Highlights
Completed Green Mountain Scholar -- edited volume of Sam Hand’s work
Coordinated Twenty-five Vermont interns
Research-in-Progress Seminars (2017-18)
- Dec. 6: The Last of the Hill Farms: Echoes of Vermont's Past, Richard W. Brown
- Oct. 12: “'Let's Declare Victory and Get Out!': Vermont Senator George D. Aiken and the Vietnam War," Mark Stoler, Professor Emeritus of History at UVM
- Feb. 8: Sam Hand: Green Mountain Scholar -- Book Launch Event
- April 24: Archiving Vermont's LGBTQIA History: An Academic Discussion
- May 10: Making “Purity” in Vermont’s Maple Sugaring Industry, Jack Braunstein.
Social Media & Video
The Center’s use of social media platforms & electronic media continues to grow; including twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The web site has been substantially revised. More than 75 video research interviews now posted with Vermont researchers (see Appendix).
Vermont Research Newsletter
Published 20 newsletters summarizing Vermont research news. Mailing list 4500.
Student Interns
The Center continues to increase student internship opportunities. Internship programs include a mixture of work-study, academic credit and funded opportunities. About 25 interns worked on Vermont-related projects during 2017-18.
Vermont Studies Program & Intro to Vermont
We continue to offer a Vermont Studies minor and a course called Introduction to Vermont.
Center Membership
About 20 new members joined the Center in 2017-18. The Center presently hosts about 400 members. The List Serve continues to be used for conversations and research queries.
Town Meeting research
This year we took up Frank Bryan’s town meeting research project, sending students volunteers to 35 Vermont towns. In our first cut of the data Belvedere repeated at the most “Democratic” town in Vermont. We intend to repeat this annually.
Looking Forward
Designated home of Reporting & Documentary Storytelling project
2019 Conference – the Lake Between
Moving to Billings
Growing collaborations -- VHS – and supporting and engaging students
2018 AWARDS
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Center recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the state of Vermont. In 2018 the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award was Giovanna Peebles, the Vermont state archeologist for 38 years.
Frank M. Bryan
The Frank Bryan Award funded our 2018 Town Meeting day research, in which we collected data from about 35 towns that will be further analyzed this summer. This project was in collaboration with partners at Johnson State and Castleton University.
Andrew E. Nuquist
The 2018 winner of the Andrew E. Nuquist award for a project for outstanding research on a Vermont topic is Lauren Rayson for a paper titled Understanding and Mitigating the Effects of the Childcare Cliff: A Case Study of Vermont. Lauren is a graduating Economics/Political Science major from Carlisle, Mass.
George Bryan
The winner of the George Bryan award for a project exemplifying outstanding undergraduate treatment of a Vermont theme is Lachlan Francis for a paper titled Political Polarization along the Rural-Urban Divide. Lachlan is a graduating Geography Major from Putney, Vermont.
Green Mountain Student Award
The winner of the 2018 Green Mountain Student Award which provides $4000 to an undergraduate student conducting summer research on an important Vermont topic is Louis Augeri for his work with Steve Terry on a book on Senator Aiken’s & the Vietnam war. Louis is a dual Pol Sci/History major rising junior from Princeton, N.J.
Adrian Burnett, an ENVS major, won a summer research award for a project analyzing the data collected from Vermont’s town meetings this spring, working with Susan Clark.
Vermont Video Award
This year we started a new award for a student who has done exceptional video story-telling of Vermont research. The award goes to Jordan Mitchell who produced eight videos this past year. Jordan is a rising junior Film Studies major.
Community Research Fellow(s)
The Center appointed one new community research fellows in 2017-18; Stephen Terry. In addition, Stephanie Yu, a policy analyst at Public Assets and Julie Campoli, the author of three books on planning continue as Fellows.