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| News from the Rubenstein School | March 2013 |
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Welcome from the Dean
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Features:Two RSENR Graduate Students Receive NSRC Research Awards
Greening of Aiken Update: A National Award and a New Living Lab Fund
For the Love of Wood – A Parks, Recreation & Tourism Student Builds Recycled Furniture for the Aiken Center
Capstone or Stepping Stone?
Greening of Aiken Interns Class Conducts 7 Projects This Spring
Two Undergraduate Collaborators Attend Limnology and Oceanography Conference
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As maple taps run dry, snow turns to mud, and daffodils point to the warmer weeks ahead, March in Vermont reminds us that the only thing constant is change. Perhaps more than most springs, change is in the air at the Rubenstein School, and our community is ready for the opportunities and challenges ahead. The completion of the study on 
First year Rubenstein School master’s students, Christopher Hansen and Christine Peterson, have each been awarded competitive research grants from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative (NSRC). The NSRC is supported by funding from the USDA Forest Service and, in turn, is a granting program that funds research focused on sustaining the Northern Forest and its communities in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. 
For more than a year now, the Rubenstein School community has been thriving in the green renovated George D. Aiken Center. In December, the Aiken Center and Maclay Architects of Waitsfield, Vermont won a national award of merit from the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council. 
Giving back to the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources was the focus of December 2012 Parks, Recreation, & Tourism (PRT) graduate Matt Durfee’s internship, required to compete his degree in PRT. Matt loves wood! He hails from Bethel, Vermont, where his family is in the lumber business and, not surprisingly, wood is well “engrained” in Matt’s Vermont blood. His lifelong exposure to the lumber business sparked his fascination with and expanding talent in working with wood to create unique pieces of furniture.
One afternoon last semester I was running with my dog on the trail that winds along the Winooski River at the Intervale and, as a frequent user, noticed that some restoration work had been done. Soon enough, I approached a sign on a tree that provided information on the importance of healthy riparian buffers, the negative impacts of invasive plants, and the Japanese knotweed removal project that had been designed and implemented by Rubenstein School students in NR 206: Environmental Problem-solving and Impact Assessment.
This spring marks the 12th year of the Rubenstein School Greening of Aiken Intern class. The class is taught by Gary Hawley, with help from mentors Carl Waite, Matt Beam, Deane Wang, Kindle Loomis, David Raphael, Tom Hudspeth, and Alan McIntosh and graduate teaching assistant Eliese Dykstra. Student interns are currently working on 7 projects related to the green Aiken Center.
Undergraduates Suzanne Ball (WFB '13) and Chelsea Mitchell (UVM '13) recently attended the 2013 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) "Aquatic Sciences Meeting" in New Orleans, Louisiana. Since last May, the two have been conducting research on a freshwater shrimp that resides in Lake Champlain with guidance from Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory Director, Dr. Jason Stockwell.