photo by Sally McCay

Record 50th Reunion Gift To Fund Lecture Series, Scholarships

“My memories are so vivid of my school years that it is truly hard to believe fifty years have gone by,”

Dan Burack ’55 writes to his former classmates as their 50th Reunion celebration approaches. “It has been my pleasure and distinct honor to serve UVM in various capacities through the years and now to be in a position to give something back.”

That “something,” it turns out, is a major gift from Dan and Carole Burack, the largest individual 50th Reunion gift in UVM history. The bulk of the gift will be used to endow the Dan and Carole Burack Distinguished Lecture Series, and the remainder will endow a scholarship fund, “probably in the College of Education and Social Services,” says Burack,
whose son Adam graduated from UVM in 1985 and is currently a high school teacher. “I’m a believer that the best legacy we can leave to the next generation is a good educational system. Ensuring that we’re educating excellent teachers is essential.” Carole Burack is also a former teacher.

The Distinguished Lecture Series was started by President Daniel Mark Fogel during his first year as UVM president in 2002-2003 and was included as a naming opportunity in the ongoing Campaign for the University of Vermont. “I thought immediately of the Visiting Professor Program that Professor Milton Nadworny helped bring to the Economics Department during my years at UVM and how that helped to expand our perspectives as students,” Burack says. “Carole and I thought that endowing the lecture series would be a good way to ensure this kind of intellectual enrichment will always be a part of students’ experience at UVM.”

Burack has served the UVM Alumni Association in a number of volunteer capacities over the years, including three years as national alumni chairman, and received the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1986. He and Carole have also agreed to serve on the National Campaign Steering Committee for The Campaign for the University of Vermont.

Burack says he’s very much looking forward to connecting with former UVM classmates at their 50th Reunion in June, particularly those from the Phi Sigma Delta fraternity, which he says “gave me a direction, a purpose, a maturity, and a group of life-long friends.” Many of them will reunite at Reunion where a healthy PhiSig turnout is anticipated.

Faculty and Staff Campaign Hitting Its Stride

Participation is the watchword for UVM’s Faculty and Staff Campaign, ongoing throughout the 2004-2005 academic year under the banner of The Campaign for the University of Vermont. It’s not the dollar amount raised but the number of faculty and staff donors that will measure the success of this phase of the University’s largest-ever fundraising effort.

A Faculty and Staff Campaign Committee was formed early in the year to guide and promote the campaign, taking as its theme “Giving Back to Our Community.” The campaign has undertaken a number of initiatives in that spirit to keep its goals and priorities before the faculty and staff community. In the fall, passers-by on the University Green were treated to free Ben and Jerry’s Peace Pops, and one frigid January morning, faculty and staff enjoyed a free hot cup of coffee, courtesy of Sodexho food service, served up in a travel mug bearing the campaign logo. Every faculty and staff member also received printed and email invitations to participate in the campaign, the latter with a link to an online Faculty and Staff Campaign video. Another promotion is planned in conjunction with this spring’s annual Sugar-on-Snow Party on the portico of the Bailey/Howe Library (hosted by the Maple History Committee of the Vermont Maple Industry Council).

As of mid-March, 456 faculty and staff members had contributed to the Faculty and Staff Campaign, which wraps up on June 30 of this year.

UVM’s Fidelity Family Supports Boston Campaign
The Green and Gold are very much in evidence at Boston’s Fidelity Investments, with about 70 UVM alumni, parents, and friends employed at the leading financial services firm. The strength of those ties was made apparent by the generosity of alumni who attended a UVM-Fidelity Networking Reception in Boston, which kicked off an effort that to date has raised some $180,000 on behalf of The Campaign for the University of Vermont.

The event was organized by Fidelity employees Chuck Black ’82, senior vice president and head of Consultant Relations ; Amy Carmusin ’85, senior product manager, Brokerage Legal; Tim Cohen ’91, portfolio manager; and Marianne Herlihy ’76, vice president, Marketing Strategy and immediate past chair of UVM’s Boston Regional Board.

“We knew we had a fairly large contingent of UVMers at Fidelity, but it was fascinating to see just how extensive a circle it is,” says Chuck Black of the organizing effort. “We found connections throughout the corporation and then went to work on bringing those people together to benefit the University and the campaign.”

Thanks to Fidelity’s generous matching gift policy for educational institutions, up to $4,500 in gifts to UVM can be matched per employee per year.

Black and his wife Wendy ’83 wanted their gift to advance the campaign’s goal for student scholarships, the top priority. They established the Chuck and Wendy Black Endowed Scholarship Fund to provide annual support for students in the College of Arts and Sciences or the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with preference to students from the greater Boston area. “We have both been the beneficiaries of scholarships,” says Black. “In conjunction with matching gifts from Fidelity Investments and the Lintilhac Scholarship Challenge, we want to provide access for deserving students to receive the same high-quality UVM education we enjoyed.”

Chuck and Wendy Black’s son Andy will continue the family's UVM connections when he enters as a first-year student in fall of 2005.