager of Snow Bowl and maintenance at Ralph Myhre Golf Course both in Middlebury.

“I am who I am today, and I am successful today, because Mary Carlson saw something in a young boy that many others would have overlooked, taught me to work hard and believe in myself,” says Cram.

Carlson had a similar impact on the lives of many 4-H organization kids during her 34-year career.

That’s why she was among five alumni and faculty members honored at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni & Friends dinner May 12 on the UVM campus. She and plant and soil science emeriti professor Frederick Magdoff received the Robert O. Sinclair Cup for a record of service to the people of Vermont and commitment to the land-grant mission. Dennis Canedy and Barbara Moore took home Outstanding Alumni Awards. And Rebecca Calder was named Outstanding Senior.

Robert Sinclair ’44, G’55 is an emeriti professor and dean of UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and first recipient of the award that bears his name. He attended the ceremony.

Carlson graduated from the University of Maine in 1967 with a bachelor of arts in sociology. She came to work for the University of Vermont the next year as a statewide program assistant in 4-H and home economics. She also coordinated an elderly education program. 4-H is the youth development program of the 109 land grant universities and cooperative extensions across the nation.

From 1974-1979 Carlson took on additional administrative and supervision of UVM Extension’s nutrition program called “EFNEP” (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program). A year later she was acting state 4-H program coordinator responsible for developing and carrying out all Vermont 4-H activities, while advising Extension’s Homemakers’ Council. The next year, 1980, Carlson switched to administration for six months, part time – supervising seven county Extension offices.

Carlson had been named assistant professor of 4-H Youth Development in 1977, a title she carried throughout her career. She has served on numerous committees for Extension, UVM’s community development and applied economics department and 4-H in Vermont and at the national level.

Back in the 4-H saddle for good, Mary Carlson was Vermont’s 4-H state specialist from 1980 until her retirement in 2002. In this role she led teens, adult volunteers, taught public presentation skills and emphasized multicultural education. It was there that she really made her mark and received two Extension service awards in 1987 for the impact of her team’s work statewide. In 1993 she received her master’s degree in Extension education and a regional award for her communications teaching.

“She served as a great ambassador for UVM as she traveled around the state delivering programs,” says UVM Extension emeriti assistant professor Larry Myott. “Mary Carlson served the University, the State and its people with excellence.”

“From 1968 to 2002, Mary Carlson lived and breathed the ideals of 4-H Positive Youth Development while employed at UVM Extension,” said UVM Extension Director and Dean Douglas Lantagne in delivering Kurt Reichelt’s nomination letter for the award. Reichelt had recorded an oral history on Carlson in 2010 as part UVM Extension centennial project. “From the beginning, Mary understood that 4-H was much more than showing dairy cattle or horses at state fairs, it was about building the citizens of tomorrow,” said Lantagne presenting the award to Carlson.

In her post-retirement career, Carlson, a Williston resident, helps African refugees navigate American culture, including the Lost Boys of Sudan and a Somali Bantu family.

Derrick Cram has been DJ for the Teen Congress every year since 1996. This year, he says, he’ll also chaperone at the event.

Distinguished University Professor Susan Wallace has been a pioneering woman of science in a "man' world."

"As a woman scientist it certainly has been interesting to experience overt sexism, women’s liberation, Title 9 and affirmative action, all in one lifetime," she told more than 1,200 people on Sunday, May 20. Wallace was commencement speaker for the University of Vermont College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the UVM athletic complex multipurpose facility.

Wallace is professor and chair of the department of microbiology and molecular genetics in the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and Medicine. She has been lauded as an outstanding scientist, sought-after collaborator and international leader.

She had the right message for the right audience – the ratio of female to male grads in CALS is 3:1. Both genders laughed when Wallace told how male faculty members blushed when she, as a pregnant woman, walked into their offices. And she recalls, "when I was about eight months pregnant, (at a lecture) my baby started to visibly kick and the row of men on either side of me nervously got up and found other seats."

She has made significant contributions to biomedical science and specifically the field of radiation research. Since her first publication in 1969, she has built a body of over 160 publications during a career that spans the genetic revolution as well as the exponential growth of radiation oncology as a field of scientific research. In May 2011, she was recognized as a prominent UVM professor with the rank of Distinguished University Professor.

Wallace is a now world-renowned expert on DNA damage and repair and radiation research, especially as it informs cancer treatment. And she rose to the highest levels of her profession despite obstacles. She recalls that when she applied for her first NIH grant (National Institutes of Health) she was told "they'd never given a grant to a woman with children before, and they weren't sure they should."

She got that grant – in fact she still has it, has been twice honored with a prestigious NIH MERIT award and has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1971. She recently received an NIH Program Project grant award to support a new translational research effort exploring if certain DNA repair protein variants in the human population increase the risk for some types of cancer.

Wallace admitted that she rarely experienced overt sexism and, in fact, had many male mentors. She's watched the numbers tip toward more women in science, though "women still have a way to go in engineering, physics, math and especially computer science where the numbers are falling," and she cited statistics showing that there are fewer women in leadership, salaries are inequitable and the issues of combining career, marriage and children are still a big factor. "When a woman opts out of a higher stakes career early on, it is almost impossible for her to enter such a career later when her children are older," she observes.

To the graduating men she implored, "I paraphrase Steve Jobs: Stay hungry, stay foolish and you will be successful but at the same time be a good partner and a kick-ass dad!"

To the graduating women: "I am pleading with you, choose careers where you can make a difference. The world needs women in decision making roles if we are going to change how we operate….just look at what the world has become with men making all the decisions."

“The students in our College are among the most academically talented of the University, so this is truly a celebration of the best of the best,” said Tom Vogelmann, Dean of the College in his opening remarks. “Not everyone can receive an award; I want to acknowledge the outstanding performances of our many excellent students, talented staff and gifted faculty members. They serve us well and we are proud of them, their achievements and their commitment to our academic community. They contribute so much to making CALS such a special place to study, teach and work.”

University Awards

Six graduating seniors from the College received top university-wide recognition.

Liam Donnelly, Erika Hesterberg, Pamela Rooney and Brandon Vanasse took home the Mortar Board Award for outstanding service, scholarship service, scholarship, and leadership.

Samantha Case and Julie L. Williams were named Mc Nair Scholars, a Congressional program aimed to increase the number of first generation and minority students admitted to graduate programs.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Awards 

Robert Rudy received the Alexander Kende Academic Merit Award. This award honors the memory of the late Alex Kende and achievements of a 2012 second‑semester junior CALS student for academic excellence and interest in medicine or bio‑medical research.

Notably, Rebecca Calder received the most awards: three animal science department awards, College-wide recognition for her research, induction into the Alpha Zeta Honorary Society and she will receive the College’s Outstanding Senior Award at the alumni and friends dinner on May 12. Sara Ziegler won four awards from the department of plant and soil science and CALS recognition for her undergraduate research.

CALS Undergraduate Research Leaders

Nineteen students received certificates from their mentors for their distinguished undergraduate research that was performed in addition to pursuing their regular course of study. They are:

Emily Andersen: “The Impact of Social Isolation on the Anxiolytic Effects of Voluntary Exercise in C57 Mice,” in the Andre-Denis Wright lab.

Kira Benson: “Dose Dependent Effects of Mitochondrial Targeted Nitroxides on Malignant Mesothelioma Cells,” in the Nicholas Heintz lab.

Rebecca Calder: “Expression and Biological Activity of Recombinant Bovine IL-22:  A Key Cytokine in Mucosal Defenses,” in John Barlow’s lab.

Meagan DiVito: “Evaluating the Physical Activity Levels of Head Start Children Using the CATCH Curriculum,” under the guidance of Jean Harvey-Berino.

Liam Donnelly: Molecular Genetics Program – “107 Genes found to be Up-regulated in a Phagocytic Entamoeba Histolytica Fraction may be Induced in Response to Phyagocytic Stimuli,” in the Chris Huston lab.

Kelsey Haist: “Strand-Specific Quantitative Reverse-Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay for Measurement of Arenavirus Genomic and Antigenomic RNA Species,” mentored by Jason Botten.

Keven Juaire: “Myo51:  A Player in Assembly of the Actomyosin Contractile Ring of Fission Yeast S. Pombe,” in Matthew Lord’s lab.

Alyssa Kropp: “Evaluating Service-Learning Relationships: A Case Study on Community Partnerships in St. Lucia,” mentored by Jane Kolodinsky.

Michele Langone: “Multifunctional Gardens to Bring Sustainability and Beauty to UVM’s Campus,” working with Mark Starrett.

Samantha Ogilvie: “Analysis of in vitro mRNA Processing Provides Insight into the Integration of mRNA Splicing and Poly (A) Site Cleavage” in Gregory Gilmartin’s lab.

Peter Oswald: “Exploring Social Media and Their Effectiveness for Vermont Wine and Cheese Farmers,” studying under Kathleen Liang.

Clara Pedley: “Analyzing Participant Satisfaction with the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese,” mentored by Catherine Donnelly.

Kyriel Pineault: “Cell Surface Events Modulating Factor V Endocytosis by Megakaryocytes: A Possible Role for Receptor Phosphorylation and the Ganglioside GM3 in Acquisition of the Critical Platelet-Derived Cofactor Pool,” in Beth Bouchard’s lab.

Kelsey Preston: “Is FOXM1 the Therapeutic Target of Thiostreption in Malignant Mesothelioma?” in the Nicholas Heintz lab.

Todd Stanley: “Evaluating the Nutritional Status of the Thru-Hiking Community,” mentored by Jean Harvey-Berino.

Gianna Vannelli: “The Correlation Between Breath-Methane Levels and the Quantity and Structure of the Methanogens in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract,” in Andre-Denis Wright’s lab.

Kalyn Weber: “The Relationship Between Twitter and Student Engagement and Exam Scores in an Advanced Nutrition Course,” studying under Stephen Pintauro.

Dylan White: “The Effects of the Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Quorum-Sensing Molecule 3-oxo-C12-homoserine Lactone on Clincial Candida Albicans Biofilm Development,” in the Douglas Johnson lab.

Sara Ziegler: “Efficacy and Ecological Impact of Neem Oil and Bacillus Thuringiensis var. Kurstaki as Control Agents for the Invasive Earthworm Amynthas Agrestis in Vermont Hardwood Forests,” in Josef Gorres’ lab.

Chairs from CALS’ nine departments and programs presented scholarships and honors in their areas.

Animal Science

Sarah Morrison received the Elmer Towne Award, presented by the Vermont Dairy Industry Association.

The faculty chose Rebecca Standish for this year’s George H. Walker Award for dairy science.

Stephanie Simpson took home the upperclassman animal science scholarship award in memory of Brian D. Hawley.

Marking the greatest contribution to equine or companion animal activities, the Donald J. Balch Award went to Mallory O’Neil and Pamela Rooney.

Twenty students were tagged as future leaders in the field, with the American Society of Animal Science Award. They are:

·      Seniors: Rebecca Calder, Sarah Moylan, Jean Drolet, Pamela Rooney, Juliann Kattermann, Gabrielle Tetschner and Laurie Lesage.

·      Juniors: Ashley Ackert, Kaitlin Lee, Christopher Alling, Rebecca McBride, Douglas Klein, Noelle Schariest and Hannah Lachance.

·      Sophomores: Alexandra Cerretani, Ashley McCoy, Brittany Colbath, Sarina Selleck, Roberta Hemmer and Kirsten Weberg.

Every year CREAM herd advisors receive Brett Klein Memorial Scholarships. CREAM stands for Cooperative for Real Education in Agricultural Management. Fall advisors were Rebecca Calder and Mehgan Patterson. Spring advisors were Henry Cammack and Samantha Soltau.

This year’s Animal Science Faculty Award went to Rebecca Calder.

And Clarice Brewer and Rebecca Reusch received the Triona Wilder Marno-Ferree Memorial Award for their enthusiasm for UVM Horse Barn activities.

Biochemistry

Brittany Carroll received the John Thanassi Award for superior academic performance by a senior biochemistry major.

Biological Sciences

Scholastic Achievement Awards for outstanding academic records are senior Kyriel Pineault, junior Andrew Tranmer and sophomore Kirsten Meisterling.

Community Development and Applied Economics

Graduating seniors with the highest scholastic grade point average each major are:

·      Trisha Hlastawa and Arielle Kleinman in Community Entrepreneurship

·      Brian Hamel and Jarrod Szydlowski in Community And International Development

·      Hannah Kammerer and Benjamin Mervis in Public Communication

Seniors with the top 10 percent cumulative grade point average are: Aimee Bailey, Travis Gervais, Hannah Hinsley, Hannah Kammerer, Jennifer M. Kaulius, Allison Keller, Arielle Kleinman, Julia Megson, Loren Scott and Jarrod Szydlowski.

Jennifer Kaulius and Galen Mooney won the department’s Teaching Assistant Award.

Environmental Program

Emily Bird and Christina Economou were recognized as the top graduating seniors who demonstrated academic excellence, environmental leadership, and campus and community activism and service.

Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Amara J. Forgues received the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Keyan Pishdadian received the Nicole J Ferland Award.

Liam Donnelly and Samantha Ogilvie shared the Lucille P. Markey Outstanding Senior in Molecular Genetics Award.

Kelsey Haist took home the Warren R. Steinbring Outstanding Senior In Microbiology Award.

Nutrition and Food Sciences

Jillian Nyman earned the Agnes T. Powell Award.

Kayla Gatos received the Bertha Terrill Award.

Meagan DiVito took home the Blair Williams Award.

Todd Stanley received the Nutrition And Food Sciences Faculty Award.

Clara Pedley and Kalyn Weber received Nutrition And Food Sciences Research Awards.

Lucille Glaize was named Outstanding Dietetics Student.

This year’s Cornelia Wheeler Irish Memorial Scholarship Awards went to Erika Hesterberg and Sarah McMahon.

Plant Biology

Beck Powers received the Sproston Award for undergraduate research projects of high academic merit.

Amanda Bousquet received the department’s Superior Performance Award for research and teaching activities in Plant Biology.

Plant and Soil Science

Sara Ziegler earned the Agronomy, Soils And Sustainable Agriculture Senior Recognition Award.

American Society For Horticultural Science Collegiate Scholars Awards for the top 15 percent of the senior and junior classes went to: seniors Samuel Hoadley, Michele Langone and Sara Ziegler and junior John Bruce.

The W. H. Darrow Horticulture Prize recipients are Graham Glauber and Michele Langone.

Sara Ziegler also won the Lewis Ralph Jones Award.

Marielle Fisher and Sarah Kresock benefit from the James E. Ludlow Endowed Scholarship Fund.

The Seymour Horticultural Prize went to, you guessed it, Sara Ziegler.

And finally, Graham Glauber and Samuel Hoadley were recognized with the department’s Teaching Assistant Awards.

Alpha Zeta Society Members                                                               

Several new students were recognized for their recent induction into the Green Mountain Chapter of Alpha Zeta Society. They join others in this professional, service and honorary agricultural organization listed below. Newly initiated are:

Nicolas Alonso-Harper, Frederick Broda III, Alexandra Cerretani, Heidi Considine, Dylan Estabrooks, Katherine Ettman, Laura Friedland, Danielle Geller, Hillary Gilson Sean Hennessy, Zoe Herwitz, Carlyn Levy, Anna Lidofsky, Sarah McMahon and Galen Mooney.

Also new to Alpha Zeta are: Marina Oriel, Emily Piche, Alexander Prolman, Janine Provenzano, Sam Resnicow, Rachel Rogoff, Joseph Romano, Melissa Rosen, Molly Sanborn, Michaella Scott, Andrea Smith, Julia Stratton, Pia Tomasello, Victoria Wellington, Natalie Wilson and Melissa Woolpert.

Previously initiated Alpha Zeta members: Ashley Ackert, Kira Benson, Molly Bortin, Matthew Buder-Shapiro, Rebecca Calder, Erica Campbell, Maria Carabello, Brittany Carroll, Kayla Clark, Jeffrey Deacon, Meagan DiVito, Christina Economou, Kendra Fleming, Lindsey Fuller, Graham Glauber, Jonathan Gonzalez, Lyndsey Hayden, Kristina Harpin, Erin Henry, Samuel Hoadley and Brittany Jean.

Also: Anne Kaufman, Douglas Klein, Erika Kline, Alyssa Kropp, Victoria Kulwicki, Hannah Lachance, Michele Langone, Aliya Lapp, Meredith Louko, Catherine Meredith, Jennifer Moltz, Ethan Morehouse, Sarah Morrison, Sean O’Neill, Mark Paulsen, Jackson Renshaw, Rebecca Reusch, Megan Rosen, Caroline Schwer, Julia Simpson, Daniel Smith, Brent Summers and Gabrielle Tetschner.                                                                                   

Finally, one faculty member and one staff person from the College’s departments and programs received top awards. Brian Stowe was named 2012 Outstanding Staff. Patricia Fobare Erickson received the Joseph E. Carrigan Teaching Award For Excellence In Undergraduate Teaching. See related stories.

Josie Davis, associate dean for academic programs, Rose Laba and Ja Yung Lee of student services organized this event. Flowers were on loan from UVM Greenhouses.

Whether you're a graduate, a friend of one of the five award winners or a senior in UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), you are invited to celebrate the accomplishments of "people whose accomplisments are rooted in our College, and raise a glass to Vermont's own Justin Morrill, who 150 years ago defined and launched public land-grant education nationwide," announced Tom Vogelman, CALS dean.

The 19^th annual College of Agriculture Alumni and Friends Dinner will be held Saturday, May 12 from 5-8 p.m. at the Davis Center’s Grand Maple Ballroom on campus.

Awards winners have been announced: 

• Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award: Rebecca R. Calder ‘12
• Robert O. Sinclair Cup Awards: Mary C. Carlson G’93  and Frederick R. Magdoff
• Outstanding Alumni Awards: Dennis C. Canedy ‘75 and Barbara A. Moore ‘74

Details about the menu, reception, parking, dietary or accessibilty concerns are on the web.

May 4 is the deadline to make reservations. Register online or call or email Robin Smith at  802-656-0321.

Those steps are reflected in the latest “Blue Sky Vision” prospectus written by UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) land-use committee. The 32-page document accompanies new blueprints by architects Smith, Alvarez, Sienkiewycz of Burlington, whose projects include the award-winning renovation of Williams Hall on campus.

UVM’s board of trustees approved a $4 million renovation in May 2009. Administrators, faculty, staff and stakeholders have been gathering information and updating the vision for at least six years.

“An important feature of the plans is that the new structures can be built in modular fashion, concentrating on the most important buildings first,” says Tom Vogelmann, dean of the College. “This ties nicely into our incremental fundraising goals.”

“Blue Sky recasts the roles of UVM’s farmlands and academic programs to meet modern challenges regarding the sustainability of Vermont agriculture,” says Vogelmann. “This comes at an opportune time to take advantage of the UVM’s transdisciplinary food systems spire. New facilities are essential for modern teaching and research that will allow students to learn about essential agricultural issues – energy efficiency, diversification, biological control, climate control and a systems approach to nutrient cycling and water quality.”

The basis for this proposal is an interconnected farm and food systems model that borrows from precedents we see in Hardwick, Montpelier and the Mad River Valley. The idea is to make every inch embody the latest agricultural research and education and manifest UVM’s expertise in food systems that spans all of its colleges and departments.

The plan calls for connecting research and education at the Miller Research Center and Horticulture Research Center, creating a whole system approach to sustainable farming whose methods span animals and plants to food products while converting wastes into resources and demonstrating best environmental practices.

Back in October 2009, the CALS advisory board pressed the College’s leadership to infuse the blueprints with “vision, energy, a champion, master plan, homage to the present while building for the future.” They called for the farms to be emblematic of all that UVM is doing for Vermont food systems, agriculture and life science research. They talked about it as the first visible introduction of UVM to anyone traveling the highway to Burlington.

“UVM Farms should be “the signature place that is iconic to the university; puts the University on the map – not a bigger footprint, a smarter one,” Mim Nelson told fellow CALS advisory board members last year. Nelson is Director of the John Hancock Research Center on Physical Activity, Nutrition and Obesity Prevention at Tuft University Friedman and author of 10 books.

“The Miller Research Center could become the embodiment of the food system spire,” echoed Bob Paquin, Vermont executive director of the USDA Farm Service Agency.

Current ideas include:

• Housing for about 200 cattle including the student-managed CREAM herd (Cooperative for Real Education in Agricultural Management) and additional lactating and young cattle and facilities for small ruminants.
• A compost facility to support a curriculum that is taught in only a handful of universities nationwide, yet is gaining influence as a sustainable practice.
• Moving the Center for Sustainable Agriculture and UVM Extension from their off-campus location to the UVM Farms.
• Expanding the Farmer Training Program, a new summer curriculum to the UVM Farms.
• Launching more summer course programs that take advantage of the growing season as prime time for on-farm education and research.

Also on the table are options for grass pasturing, organic soil management, biochar facility, kitchen and food lab, aquaculture pond and biofuel production facility, to name a few.

“The next steps are to obtain approval of the design concepts from University administration and Board of Trustees and then start fundraising, says Vogelmann. “I am eager to get this project going, so that we can integrate our academic programs and research into a modern food systems campus that will be invaluable for the entire University.”

As I write this from Morrill Hall, home to UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences where Burlington’s University Avenue meets Main Street, I reflect on how this location symbolizes our role and responsibility to serve both the University and Main Street.

I realize that Morrill’s vision to extend college education beyond arts and sciences to include agriculture and the “mechanical arts” is just as important 150 years later, as we celebrate this sesquicentennial across the nation.

Morrill’s legacy has become more sophisticated than he could have imagined with today’s national emphasis on science, technology and engineering; and the University of Vermont agriculture and life sciences research and teaching is infused with those very disciplines in our labs and in our on-farm research state wide.

Justin Morrill would be proud of how his home-state College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and our Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station improve the lives of Vermonters.

One example of the CALS-Vermonter connection is Kathleen Liang’s marketing strategies for apple producers, winemakers, agri-tourism and other diversified farms. Her work caught the attention of the USDA and earned her substantial funding that returned to Vermont to expand her food systems research.

CALS commitment to science, technology and, yes, engineering too, is manifest in our complete revamping of UVM Farms. The latest plans show just a few ways that UVM’s Miller Research Center can showcase a whole system approach to agriculture that spans plants, animals, food products and best environmental practices from soil to byproduct re-use. It also shows how UVM farms reflect research and teaching across many UVM Colleges, Schools and departments.

 Woven throughout these stories, are the contributions of our mentors, advisors, students and citizens. Whether it’s CALS advisory board member and interim UVM President John Bramley saying, UVM Farms should be “the signature place that is iconic to the university – not a bigger footprint, a smarter one,” or graduate student Victor Izzo describing the challenges that face his generation, we listen. As we build, grow and change we always turn to alumni, donors, legislators, farmers, staff, students, neighbors and Justin Morrill himself, because, after all, we’re still in the business of educating the people who build our nation.

And we want to hear from you. The mailbox is open at calsdean@uvm.edu.

Betsy Greene received the 2011 Excellence in Extension Award for the Northeast Region at its Nov. 13 meeting in San Francisco.

Jana Kraft is now assistant professor. She was hired in 2010 as a research assistant professor after completing postdoctoral work here and at the University of Jena-Germany where she received her B.S. and Ph.D.

Nicole (Bogdanowicz) Marschilok ’99, participated in the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers Middle School workshop in July and presented at the annual Science Teacher Association of New York State in Rochester.

Jane O’Neil received the College’s 2011 Outstanding Staff Award.

Katie Turnball ‘11 (pre-vet.), and André-Denis Wright’s findings of recent research involving the molecular diversity of methanogens in camels’ fecal samples will be published in “Research in Veterinary Science.” 

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND APPLIED ECONOMICS

Natalie DiBlasio '11 put her public communications major and stint as UVM Cynic editor to work to land a job at USA Today newspaper in Washington DC. She began the job in March. 

Kelly Hamshaw moved across Morrill Hall to a new position again when promoted to research specialist. Since 2007, Hamshaw has alternately worked for Partnership in Service Learning office (CUPS) and as a CDAE teaching and research assistant. Among her research expertise is: Vermont’s agricultural labor force, farmers’ markets and international community development. Hamshaw and Carrie Williams received a “shout-out” on Gov. Peter Shumlin’s blog Sept. 13 for their UVM course on rebuilding Vermont, post flooding. In spring 2012, their video of Irene volunteer efforts helping mobile home park residents is nearly viral. 

Sarah Heiss teaches public communications courses as assistant professor arriving in September with a Ph.D. and M.S. in health communication from Ohio University. Her summa cum laude B.S. is from Hiram College. Her expertise in food issues fits UVM’s leadership in food system research and education.

Jonathan Maddison ’09, MPA, was named UVM Transportation Research Center student of the year in January. Maddison was a student of Richard Watts.

April Orleans ’10 a cum laude grad in community & international development is a Fulbright Scholar in Trinidad and Tobago educating communities about safe wastewater disposal.

Richard Watts published “Public Meltdown” in March. It’s the history of the controversial Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

MICROBIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR GENETICS

Gary Ward is one of four recipients of the 2011 prestigious UVM University Scholar Award for sustained excellence in research and scholarship.

Susan Wallace rose to the title “Distinguished University Professor,” an honor recognizing sustained research and scholarship at UVM.

Aimee Shen joined the faculty as assistant professor in April after finishing her postdoctoral work at Stanford University and earning her Ph.D. at Harvard University. Her research aims to understand how proteases integrate environmental inputs in order to regulate bacterial growth and infection. In March she learned that she will receive prestigious 2012 Pew Scholars Award.

NUTRITION AND FOOD SCIENCES

Linda Berlin, Extension faculty member, was one of 19 Food Systems Leadership fellows honored in April by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities at its annual meeting in San Francisco.

Susan Grooters ’02 was appointed to a two-year term on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods on Aug. 12 by U.S. Secy. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. She is also director of research and education for STOP Foodborne Illness.

Jean Harvey-Berino is one of four recipients of 2011 prestigious UVM University Scholar Award for sustained excellence in research and scholarship. She was also named special assistant to the dean in November.

Paul Kindstedt published a definitive book, “Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization” in April. He’s being interviewed nationwide about the topic.

Rachel Johnson was selected in February to serve a three-year term on the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Science Board. Also: Johnson told “USA Today” and affiliates, Aug 31, that sugary drinks add 300 calories a day to youths’ diets. The article reached millions of readers.

PLANT AND SOIL SCIENCE

Aleksandra Drizo recognized in March among the top "clean scientist thought leaders” in the nation by Clean Tech.

Samuel Hoadley a senior, and Victor Suarez were selected by the well-known Longwood Gardens summer internship program. Suarez, a UVM exchange student from Spain, attended the new International Student Summer Internship Program in 2011. Insiders say it is unprecedented for a school to have more than one student selected per year.

Stephanie Hurley, who has been a post doctoral associate in UVM’s Rubenstein School, developing land management recommendations to prevent pollution in Lake Champlain, became assistant professor in September. She also operates a landscape design business. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, M.L.A. from the University of Washington and B.S. from the University of California-Berkley.

Deborah Neher was plenary speaker at the Sept. 5 symposium in Portugal of the Organization of Nematologists of Tropical Americas. Title: “Ecology of Free-Living and Plant-Parasitic Nematodes”.

Whitney Northrop '10 replaced retiring Mariann Steen in student support and communications. She came to the job from UVM's Davis Center, where she worked in reservations and at the information desk. She has also worked for UVM Admissions office.

Meryl Olsen, an agroecology doctoral candidate under Ernesto Mendez researches swamp rice farming practices in Sierra Leone as part of a recent Fulbright research grant.

Leonard Perry updated the “Fruit Gardener’s Bible” originally published by the late Lewis Hill and now out since December 2011.

PLANT BIOLOGY

Laura Almstead joined the department as a biology and biochemistry lecturer in fall. She arrived in August from Yale University’s School of Medicine where she was a lecturer and completed her postdoctoral research involving cancer cells. She received her Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Williams College.

David Barrington gleaned two important grants in April to help realize the online Pringle Herbarium project: a Mellon Foundation and National Science Foundation funding will total $150,000 over four years.

Karyn McGovern of North Ferrisburgh joined the business office staff in September. She previously handled finances and budgets for two Vermont ski resorts and her own in-home bakeries.

Monique McHenry, a grad. student in David Barrington’s lab, won an American Society of Plant Taxonomists travel award to attend the Botany 2011 meetings in St. Louis in July, then returned with the Wherry Award for the best paper presented in the pteridological section of the Botanical Society of America meetings.

Jill Preston has deferred her new position of assistant professor until fall 2012 in order to finish her post doctoral fellowship at the University of Kansas on the evolutionary consequences of gene duplications in plant diversification. Preston received her Ph.D. at the University of Missouri, M.S. at the University of Nottingham and B.S. at Edinburgh Napier University.

Donald Stratton received the College’s top teaching award; the 2011 Joseph E. Carrigan Award for Excellence in Teaching and Undergraduate Education.

Elizabeth “Liz” Thompson, lecturer in field botany and plant ecology received Vermont’s 2012 Franklin Fairbanks Award in March for “contributions to the natural world.”

COLLEGE-WIDE ACHIEVEMENTS

At the 18^th annual CALS alumni and friends dinner last May Valerie Chamberlain and John C. Page received lifetime achievement Robert O. Sinclair Cups; Sam Cutting III, Frank Blazich and Diane Bothfeld were named Outstanding Alumni; Dennis (DJ) D’Amico received the New Achiever Award; Erin King was named Outstanding Senior.

Lorraine Berkett, Lyndon Carew and William Currier became emeriti professors in 2011.

Here are the names of students recognized for outstanding scholarship and research at the 2011 Honors Day in April.

Eleven members of CALS Class of 2011 graduated from the UVM Honors College. They are: Kyle Concannon, Patrick Dunseith, Amanda LaCroix, Wingyin Lo, Caitlin Loretan, Christopher Page, Emily Potter, Elle Robertson, Marissa Ruppel, Melanie Stewart and Kathryn Turnbull.

Kayla Gatos joined CALS Advisory Board in November. She is a junior majoring in ecological agriculture and dietetics, nutrition and food science.

Ja Yun Lee joined the dean’s office as student services specialist in September, replacing Heather Palow who took a position in UVM continuing education. Lee arrived from the admissions office of New York University School of Law where she handled recruitment, applications and related admissions projects.

Henrietta Menzies of Burlington brings technical support and training to Morrill Hall’s recently Apple-upgraded computer lab. A UVM staffer since 2005, she comes, most recently from HR learning services where her accomplishments include training and curriculum for Blackboard.

Marion Brown Thorpe ’38 was one of eight who received honorary degrees UVM commencement last May. Thorpe was a home economics teacher for 33 years. She and her husband established the Marion Brown Thorpe and Norman Thorpe Scholarship Fund.

Abby van den Berg, research scientist at UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, received more than $80,000 from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative to research the economic feasibility of birch syrup production

"What better time to study food systems, organic practices, grape growing, agricultural ecology, weeds, insects and plant pathology than in summer when everything is flourishing," says Deborah Neher, chair of UVM plant and soil science. "That's why we made this possible – so students can experience first hand what they're studying.

Courses are headquarterd at the 97-acre University of Vermont Horticulture Research Center with its extensive plant collections, apple, grape and plant hardiness research, vegetable field crops, student-run CSA and many other ongoing activities are operating in tandem. Many classes make field trips to nearby farms and display gardens and labs on campus.

In its third year, UVM On-Farm Summer Institute includes a suite of four core courses (one each day) May 21-July 21, and electives later in the season. There's even an online perennial garden design course. Next summer, a complimentary batch of courses will be offered. 

"By selecting four core courses and an elective or two, students can shave a whole semester off of their degree program each summer," says Neher, "even graduating a year ahead after two summers or catching up if they've transferred from another program." 

In today's economy, this is an even more significant savings. Vermonters receive a 15 percent discount off of regular tuition for the core courses. Out-of-state students register at the regular Vermonter rate. And housing is offered in Slade Hall at $24 per day. Laundry service is also an option.

In fact, it's not only UVM students eyeing the UVM On-Farm Summer Institute – students from other colleges and universities in the Northeast are taking advantage of classes that embellish their own degree programs. Others are looking to customize their major area of studies. For example, a nutrition and food science major or a community entrepreneurship major would do well to add the Ecology of Food Systems course or have fun learning Cold Climate Viticulture. New farmers or those diversifying farms and serious gardeners are also attracted to the courses.

"I've had growers come to me and say, 'I wish I had a course like this when I was starting', says Yolanda Chen, who teaches Organic Farm Practicum.

Registration has begun and will run through May 1. Course size is limited. For details and registration through UVM Continuing Education visit UVM On-Farm website.

Rachel Johnson, Bickford Green and Gold professor of nutrition and food sciences and a member of the program’s steering committee, agreed. “The approval of this masters program is very exciting and puts UVM at the leading edge of the emerging field of food systems,” she said. 

The effort began in 2009 when UVM received a USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant to create the program and gained steam in 2010 when Food Systems was named one of UVM’s Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives (TRI). (UVM identified food systems as one of three key areas of research and investment across its academic and research disciplines. The others are complex systems and neuroscience, behavior and health. 

“I am heartened by the success and send kudos to those who developed it and stuck with it,” said Naomi Fukagawa, co-chair of the food systems steering committee. “And I praise the trustees and administration for understanding the importance of this to UVM, its land-grant status, and the TRI process.” 

The program has already begun the work of connecting with partners outside of the university. Jane Kolodinksy and Amy Trubek, co-authors of the food systems program’s proposal, consulted with more than 400 organizations outside of UVM during the proposal writing process. 

Now that the program has been approved, next steps include accepting students’ applications for the fall 2012 semester and furthering the research. “Now, the real work begins,” Kolodinsky said.

Johnson, Kolodinsky and Trubek are faculty members in UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Fukagawa is a professor in the College of Medicine.

With a reading of official proclamations of their career highlights by Tom Vogelmann, Dean of the College, the foursome transitioned to emeriti status. Vogelmann’s readings follow:

Lorraine Berkett, you have served the department of plant and soil ccience and Extension since joining the University of Vermont in 1983. Your scholarship has focused on sustainable agriculture, integrated pest management, plant pathology, apple production and cold climate grape production. 

Your commitment to scientific study and outreach has been informed by an uncompromising demand for accuracy and precision. As Vermont agriculture have changed over the decades, you have successfully adapted your focus to include considerations for the growing organic movement, and when a fledgling grape and wine industry began to establish itself, you embraced it, and your newfound enthusiasm in that field has greatly benefited those producers and the specialty crop sector of Vermont overall. Your valued guidance to fruit growers has resisted conjecture and always been carefully offered, based upon the principles of sound science and good environmental stewardship.

In your dealings with colleagues, including as chair of the department of plant and soil science from 1993 to 1998, your decisions were characterized by an uncommon sense of fairness to people and respect for their efforts. You have always maintained a commitment to the land-grant mission of teaching, research and outreach, and your leadership on maintaining those core principles has offered support and guidance to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Vermont agricultural sector.

Thank you, Lorraine, for your science, your service and your unwavering commitment to the land-grant ideals that have inspired those who have had the privilege of working with you. As you now embark on new directions, we are encouraged that we will continue to benefit from your wisdom and advice, and we wish that the sun will always shine on you in your future pursuits.

Lyndon B. Carew, Jr., after graduating from Cornell University, you joined the faculty of the University of Vermont department of animal science in 1969 and the department of nutrition and food sciences in 1973.

Over the course of your distinguished career at UVM, you have inspired literally thousands of students in the area of nutrition in your popular fundamentals of nutrition course. Even after 40 years in the classroom, your lectures have been a beacon of inspiration to your students and peers, the latter of which have been asking themselves how they could possibly ever emulate you. You adapted to new technological opportunities early on, and you were the first to develop a computerized undergraduate nutrition education program. What started out on multiple giant floppy disks in 1983, evolved into an internationally sought after stand-alone course that fits on a CD.

You have been recognized at the college, university and national level with the most prestigious teaching awards – the Carrigan Award (twice), the Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award, the Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award, the Bickford Scholar Award, and a North American College and Teacher of Agriculture (NACTA) Teaching Fellow, to name a few.

Your research in poultry nutrition focused on the effects of protein and fat on chick growth and endocrinology. Internationally, you researched velvet beans for poultry feed in tropical areas with colleagues in Zamorano, Honduras. The impact and significance of your work is demonstrated through continued citations today of your earliest publications. Whether presenting research in Kenya or sharing your knowledge, common sense and humor in your 2010 book “Musings of a Vermont Nutritionist,” you are relevant and respected.

Dr. Carew, your service to your department, college, university, and professional associations has been exemplary. You have taught generations of students and mentored researchers, teachers, and educators alike. Your love of knowledge and life has made you an outstanding pillar of knowledge and wisdom and an unparalleled asset to the University of Vermont and to the citizens of our state. Thank you for your outstanding service to our students, the college and the university.

William Currier, you have been fascinated with chemistry and biochemistry for 42 years, not counting the work you began with your chemistry set at age 12. (It’s in your file). Following your education at the University of Washington and Purdue University, you completed your postdoctoral training at Montana State University under the mentorship of the internationally respected plant pathologist Dr. Gary Strobel. This training not only culminated in a seminal paper in “Science” on how nitrogen-fixing bacteria move towards a plant chemo-attractant but also a faculty position in the department of microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Vermont in 1977.

At UVM, your research interests have centered on the interactions between plants and microbes such as fungi and bacteria and on amino acid transport in plant cells. You have collaborated with colleagues on research on amino acids, funded by the National Science Foundation, and on biochemical approaches to trapping insect pests. You have also worked to improve pesticides for commercial apples. Your research has been presented in 40 publications to benefit scientists and agricultural producers.

You are a superb teacher who communicates the passion and nuances of biochemistry and life science in an extraordinary manner. You are well known for your complete dedication to the teaching of general biochemistry and the fact that you were willing to spend countless hours in your office helping students, one-on-one, to grasp biochemical principles that they were seeking to learn. You also mentored graduate and undergraduate researchers in your lab, providing them a rich educational experience for their UVM program of study. 

An active member of the UVM community, you served as chair of the department of agricultural biochemistry, director of the Biological Sciences Program, representative to the faculty senate and member of the college curriculum and honors committees. For your many contributions to your science and the teaching of science, you were elected vice president and later president of the Vermont chapter of Sigma Xi, the pre-eminent honor society of research scientists. Thank you for your outstanding service to our students, the college and the university.

Dianne Lamb’s citation was read by UVM Extension Dean Douglas Lantagne. 

Dianne Lamb, for the past 38 years you have served the people of Vermont with skill, enthusiasm and know-how through your work with UVM Extension. As a transplant from Maine, you arrived in Vermont shortly after receiving your B.S. in education from the University of Maine and then received your Masters in Extension Education here at the University of Vermont. Moving through the ranks, you began as an Extension home economist, then became an Extension assistant professor in 1977 and an Extension associate professor in 1981.

With your expertise in food and nutrition behavior change, we are struck by how many Vermonters you helped learn to improve their selection of healthful foods, preserve foods safely, stay well fed on a tight budget, reduce chronic disease through diet, and more. Your own passion about cooking, gardening and collecting books – especially cookbooks –  was contagious. You brought your excitement to those you taught, inspiring them to invest in their lives as you have in yours.

Given your excellent writing skills, your news column is known statewide, having run for more than 30 years and reaching more than 50 media outlets. Numerous articles focused on your key scholarly interests of home food preservation and diabetes education related to food and nutrition issues. You received many accolades from the National Association of Family & Consumer Sciences for your work, including the Distinguished Service Award in 1984.

Not only did you reach out to the people of Vermont, but you also captured the internal work of UVM Extension, our people and our lives, by becoming an unofficial historian of our organization through your extensive photographs.

You will be missed in so many ways. For all you have contributed to Extension, and to us collectively and individually, thank you.