Catamount Safety Awards

2025 Winners Posted!

Intro

Campus safety comes in many forms and takes a community.

Campus Safety comes in many forms—from health and wellness initiatives to emergency response and personal safety. The Catamount Safety Awards are designed to acknowledge activism within the UVM community in the areas of safety, security, health and wellbeing, and promoting a culture of safety on the UVM campus. It takes a community to protect a community.

We invite you to nominate UVM community members for a Catamount Safety Award—potential focuses for nomination are described below. Awardees will be recognized at a ceremony in the spring, receive an award certificate and a UVM Safety Challenge Coin, and be named on a plaque.

Nominations begin September 16th, 2025, and close March 3rd, 2026.

The CATEcare Team posing with their Safety Award

Ceremony

To RSVP for the Catamount Safety Awards Ceremony, visit the event page.

RSVP

Recipients

2024-2025 Recipients

Body
  • Fire Safety Award
    James Ryan

  • Fire Safety Award 
    Jackson Hurd-Messom

  • Culture of Safety Award - Student Wellbeing
    Emma Swift

  • Safety Professional Award 
    Barry Simays

  • Safety Professional Award 
    Kari Paritz

  • Life Saving Award 
    Lakshmi Ojha 

  • Life Saving Award 
    Ryan Sontag

  • Catamount Safety Team Award 
    UVM Program Board

  • The Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne Award for Safety Innovation 
    PIVOT Peer Educators

2023-2024 Recipients

Body
  • Catamount Safety Award 
    Justin Sell 

  • Culture of Safety Award – Emergency Planning 
    Peter Rockwood 

  • Culture of Safety Award - Leadership 
    Danielle Jatlow 

  • Safety Education Award 
    Patrick Malone 

  • The Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne Award for Safety Innovation 
    Jarlath O’Neil Dunne (Posthumously) 

  • Presidential Distinguished Service Award for Safety 
    Lee Diamond 

  • Catamount Safety – Team Award 
    Alcohol, Cannabis, and Other Drugs Team 

  • Catamount Safety – Team Award 
    Cat ECare Team 

Nominees

2024-2025 Nominees

Body

Individual Nominees

  • Barry Simays - University Fire Marshal
  • Emma Swift - Director, Office of International Education
  • Richard Barry - Assistant Director, Davis Center Facilities
  • Jackson Hurd Messom - UVM Student
  • James Ryan - UVM Central Plant 2nd Shift
  • Kari Paritz - Occupational Health Program Coordinator
  • Lakshmi Ojha - UVM Student
  • Owen Hamilton - UVM Student
  • Ryan Sontag - UVM Student

Group Nominees

2023-2024 Nominees

Body

Individual Nominees

  • Abigail Correll - AEMT, UVM Rescue Member
  • Barry Simays - University Fire Marshall
  • Cara Hancy - Employee Wellness Coordinator
  • Chris Wetmore - UVM Police Officer Sergeant
  • Christopher Lamson - Health Information Systems Director
  • Danielle Jatlow - BSW Program Coordinator and Lecturer
  • Emma Petralia - Nursing Student
  • Jack Corliss - UVM Confined Space Team Member
  • Jarlath O'Neil Dunne - Director of the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab
  • Justin Sell - Event Production and Technical Manager
  • Kennedy Connors - Public Communications Student
  • Lee Diamond - Laboratory Safety Coordinator
  • Nicholas Holden - Police Officer Sergeant
  • Pat Malone - College of Nursing and Health Sciences Senior Lecturer
  • Peter Rockwood - Howe Library Access and Tech Services Support Senior
  • Rose Feenan - Rubenstein School for Env. and Nat. Resources Asst. Dean for Business Operations
  • Sarah O'Sullivan - Grossman School of Business Dean's Assistant

Group Nominees

  • The ACOD (Alcohol, Cannabis, and Other Drugs) Team
  • Instrumentation and Technical Services - Specialty Core
  • Occupational Health and Safety
  • Student Health Services
  • UVM Rescue
  • The CAT ECare Team

Potential Nomination Focuses

Culture of Safety

Body

Recognizes work in expanding participation in any aspect of a formal safety program. This may include recognizing a previously unmanaged hazard, developing outreach to a group that is not currently active in a safety program, or taking a leadership role in promoting open communication within a group to promote positive safety attitudes and encourage hazard recognition, assessment, and minimization.

Fire Safety

Body

Recognizes contributions to Fire Safety on campus, including but not limited to Fire Safety Education, Fire Safety Awareness, and Fire Safety Response.

Life Saving

Body

Recognizes an individual who takes prompt and direct action resulting in the saving of a life. The lifesaving event will have occurred on the UVM campus or in direct connection with an approved UVM winter or summer program or while in an official capacity representing UVM during the academic year, locally or abroad.

Safety Education

Body

Recognizes contributions to building awareness and strengthening a culture of safety, security, and health at UVM through educational outreach, public service campaigns, or hands-on training.

Safety Innovation

Body

Recognizes and celebrates exceptional initiatives, practices, or technologies that contribute to enhancing safety, security, or campus health innovation and modernization.

Teamwork

Body

Recognizes a UVM team or group whose collective efforts have significantly contributed to the safety of UVM’s campus, infrastructure, or people, with a focus on the synergy that is created through collaborative teamwork and the impact the team has on safety, security, and campus health.

Presidential

Body

Recognizes significant accomplishments in improving safety, health, and security at the University of Vermont. This is the highest level of safety award, and these may include new or innovative methods for implementation of safety protocols, excellence in safety program implementation, improvement in a safety program, personal leadership in safety, and consistent safety performance over time.

Schedule

2026 Awards Schedule

  • September 16th: Launch Nomination Form
  • March 3rd: Nominations due
  • March 21st: Awardees selected by Committee
  • April 23rd: Awards Ceremony, Grand Maple Ballroom (3-5pm)

UVM Culture of Safety

Culture of Safety

The University of Vermont strives to promote a strong culture of safety on our campus. Visit Culture of Safety for more information.

The University of Vermont Safety and Security Philosophy

Maintaining a safe and secure campus at which to learn, work, live, and play is of the highest priority for the University of Vermont. UVM’s unique position within the community causes it to function much like a small municipality. As such, the University has adopted and continually refines with constituent input measures to complement personal preparedness and good common sense.