Emilie Riddle (UVM ’14), longtime staff member in the UVM Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources’ Student Services Office, leaves her position in January 2017. She will dedicate her time to completing her Master of Science in Dietetics at UVM and pursuing a career in nutrition. 

As a staff member in the Rubenstein School Dean's Office since 2005, Emilie devoted more than 11 years to supporting students, faculty, and School administration and worked on many facets of student services. Most recently, as the Recruitment and Retention Coordinator, she was the contact for undergraduate students from the time they realized their interest in studying the environment, during the application and admissions process, and through the transition from June Orientation into their first year as members of the Rubenstein School community. 

"Often students will enter Emilie’s office with questions and some anxiety but leave with a wealth of information and a game plan," says Marie Vea-Fagnant, Rubenstein School Assistant Dean for Student Services. "She demonstrates genuine concern for each student while going above and beyond to provide what each student needs to build community and be academically successful." 

Emilie coordinated Rubenstein School events during the several UVM Admitted Student Days held each spring. She provided first-year advisor support, assigned major advisors, and was responsible for helping students with course registration, internal transfers, and graduation requirements, among other responsibilities. She coordinated production of the attractive recruitment brochures that she and her RSENR Student Services colleagues used at outreach events such as college fairs, high school visits, and UVM Homecoming. For many years, she also planned and ran the School’s annual start of fall semester Doc Donnelly Day Welcome Back celebration, held in honor of former Rubenstein School professor John Donnelly. 

“The best part of my job was supporting students,” says Emilie. “While much of the job was administrative, I feel I played some small role in helping students to go out into the world and succeed. It was tremendously rewarding to see our students grow from first years to graduates and even come back as alumni to tell us of their successes.” 

Her role in the lives of Rubenstein School students and the day-to-day needs of faculty and staff in the School was huge. Within three years of working in the School, Emilie received the 2008 Marcia Caldwell Award for her outstanding contributions and dedication to the students of the School. 

As a member of the Rubenstein School Diversity Task Force and a co-principal investigator on USDA Multicultural Scholars grants, she helped to support the School’s efforts to create a vibrant, welcoming, and diverse community of engaged learners. 

“I have been lucky to have been given the space to develop my own commitment to diversity, from the Multicultural Scholars Program to the Diversity Task Force to so many conversations about what it means to support all people,” she says. 

Emilie was part of a UVM planning committee for the first annual retreat on Examining White Identity in 2014. In 2015, UVM’s ALANA Student Center presented the planning committee with the Timothy R. Shiner Ally Award at their annual banquet.

In 2016, she was honored with a Supportive Academic Faculty/Staff Member Award. UVM’s Department of Residential Life presents the award to a staff member who exemplifies commitment and passion to working with UVM students in supportive academic roles to achieve scholastic success. Emilie received an honorable mention for this award in 2012. 

With a B.S. in Dietetics, Nutrition and Food Sciences from UVM, Emilie is now in the UVM Master of Science in Dietetics program. She will do a full year of a supervised practice internship in the community, complete an evidence-based research project, and take courses. She hopes to graduate in May 2018 and work in nutrition education with young children or college students. 

Emilie came to Vermont with a B.A. in English Literature and minors in Women’s Studies and Religious Studies from Montana State University. For three years, she taught pre-school at Green Mountain Montessori School in Essex, Vermont before taking a job in the Rubenstein School Dean’s Office. As Assistant to the Associate Dean, Emilie worked with former Associate Dean Carl Newton and assisted former student services staff members Marcia Caldwell and Maria Erb. 

In 2008, when Maria left her position, Emilie stepped into her role as Assistant to the Dean and took on more student recruitment responsibilities. In 2013, her job became solely student focused as the Recruitment and Retention Coordinator. 

“I will miss the community in the Rubenstein School,” says Emilie. “Being able to work with so many people, from students to staff to faculty, who are passionate about what they do has been extremely satisfying.”

Emilie and her husband Tim live in Winooski, Vermont with their young son Gryphon. The family enjoys gardening, cooking, playing disc golf, hiking, and listening to bluegrass music.