VERMONT STARS LISTENING to the

VERMONT
THE UNIVERSITY OF
Q U A R T E R LY
LISTENING to the
STARS
On the road with Professor
Joanna Rankin and students
FALL 2011
IRENE RELIEF EFFORTS • ALEXANDER NEMEROV ’85 • A SEASON TO REMEMBER • RACHEL COMEY ’94
VQ
FALL | 2011
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
VQ
PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE
THE GREEN
Aiding Vermont’s Irene recovery; 3 Questions
with Business Dean Sanjay Sharma;
greening UVM’s energy; and more.
NEW KNOWLEDGE
Faculty and student geologists provide
new insight on global erosion rates.
BY JOSHUA BROWN
2
4
14
WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT
PAINTINGS, POEMS
& UNDERSTANDING?
Yale Professor Alexander Nemerov ’85
is not afraid to show his art history students
that art matters… really matters.
LISTENING TO THE STARS
16
Studying pulsars deep in space takes
Professor Joanna Rankin and her students
into the jungle of Puerto Rico.
BY JOSHUA BROWN
BY THOMAS WEAVER
ALUMNI CONNECTION
THE ACCIDENTAL DESIGNER
Reunion and Homecoming unite for
a new fall tradition.
Alumna Rachel Comey has wended
her own path to the runway.
20
CLASS NOTES
BY AMY SUTHERLAND
THE LONG RUN
Looking back on the team and the season
that took Catamount women’s basketball
to new heights.
29
24
EXTRA CREDIT
Moments of Darkness, 9.11.01,
by Professor Emeritus Bill Davison.
35
43
64
#
ON THE COVER: The National Science Foundation’s Arecibo
Observatory in Puerto Rico. Photograph by Joshua Brown
CONTENTS: Morgan Powers ’12 on her way to winning Vermont’s
season-opening cross-country race. Powers covered the hilly fivekilometer course at Williston’s Catamount Outdoor Family Center
in 18:04. Photograph by Brian Jenkins
SUMMER 2008
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
BY ANDY GARDINER G’75
#
P R E S I D E N T’ S
PERSPECTIVE
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
VQ
Returning this summer to the UVM family as interim president has been an honor and a privilege. Although I did
benefit of this place we all cherish, paving the way for the suc-
2
Thanks to the work of Dan Fogel and many others, we
have a strong foundation to build upon, and I will do
my utmost to keep UVM on a sustainable and successful course. To do this, it is essential that we do not let
the remarkable steps forward we have made on so many
fronts allow us to be complacent.
Part of my role here over the months ahead is to help
us be a community that talks openly and truthfully about
the challenges we face and operates with respect and fairness. That I pledge to do. There has been much talk about
budget challenges, and we do face some, as does virtually every other institution of higher education. It is unrealistic over the next decade to expect growth in revenue
from federal or state sources when budgets are falling or
significantly constrained. Nor can we rely on increases in
tuition as we continue to face high unemployment and
a stagnant economy. We must focus on the quality and
value of the education we offer, ensure that our research
strength aligns with areas that are national or local priorities, and that we are expending our resources carefully
and strategically on our mission. We also must do all we
can to boost alumni giving and support from other private sources, an effort in which establishment of the new
University of Vermont Foundation is a critical step.
To help us address these challenges, Provost
Knodell has initiated a strategic initiatives project to
look at new ideas for revenue generation and cost reallocation and savings and in determining the strategic
importance and value of our programs. We have begun
that process and are engaging the campus to explore
how we might make the operations of UVM better and
more efficient and mission critical.
Visit Vermont and rediscover Lake Champlain.
Where history and family traditions have meant
exceptional hospitality for over 125 years.
CLASS NOTES EDITOR
I suspect that this type of process will become the
norm as this decade will see economic challenges and
change that will have immense impact on institutions,
businesses, and citizens throughout our country. As that
happens, higher education will become ever more important to our nation’s future than it is today.
Close to home in the Green Mountains, I plan to
make the essential ties between our state and our state
university a steady refrain during my tenure as interim
president. We have been the University of Vermont for
more than two hundred years and we will be for another
two hundred years. We are Vermont’s only research university and land grant college and that must be increasingly reflected in our relationship with and priorities for
Vermont. We can be proud of how we serve Vermont
and you can help reinforce that message.
For example, when people say UVM is not affordable
for Vermonters, remind them that our tuition is less than
the average cost of a Vermont secondary education and
that one third of Vermont students currently pay no tuition or fees to come here. Remind them that our alumni
living in Vermont—some thirty thousand strong—run
Vermont’s businesses, create jobs, teach their children,
grow their food, and heal them when they are sick.
Remind them that our economic activity is worth over
$1 billion annually and we are the fourth largest employer in Vermont. Tell them our researchers bring in more
than $130 million a year in grants which generate knowledge and inventions and start-ups that improve our lives,
protect the environment, and help drive the economy.
In closing, I wish to extend my deepest sympathy and
concern to the many Vermonters whose lives have been
impacted by the destruction of Tropical Storm Irene.
While the road to recovery will be a long one, it has
been heartening to see the efforts of so many throughout our state and from within the UVM community as
they reach out to neighbors in need. It again makes me
proud to be a UVMer. —
­­ John Bramley
SALLY MCCAY
Kathleen Laramee ’00
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Joshua Brown, Lee Ann Cox,
Andy Gardiner G’75, Jay Goyette,
Kathleen W. Laramee ’00, Jon Reidel G’06,
Amy Sutherland, Amanda Waite’02, G’04,
Jeff Wakefield
PHOTOGRAPHY
Randy Brooks, Joshua Brown,
Grady Congleton, William DiLillo,
Lars Gange, Brian Jenkins, Sally McCay,
David Rodgers, Takemi Photography
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CORRESPONDENCE
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VERMONT QUARTERLY
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FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
cess of UVM and its next president.
Since 1886
ART DIRECTOR
Elise Whittemore-Hill
concluded that it was my responsibility to serve at this extracommitment, I believe we can make significant progress to the
Vacations
EDITOR
Thomas Weaver
not seek the position, I care deeply about this institution and
ordinary time in our history. With your help, involvement, and
Family
3
THE
TRANSITION
GREEN
GATHERING NEWS & VIEWS OF LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY
UVM VETERAN LEADS AS INTERIM PRESIDENT
John Bramley, who has served the university in many roles
across the past two decades, assumed the post of interim
president on August 1. His appointment came after President
Daniel Mark Fogel announced that for personal reasons he
would step down from the presidency this summer rather
than the July 2012 previously planned. A tenured professor
in the English Department, Fogel will return to teaching in
January 2013 following a sabbatical.
Interim President Bramley has served as department chair
of Animal Sciences, dean of the College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences, and provost and senior vice president of the
university. In 2006 he also served as acting president during
President Fogel’s illness. Most recently, from 2007 to 2011,
Bramley has served as president and CEO of the Windham
Foundation, the largest private foundation registered in
Vermont.
“We are extremely fortunate that John Bramley was both
UVM Extension has been
a critical link for Vermont
farmers coping with flooded
fields.
After Irene
Many hands help with flood relief
4
convocation ceremony and
the first day of classes, but life
at the university was relatively unaffected. That would
change in the aftermath as
numerous efforts and initiatives to help Vermont recover
from the storm have rewritten
business-as-usual for many
during the fall semester.
Sarah Waterman, a
UVM post-bac/pre-med student, watched the rain pour
down in Burlington with the
eyes of one who worked in
the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort. As she talked on
the phone with her parents in
East Montpelier and saw the
television images of southern
and central Vermont rivers
running ferociously, Waterman knew the need for help
would be immediate, daunting, and multi-faceted.
Her brainchild, #VTResponse, was a quicksilver,
Internet-age reaction to the
storm that established an online resource connecting those
in need with those wishing
to help. The site was up and
running not long after Irene
cleared Vermont’s borders.
Waterman joined with Matt
Sisto ’07 and Katie Kent in the
effort that involved eighteenhour days on the part of all
three as the site was finding its
legs. #VTResponse had 8,000
hits on the Monday after the
storm, nearly 30,000 by Tuesday, and quickly became the
go-to resource for those offering help and those needing it.
Heather Darby, an
agronomist and UVM Extension professor, has spent her
career working with farmers
on crop-related issues by
listening to their needs and
providing the latest agricultural research. Helping those
same farmers, many of whom
she considers friends, recover
from the destruction caused
by Tropical Storm Irene has
been personally and professionally challenging for the
field crops and nutrition
management specialist.
SALLY MCCAY
LARS GANGE/MANSFIELD HELIFLIGHT
of Trustees Chair Robert Cioffi ’90 said in announcing the appointment. “Quite frankly, there could not be a better choice
for this job in light of John’s experience, skills, character, and
knowledge of UVM, in addition to his outstanding scholarly
record. One of the board’s primary goals is to keep the university’s upward trajectory moving ahead, and the appointment of John Bramley ensures that is going to happen.”
Cioffi said the search for UVM’s next president will
continue on the schedule announced last spring with an
appointment expected in the spring of 2012. Bramley is expected to serve in the interim capacity until July 2012 and
has said he will not be a candidate for president.
Carrie Williams Howe,
director of UVM’s Community-University Partnerships
& Service-Learning, had been
working to develop a course
in response to the spring
flooding that hit Vermont
hard. The second, more brutal punch of Tropical Storm
Irene added urgency and
vital relevance to that work in
progress.
Within a week, Howe and
her co-instructor Kelly Hamshaw, a research specialist in
community development and
applied economics, created
“Rebuilding Vermont: Community Engagement in Disaster Preparation and Relief.”
As quickly as the course came
together, it filled even more
rapidly. Within a few hours,
twenty-six students from a
wide variety of disciplines
had juggled their class schedules to add it.
In studying disaster prepa-
ration and relief, the new
course has drawn on existing
faculty expertise. Hamshaw,
together with her CDAE
colleague Dan Baker, has
studied the vulnerability of
mobile home communities
to disaster. Sociology Professor Alice Fothergill added
her experience studying the
particular issues of children
and families in the aftermath
of disasters to the discussion
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
A
s Hurricane Irene
roared up the East
Coast on August 28,
much of the media
were poised for the
potential of a flooded lower
Manhattan. But as the storm
passed the city relatively
uneventfully in the morning,
the story would shift north
through the afternoon to
a very different landscape.
Online video of a Vermont
covered bridge being torn
from its foundation and
swept away by a raging river
will be among the iconic
images of Irene many will
remember years from now.
At UVM, the storm
resulted in canceling the
“You can’t imagine the
destruction until you see it,”
Darby says. “We’re trying to
do everything we can—vaccinations, testing of grain and
plants, clearing fields, and just
getting our hands dirty and
doing what needs to be done.
A lot of farmers are isolated,
stressed out, and just need
someone to talk to. Once
you’re there and in it and see
the devastation, it’s the only
thing on your mind; nothing
else matters.”
Darby is among the 140
UVM Extension faculty and
staff helping farmers and others move forward after Irene.
The questions have come
fast and furious and require
answers that could have lifealtering consequences. Can I
still sell my crops? How do I
file a claim to receive FEMA
funds? What can I replant? Do
you test plants and grain for
disease? What do I tell people
about food safety? How do
I inform customers that my
crops are safe to consume?
Some of those answers
might be found at UVM’s
Agricultural and Environmental Testing Lab, which
offered free soil tests for the
many farmers concerned
about the fertility and potential toxicity of their soil.
available and willing to step into this important role,” Board
5
THEGREEN
Burlington’s Church Street
on a September Saturday
to welcome the Stanley
Cup and welcome back
UVM alumnus and NHL
Championship hero Tim
Thomas ’97. The Boston
Bruins goalie was joined
by his wife, Melissa, and
their children for the
parade downtown and
a ceremony on campus,
where he was presented
with the 2011 Alumni
Achievement Award. With
a raffle of memorabilia
during his Burlington visit,
Thomas helped raise funds
for Vermonters affected by
Tropical Storm Irene.
while planning the course.
Characteristic of a servicelearning course, the students
have combined their classroom study with volunteer
work in the field and reflection on that experience. In
the first weeks of the course
the class has traveled to
Weston Mobile Home Park
in Berlin to help residents in
their effort to recover from
the devastation that hit their
community.
“We wanted to create this
course so that our response
would last beyond the initial
clean-up, making a commitment to long-term recovery,”
Howe says. “In addition, we
wanted to give our students
the opportunity to contribute
to recovery while also thinking critically about what that
engagement means.”
For many in the university
community—students, faculty, staff, and alumni—Irene
relief has been at a personal,
on-the-ground level, thousands of individuals picking
up a shovel, a crowbar, a
chainsaw, a bucket of water
with bleach and a rag to help
fellow Vermonters put their
lives back together.
DEAN SANJAY SHARMA
Sanjay Sharma, new dean of the School of Business Administration, comes to UVM after successful leadership of the John
Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal.
Prior to academia, Sharma’s career was focused in the private
sector, including sixteen years of senior level management
experience with multiple international corporations. A. I don’t necessarily
[AGRICULTURE]
DAIRY RESEARCH
TAKES TO THE FARMS
A
GRADY CONGLETON
Q. Under your guidance the John Molson
School of Business grew from 5,000 students to 8,800 in three years and the MBA
program earned a top 100 world ranking
from The Economist. How did you effect
that change?
A. My success there was essentially
based on teamwork. I was able to get
a great team of people together, and
along with a strong leadership team at
the school, we worked with alumni, the
business community, and senior administration, and were able to get a lot
done. If you can’t gel, and people don’t
work together, then you start to flounder. One person can’t do it. Everyone
has to come together, and I think we
can do that here. Faculty members have
to buy into a vision they help create, of
course, because you can’t force them
to do something they don’t believe in
or that they don’t find exciting. I think
they’re ready.
Q. Considering how much smaller the
business school is at UVM, do you think
the same model for success will work
here?
SALLY MCCAY
Q. What do you see as the key places in
which to invest in our school?
A. The most important area for us to
focus on is faculty support so they
can produce knowledge. We need
money to support their research by
hiring research assistants, investing in
research centers, and paying for travel
to conferences.
I’d also like to focus on career
management services. At the Molson
School we hired a former HR manager
from Royal Bank of Canada, and he
built a team around him that resulted in
The Economist ranking the John Molson
School of Business number one in the
world for career management services.
About 90 percent of the two thousand
students we graduated each year got
jobs within three months.
We also built a strong case competition program. This contributed
to career placement because these
students competed against the best
schools in the world in front of industry judges in cross cultural settings, so
when they went on job interviews they
were poised, confident, worldly, and
experienced. This is an area I’d like to
put money into at UVM.
We need to get this place humming.
We need to grow an MBA program that
graduates fifty students a year that creates that buzz—that hum that exists at
schools with more of a critical mass of
MBA students.
We are working on bringing a panel
of five high-powered experts to campus who are household names in the
financial service industry, including
regulators, to talk about the financial
crisis and why it happened and how do
we know it’s not going to happen again.
It’s events like these, and all of the other
things I’ve mentioned that get people
excited, and ultimately lead to success.
—Interview by Jon Reidel G’06
FA L L 2 0 1 1
s College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences faculty
conduct their current
dairy research, they’re
experimenting on more levels
than one. This year, UVM
abandoned the traditional
model of conducting dairy
research via a centralized, oncampus herd, moving instead
to doing that work directly on
Vermont dairy farms.
The Dairy Center of Excellence, as the new on-farm
program is called, was spawned
in a climate of mounting financial pressure. With cutbacks in
federal funding, fluctuating milk
prices, and astronomically rising prices for feed and bedding,
the university’s herd of three
hundred cows was losing UVM
up to $90,000 annually and
cost several hundred thousand
dollars a year to maintain.
“There had to be a better way
to utilize these funds,” says Tom
Vogelmann ’74, dean of UVM’s
College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences.
Two summers ago, the college
sold its research herd, maintaincontinued on page 8
think that bigger is better
or that growth is always
good. One of the things
I like about UVM’s business school is that I can
get to know the students,
and I have more time
for each and every faculty member. It’s
good to be able to have that kind of easy
interaction. Since UVM is much smaller
and doesn’t have a critical mass of
students or faculty in any one area, we
essentially need to choose just one or
two signature areas. Right now we have
nine concentrations, but not enough
faculty to provide the depth of electives
or a critical enough mass of students for
all of them. So we need to consolidate
some of them and then decide (a) what
our strengths are and where do we want
to focus; and (b) focus on where business education is going in the future.
JUST 3 QUESTIONS
Thousands crowded
ALUMNI
CUP TRAVELS NORTH
As Sarah Waterman sensed
on the night of the storm, the
needs would be many and
diverse, as would the efforts
to help. That has proven
the case at UVM and in the
extended alumni community.
For Mike Gordon ’87 and
his bandmates in Phish, Irene
relief meant a concert, underwritten by PC Construction,
at the Champlain Valley
Fairgrounds that raised an
estimated $1.2 million. When
the State of Vermont’s computers were compromised by
flooding, UVM’s mainframes
offered shelter from the
storm for critical data. Weeks
later, thirty state scientists
displaced by flooded Waterbury offices, many of them
working in roles critical to the
recovery effort, took up residence alongside UVM faculty
in campus labs.
7
THEGREEN
ing a small number of cows for
teaching purposes. It now uses
its annual federal appropriation
from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, most of which had
gone to herd maintenance, to
directly support research that
will take place at a half-dozen
best-practices partner farms
located within an hour of campus. Vogelmann awards research
funding to his faculty through a
competitive grant process.
The new arrangement isn’t
only a good business decision, it
also makes for better, more relevant science, Vogelmann says.
“Centralized research facilities are fine for certain kinds
ONE
DAY
Life is in the details, they
say. On Tuesday, October
11, staff from University
Communications took
this truism to heart,
fanning across campus
from 5 a.m. to just past
midnight to find the many
small stories that, taken
together, tell a larger one .
The result is a diverse mix
8
that capture the multifaceted energy of this one
particular “Day in the Life
of UVM.”
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
F
ireworks, fried food from the fair, and the Casey
Anthony trial. If this list conjures up memories
from the summer of 2011 for anyone, it’s under-
grad Natalie DiBlasio ’12. For three months, the Pitman,
New Jersey, native wrote and contributed to articles on
these topics and others as a news intern at the national
paper, USA Today.
Not only did DiBlasio land a prestigious internship
in the heart of the USA Today newsroom, she broke records while there. Just four days after arriving, DiBlasio
scored a front-page story on the dampening effect of
More methane potentially means more energy
and income for dairy farmers. Watch a video on
UVM research: alumni.uvm.edu/vq
of research,” which require
rigorous controls, he says. “But
really to solve a lot of the issues
that are ongoing out in the state,
you have to be out in the state.”
The new program targets eight
focus areas vital to Vermont
agriculture—chosen by industry
representatives, farmers, public
officials, and UVM faculty on
the center’s advisory board—
ranging from forage research to
disease prevention and treatment to innovative technologies.
If all goes as planned, Vogelmann hopes to supplement his
budget with industry funding,
faculty-won research grants
from external sources, and
foundations, eventually bankrolling up to six new multi-year
projects annually with a million
dollars in play in any given year.
That’s a model that has
caught the attention of other
public universities, all of whose
ONLINE
EXTRA
agricultural colleges are being
squeezed financially. Several,
like UVM, have sold their
research herds.
“It’s a fact that all land grants
are going through hard times…
and we are all looking at innovative ways of doing programming,” says Bob Harmon, chair
of the Department of Animal
and Food Sciences at the University of Kentucky. “UVM’s
Dairy Center of Excellence may
be one type of approach that
land grants take to continue to
do valid animal research.”
[RESEARCH]
GENETICS NETWORK
A STATEWIDE BENEFIT
L
aughing babies, strange
bacteria from the bottom
of asbestos mines, and
schizophrenic rats could
be found in the DoubleTree
Hotel in South Burlington
drought and budget cuts on firework displays around
one day this summer. Well,
really, these were just topics
in a few of the posters and
talks presented during the
annual retreat of the Vermont
Genetics Network.
But they highlight the range
of research that the network
has enabled over the last nine
years. And with $16.1 million of new funding awarded
from the National Institutes
of Health in July of 2010,
the group has accelerated its
work of advancing biological
and medical discoveries in
Vermont.
“VGN helps faculty and
students across the whole
state,” says UVM’s Judith Van
Houten, University Distinguished Professor of Biology
and director of the Vermont
Genetics Network located at
UVM.
“The VGN builds biomedical research capacity at our
many partner institutions,”
she says. These include: Cascontinued on page 10
SALLY MCCAY (2)
the country—the fastest, in the memory of her editor
Dennis Lyons, any intern had achieved A1 placement.
The next week, she landed another front-page spot
with her article on a national trend toward implementing flashing, left-turn signals to improve traffic safety—
a trend she discovered through her own reporting. All
told, DiBlasio earned eighteen bylines for USA Today,
six of which were printed on page one.
DiBlasio discovered her passion for journalism at the
UVM student paper, the Vermont Cynic, where she has
risen from reporter to news editor to her post this year
as editor-in-chief.
What will it mean to have an editor-in-chief with
DiBlasio’s experience at the helm?
“I’ve been working with the paper for five years, and
have seen it grow by leaps and bounds,” Chris Evans,
student media adviser, says. (The Cynic is a finalist for
collegiate journalism’s 2011 Pacemaker award in the
non-daily university category.) “I expect this to be
another shift in the way the Cynic operates. Natalie has
been a phenomenal guide already, and her vision is
going to be so much wider, larger. She’s always surprising me with the kind of work she does and what she
achieves.”
—Amanda Waite ’02 G’04
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
of photos, video, and text
STUDENT FOCUS
9
THEGREEN
dered the possibilities—
“if these walls could
talk.” In a sense, they
now can at UVM thanks
to an innovative partnering between the university
and Broadcastr.com, a Webbased compendium of audio
clips linked to geographical
locations. Alumnus Scott
Lindenbaum ’04, Broadcastr
co-founder, likes to refer to
the site as an audio “museum
tour of the world.”
As the scope and depth
in Burlington has experienced a particular growth
tleton State College, Green
Mountain College, Johnson
State College, Lyndon State
College, Middlebury College, Norwich University, and
Saint Michael’s College.
Faculty at these schools and
UVM apply for competitive
grants from VGN that allow
them to develop a record
of research success. “Junior
faculty are the highest priority,” explains Van Houten,
and funding from VGN often
allows these young scientists
to spend about half their time
on research.
In addition, the VGN runs
microarray and proteomics
facilities on the UVM
campus that give research-
spurt thanks to a number of
recorded stories and com-
SOLAR PANELS
research. They then inspire
their students—because
they’re active researchers—to go on in biomedical
careers, technical careers, or
to medical schools.”
“We’ve had many faculty
ments by UVM faculty, staff,
students, and alumni. One
can now bring up Broadcastr
[ QUOTE UNQUOTE ]
on a mobile device, navigate
to Williams Hall, for instance,
and hear about the building’s
place in architectural history,
or Professor Luis Vivanco
offering an anthropologist’s
take on bicycles, or sculptor
Richard Erdman ’75 sharing
the influence of the late Pro-
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
fessor Paul Aschenbach.
10
Broadcastr is, admittedly,
tough to describe; but it’s
easy to experience. Go to
Broadcastr.com, zero in on
It is engineers and biologists—who are problemsolvers, working with communities—that ultimately
end up figuring out how to provide the balance to let
us pursue our livelihoods, and yet at the same time,
not rape and pillage the landscape.
Burlington—and feel free to
join in and add UVM stories
of your own. *
* See alumni.uvm.edu/vq, summer ‘11 issue for more on Lindenbaum and Broadcastr.
A field of solar panels on
Spear Street is among the
student-initiated Clean
Energy Fund projects.
—Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary at the Department
of the Interior during the George W. Bush administration,
and this year’s speaker for September’s 2011 Aiken Lecture
go on to get their own funding and then they don’t need
funding any longer through
VGN—that’s the goal,” Van
Houten says. “The goal is
to provide the capacity to
make them competitive for
national funding.”
Funded through the NIH’s
National Center for Research
Resources, the 2010 renewal
of the Vermont Genetics Network relied on key support
from U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.
The $16.1 million represents
the largest single-investigator
grant—awarded to Van
Houten as the principal
investigator overseeing the
VGN—in UVM’s history.
“The funding is especially
significant given the decrease
in federal NIH funding
levels on a national scale,” Van
Houten says, “and as confirmation of the excellent scientific research contributions
being conducted in Vermont.
UVM is the lead institution
SALLY MCCAY
in the VGN, but we’re truly a
statewide network working on
globally relevant problems.”
[ENVIRONMENT]
CLEANER, GREENER
CAMPUS ENERGY
A
merican college
students often push
their schools to live up
to their ideals; not so
often do they directly supply
the means to reach those
goals. Not the case with clean
energy at UVM. In 2005, a
group of students began to
urge the university to explore
cleaner forms of energy,
which led to a survey that
showed 68 percent of students willing to add a $10 per
semester fee for that purpose.
Following Student Government Association and UVM
Board of Trustees approval,
the Clean Energy Fund was
born in 2008.
“Students were saying
‘we want a campus where we
can see sustainability and
evolution towards a more
sustainable way of living in
action, around us, and we’re
not seeing it,’” says Gioia
Thompson ’87 G’00, director of the Office of Sustainability. “They spent two years
pushing for this because
they wanted more action on
the renewable energy front.
The real value of the Clean
Energy Fund, beyond even
the projects themselves, is
the experience gained by students, faculty, and staff going
through the process and
consensus building it takes to
bring these ideas to fruition.”
Progress is tangible
on campus: solar tracker
installations, a grid-tied
photovoltaic system generating power at the Hardacre
Equine Center, hands-on
renewable energy courses,
research projects, speakers,
and internships. The most
visible outcome is a field
of seventeen photovoltaic
panels installed in December 2010 at the U.S. Forest
Service on Spear Street.
The solar panels supply 20
percent of the electric power
needs of the Aiken Center by
generating 95,880 kilowatthours per year while preventing thirty-five metric tons of
carbon emission. The Aiken
solar trackers were among
the first projects presented
to the Clean Energy Fund’s
eleven-member committee
of students, faculty, staff, and
alumni when it called for
proposals from the campus
community in September
2009.
“Students are learning more
about the fund all the time
and have been impressed
with the solar trackers and
the course offerings,” says
CEF Committee Chair Alex
McConaghy, a senior business major who is working
on a ‘green IT’ proposal with
business school lecturer
Thomas Chittenden G’04
that would reduce energy
loads from desktop computers. “I’ve learned a lot about
the importance of working
with people from different
backgrounds to select projects that help the environment and make sense from a
business perspective.”
While students have
stepped up to get the CEF
off the ground, alumnus
David Arms ’88, alumni rep
to the Clean Energy Fund
and owner of a dairy brokerage firm in Shelburne, says
he sees an opportunity for
alumni to help maintain its
success. Arms has offered
matching funds for the first
$5,000 donated by alumni to
the fund and encourages the
input of ideas, as well. “The
committee really endeavors
to use the funds judiciously
and make it work for students
and the university,” Arms
says, noting that UVM can
be a model for individuals
and businesses in the state
through the CEF initiatives.
FA L L 2 0 1 1
‘‘
of the catalog of clips grows
daily, the cluster on the hill
NEW MEDIA
VERMONT VOICES
People have long pon-
ers from across the state
access to advanced capabilities in analyzing DNA,
RNA, and proteins. Often
this work is combined with
consulting in the design and
analysis of molecular biology experiments—through
the VGN’s staff experts in
bioinformatics.
The result, Van Houten
says, is that Vermont faculty
have access to world-class
research tools and techniques that might otherwise
be out of reach at schools
that have traditionally
focused on undergraduate
teaching.
“This approach really supports biomedical workforce
development in Vermont,”
Van Houten says, “because
it allows talented faculty in
the colleges around the state
to succeed with cutting-edge
11
BOOKS & MEDIA
JUSTRELEASED
[ BRIEFS ]
Feathers: The Evolution
of a Natural Miracle
Thor Hanson G’99, Basic Books
“Vultures made me do it.” Those are the
words of explanation alumnus Thor
Hanson offers in the preface of his book
on the history of feathers. Although
vulture feathers —and how well their
form matches their function—may have
piqued Hanson’s interest in plumage, the
book he’s crafted extends beyond the bird
world to consider the role feathers have
played across human cultures, as well.
Her Sister’s Shadow
Katharine Britton G’91
Berkeley Trade Paperbacks
In her debut novel, alumna Katharine Britton explores the central questions: “What
would it take to drive sisters apart, and
what would it take to bring them back
together?” Tragedy and a family secret
kept Lilli away from her family home in
New England for forty years. But when her
sister Bea’s husband dies, it presents an
opportunity to leave London and return
home to face her estranged sister. Author
and reviewer Sally Ryder Brady has called
the novel a “haunting story of love, loss,
loneliness and the healing light of truth.”
Redfield Proctor and the
Division of Rutland
Linda Goodspeed ’75, History Press
Owner of the largest marble operation in
the world. Presidential cabinet secretary.
U.S. Senator. Vermonter Redfield Proctor
was a leading political and business figure
of the late 1800s, but what did it take for
him to climb to the national stage? Linda
12
bring this multi-faceted man to life—his
humor, affability, easy-going temperament, his political instincts, shrewdness,
the way he attracted young men to his
cause, promoted them and gave them
great responsibility.”
I
n 1973 a tipping point of cultural concern about ecological
issues—and the rapid decline of charismatic creatures like
bald eagles and alligators—inspired creation of the Endangered Species Act, passed in the Senate 92-0 and signed into
law by President Richard Nixon.
Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act traces
the four-decade history of the law. Looking back, passage of the
ESA is “a feat just about unimaginable forty years on,” says the
book’s author, Joe Roman, a conservation biologist in UVM’s
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.
Listed (Harvard University Press)
offers up a cross-the-nation tour following the stories of the many creatures (and
a few plants) that have been at the center
of the ESA’s contested place in American
life: whooping cranes, right whales, gray
wolves, Indiana bats, Florida panthers,
and others.
The story begins with an odd and
small fish, the snail darter, that almost
stopped an enormous dam. The nowiconic fight over the Tennessee Valley
Authority’s Tellico Dam highlights how
much has changed since the act’s inception. The Supreme Court ruled in favor
of the darter. Brought before Congress,
a Tennessee legislator named Al Gore
voted to change the rules in favor of the
dam. Freshman congressman Newt Gingrich voted for the fish. The fish lost.
Some creatures—like the snail darter
that disappeared from the Little Tennessee River (though it survived elsewhere)—went extinct as the pressures
of dam-builders and developers led to
changes and exemptions in the Endangered Species Act. “The ESA has been
more flexible over time,” Roman says, “it’s
become more of a permitting act than
a prohibiting act.” But many other creatures, like the bald eagle, have recovered
and now thrive thanks to ESA protection.
“Although it may be decades before we
can adequately assess its effectiveness,”
Roman writes, “it is clear that protec-
tion works. If we see the glass as half full,
most listed species improve or remain
stable. Dozens more would have gone
extinct without protection.”
Despite its successes, the number of
species on the ESA list has “grown by
almost an order of magnitude,” Roman
says. And the number of species projected to go extinct globally in the next
century may reach fifty percent.
“There are steps that can be taken to
steer us away from mass extinction, to
approach the Holy Grail of conservation:
zero extinction in our lifetime,” Roman
writes. “We need to strengthen prohibitory regulations like the Endangered Species Act,” he says, and also put money
toward landowner incentive plans, endangered species banking efforts, and studies to show the ecological and economic
value of endangered species.
Roman calls for a broad network of
biodiversity parks to connect isolated
islands of current habitat, biodiversity
trust funds, better conservation of agricultural and rural lands that border wilderness areas, and, perhaps most importantly, shrinking the human ecological
footprint by reducing population and
consumption.
“It’s really about ecosystems,” he says,
“You can’t protect a species outside of its
ecosystem and you can’t protect an ecosystem without protecting its species.”
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
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—Joshua Brown
Vermont’s Most Beautiful Address
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
Goodspeed’s historic novel strives “to
Tales from the brink
13
SALLY MCCAY
877-497-5138
woodstockinn.com
NEWKNOWLEDGE
Big picture,
long view of erosion
by Joshua Brown
ability are directly and deeply affected by erosion.
The method used in this new study can provide a good tool for measuring the sustainability of modern agricultural practices, Bierman
notes, since the beryllium-10 data shows the rate
at which landscapes have been changing in the
recent geologic past: the last thousand to severalhundred-thousand years. “If human impacts
result in rates faster than we measure, it’s nonsustainable,” he says.
Portenga sees how this study can help managers in contested landscapes like the Chesapeake
Bay. “Regulators may want to stipulate an ideal
amount of sediment coming out of a river system
and they may say that they want to get this back
to ‘normal’ standards or ‘normal rate.’ But what is
that rate? What was the erosion like before people started interacting with the landscape?” he says.
Not being able to answer that question well has contributed to many regulatory conflicts. “This work can
help give a better idea of what is normal,” says Portenga,
who was the lead author on the study.
NO SMOKING GUN
Every mountain and hill shall be made low, declared
the ancient prophet Isaiah. In other words: erosion happens.
But for the modern geologist a vexing question remains: how
14
For more than a century, scientists have looked for
ways to measure and compare erosion rates across differing landscapes around the globe—but with limited
success.
“Knowing the background rate of erosion for a place
is extremely important,” says UVM geologist Paul Bierman, “if you want to compare it to what’s coming off the
landscape today because of human impacts like agriculture, development, and forestry.”
Since the mid-1980s, measurements of a rare radioactive element—beryllium-10 that appears in quartz
bombarded by cosmic rays in the top few feet of Earth’s
surface—have greatly improved geologists’ ability to
estimate erosion rates. But these experiments have
been done on a local or regional scale, using a variety of
methods, calculation constants, and corrections. Com-
SUSTAINABLE SOIL
“Nobody has stepped back far enough to look at this big
picture,” says Bierman, “we all work on our little postage
stamps of the world—Africa, South America, the western United States.” But many of the pressing questions
about erosion are global in scale.
Most urgent, the ability to support the nine billion
people forecast to be living on Earth by mid-century
rests directly on the resiliency of soil systems and the
health of water supplies. And these two pillars of sustain-
PAUL BIERMAN
decades that rainfall is the biggest driver of erosion.
Semi-arid landscapes with little vegetation and occasional major storms were understood to have the greatest rates of erosion. But this study challenges that idea.
“It turns out that the greatest control on erosion is not
mean annual precipitation,” says Bierman. Instead, look
at slope.
“People had always thought slope was important,”
Bierman says, “but these data show that slope is really
important.”
MODELING THE FUTURE
Their new study, supported by the National Science
Foundation, is part of a larger long-term goal of creating
a global model that can predict the background rate and
patterns of erosion across the whole planet—and how
these erosion rates will respond to changes like humaninduced climate change.
“Following this study, we can start to answer big
questions like, ‘how does climate drive erosion?’” says
Bierman. In other words, a clearer picture of what global
erosion has looked like in the recent past will start to illuminate what is likely to happen in the future as human
impacts and land-use decisions play out.
“We want a predictive model,” says Bierman, “we
want to be able to have somebody say, ‘here’s my drainage basin, here’s the climate, here’s the rock type, here’s
the slope, here’s the mean annual precipitation: how
quickly is this eroding?’ That’s what you need for land
management.”
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
fast does this erosion happen?
parisons between climate zones and differing rock types
have been difficult—cutting off a global perspective.
Now Bierman and his graduate student, Eric
Portenga, have taken twenty years worth of this disparate data, compiled 1,599 measurements from eightyseven sites around the world, and recalculated it with a
single, up-to-date method.
Their work, “provides the first broad, standardized
view of pre-human, geologic erosion rates,” they write in
“Understanding Earth’s eroding surface with 10Be,” published in the August edition of the journal GSA Today.
This new study also goes fairly far in identifying the
environmental factors—including latitude, annual precipitation, and, especially, slope—that drive erosion
rates in drainage basins. The mechanisms controlling
erosion on outcrops of bedrock are less clear.
Using several statistical tests, Portenga and Bierman
were able to explain about sixty percent of what controls differing erosion rates in drainage basins around
the world. But their study only explains about thirty
percent of the variability between outcrops of bedrock.
“This means geologists are missing a lot of the crucial
information about what is controlling bedrock erosion,”
Portenga says.
Little-studied variables—like the density of fractures
in bedrock, the strength of rocks, and their chemistry—
may be controlling erosion rates, the study suggests.
“I don’t think we’ll ever find the single smoking gun of
erosion,” says Portenga, “the natural world is so complex
and there are so many factors that contribute to how landscapes change over time. But as this method develops, we
will have a better sense of what variables are important—
and which are not—in this erosion story.”
For example, it has been a truism of geology for
LEFT: Eric Portenga G’11
takes notes as Jeremy
Shakun, a geology
student at Oregon State
University, gathers
sediment samples from
the Watson River bed in
Greenland.
RIGHT: Massive amounts
of sediment leaving the
Waipaoa River headwaters in New Zealand,
one of Professor Paul
Bierman’s field sites.
15
ALEXANDER NEMEROV ’85
What’s so funny
about paintings,
poems &
understanding?
O
by Thomas Weaver
16
photography by Mario Morgado
FA L L 2 0 1 1
ak-paneled walls, spring sunlight slanting through leaded glass windows, the auditorium in Yale’s Sterling Law Building fills as nearly
four hundred students chat before class, flipping open their laptops
and notebooks. Not a single one is here to learn about the law.
At the front of the room, Alexander Nemerov ’85, department
chair and Vincent Scully professor of art history, makes last-minute
adjustments to the projector and prepares to deliver the final lecture
of the semester in his Western Art Survey, a course that across the
past six years has grown to boasting the largest enrollment of any single
undergraduate class at Yale University.
Of all the courses that might fill Yale’s Levinson Auditorium, why this one?
While Nemerov is a leading voice in his field, one could toss a croissant in the Au
Bon Pain just up the street in New Haven and, arguably, hit a half-dozen Yale faculty
who could say the same. As a lecturer, Nemerov is not the “entertainer” type; instead,
he brings a presence, a quiet dignity that requests attention. He doesn’t stand behind
a lectern, use a microphone, or work from notes, Nemerov says, because that would
mediate between him and the students. He looks at the floor a good deal of the time,
searching his thoughts as he speaks.
The professor begins his final lecture of the spring 2011 semester with a thank you
to the class: “There are very few days in one’s life where one gets to stand up and talk
to so many people, so many of whom are so receptive to what one cares so deeply
about. That’s why I say thank you.”
17
Embedded in that thanks, the phrase “what one cares
so deeply about” suggests why the Yale Law auditorium
is needed to accommodate this class and why—an hour
later, after Nemerov has wended his way through Pieter
Bruegel’s 1560 painting The Fall of Icarus and W.H.
Auden’s 1938 poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” with side
visits to several hundred years of art and cultural history
along the way—students will burst into thirty seconds
of sustained applause with their teacher’s last word of
the semester.
Nemerov has made it plain: this matters.
%
18
But for the fact that the blue cover is faded with age, the
spiral notebook looks as if it could have just been pulled
from a backpack in Bailey/Howe Library. “University of
Vermont” printed on the cover, snarling catamount in
profile, college ruled and margin line, eighty sheets. Earlier in the morning before his last lecture of the semester,
Alex Nemerov takes the notebook down from a shelf in
his sixth-floor office in Yale University’s impressive new
Loria Building, home to art history.
“Spring of 1982 art history survey class—that was
a foundational class for me,” he says. As Nemerov flips
through the twenty-nine-year-old notebook, one gets
a sense for his earnestness as a student with page after
page of exuberantly highlighted notes, purple print
ditto sheets tucked away. “Here’s my exam. Wow, I
didn’t even see that… February 18, 1982… oh, I got
a B+…” Eventually he finds what he’s after, his notes
with Professor Christie Fengler-Stephany’s comments
regarding The Fall of Icarus. “When I say that those
classes continue to have an effect on me, I’m very serious,” Nemerov says. “It is completely direct; I’m still
drawing on the stuff that I learned almost thirty years
ago now.”
This literal paging through the past stirs memories of not only the knowledge his UVM professors
imparted, but also what they taught him about being
a teacher. Mary Jane Dickerson in English; Margaret
Roland, Bill Lipke, and Fengler-Stephany in art history, were all key influences.
“They played a real formative role by being incredibly patient with me. I was very passionate about the
material, and I studied hard and got good grades, but I
was also…” He trails off, pauses. “I was not a paragon
of maturity, really. I came to class. I respected the deadlines, and I did very good work. I just think I wasn’t
always as present as I would have liked. I’m sure I tried
their patience. I think of them often when I think of
how to be with students who are just unformed people,
and not necessarily to hold that against them—to see
being a professor as being someone who is able to be
patient.”
He suggests that a major test of his academic presence came from the Cynic, where Nemerov estimates
he wrote four or five pieces weekly. Indeed, browsing
back issues of the student newspaper from that era find
him rising from sports writer to sports editor to editor-in-chief. Bylines range from hockey player profiles
to university investment policy to “Floor plagued by
obscene calls.”
“There is absolutely not a single piece I wrote that I
would look to now, with the possible exception of one,
that has any kind of philosophical bearing on who I am
as a thinker,” Nemerov says. “However, the mere repetition to do that much writing, with that much consistency, was enormously helpful to me.”
For their part, Nemerov’s UVM mentors, all now
retired, are quick to remember him more as favorite
student than trial of patience. Told about the popularity
of his art survey course at Yale, Margaret Roland says,
“Bless his heart!” She and others recall Nemerov’s independence of thought, curiosity, humor, humility, determination, and frequent visits during office hours to talk
about academics or to just talk. “He was a decent writer,
better prepared than some,” Dickerson says. “But Alex
knew what was good and was never satisified. He had
that persistence, a kind of doggedness.”
continued on page 59
e
The ‘otherness’ of the world
Alex Nemerov’s closing comments in his
spring 2011 Western Art Survey course
So, we have a choice, it seems to me, if we choose
to live a solitary life of reading, of looking at pictures,
of either conceiving it as just a matter of mere selffulfillment and self-expression, about which I might
say, for one, “Who cares?” or whether we conceive it
as something that is deeply aware of what it cannot
see but feels and senses all around itself.
And thinking about this in relation to undergraduate life, I think about my own experience as an
undergraduate, way back. I remember sophomore
year for English 82, reading James Joyce’s story “The
Dead” in my dorm room. I remember coming to the
end where Joyce describes the snowflakes falling on,
as he says, “the mutinous Shannon waves,” the waves
off the coast of Ireland, and I just remember sitting
up—and even now I have goosebumps—sitting up
and feeling that the world had been changed for me
at that moment.
I ask myself now, “Why was that?” The best
answer I can come up with is that at that moment I
was discovering not who I was, who I am, and not
what the world is. I was discovering the otherness of
the world. And I was making that otherness a part of
myself, all that which I cannot see, cannot know, and
yet which becomes as of that moment a part of me.
And so, thinking about us now, I say that the
purpose of studying art or making art is not about
individual fulfillment, it’s not about learning who
you are, it’s not about learning what the world is, it’s
about accepting and making a part of oneself the otherness of the world.
And so may it be for all of you.
f
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
%
Understandably, young Alexander Nemerov likely
brought lofty intellectual and literary expectations of
himself to UVM his freshman year. His father, Howard
Nemerov, was Poet Laureate of the United States when
Alex was born in 1963 (and again in the late 1980s).
His mother had a deep interest in history and tragic
sense of the past from living in London during the
Blitz of 1940 and ’41. His aunt, (Howard’s sister), was
famed American photographer Diane Arbus. Nemerov’s mother passed away last January; his father in
1991; Arbus in 1971.
Nemerov says that if he dealt with this family legacy
at all during his UVM years, it was “just kind of holding it at arm’s length.” Years later, he says, “By virtue of
having a little more maturity and confidence in what I
can do, I’ve been able to look more steadfastly at their
achievement. And what I see foremost is the absolute
seriousness with which they undertook their respective tasks, without apology, and always with a belief that
they were trying to connect with the world and make
the world appear vividly.” He continues, “If you like, it’s
that naive, direct faith in representation to give you the
world, to make it present. I think I was able to accept and
acknowledge that as part of the way I think by virtue of
being willing to come so near what they really believed.
It’s almost like a religion of art.”
If the preceding generation helped inspire this sort of
personal/professional epiphany for Nemerov, the next
generation, he and his wife Mary’s daughters Lucy, nine,
and Anna, seven, also merit credit for the sharpened
perspective. “Having children, I think, it just changes
the way you think of the world,” he says. “It makes you
more aware of the preciousness of life and a little bit less
willing to be skeptical or to look askance at the wonders
of something that is present before you.”
Nemerov’s wide-ranging intellect and openness
to aesthetic experience come to bear on his scholarly
work where, as a historian of both art and American
culture, he is driven to render the past vividly present.
His 2010 book Acting in the Night: Macbeth and the
Places of the Civil War (University of California Press),
examines the era through the lens of a single performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy staged in Washington,
D.C., a production that President Lincoln was on hand
to view.
19
A
THE
CCIw
20
TAL
DESIGNER
by Amy Sutherland
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
DEN
hile Rachel Comey ’94 worked
at her first big design job at the
fashion label Theory, she moonlighted on her own small line of
men’s button-down shirts, not thinking to
inform her boss of the sideline. But when
Time Out New York sent a photographer
to a small show then ran a large photo in
the next issue, word was out.
Her boss took one look at the magazine and fired Comey. “He said, ‘Why
didn’t you come to me?’” she remembers.
“I found out later that he really liked to
help young designers get started.”
Still, getting axed had an unforeseen
benefit for her career—an unemployment check. That gave Comey enough
money to get by and enough time to dig
deeper into design and launch her own
fashion line. Ten years later Comey’s
small label not only still exists, a miracle
in the fashion business, but thrives. She’s
become known for non-trendy designs
in eye-catching prints that make for a hip
librarian look. Her clothes are sported by
PORTRAIT: TAKEMI PHOTOGRAPHY; RUNWAY: RANDY BROOKS
21
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
O
n a spring afternoon in her New York studio,
Comey pulls her chair up to a folding table,
her desk in a sea of open cardboard boxes and
tangled piles of her signature wooden-heeled shoes. As
reggae music bounces along, her staff quietly peer at
computers or sort fabric samples in the same, light-filled
space. A wail from the back of the room breaks the quiet
concentration.
“I better go back and get
that baby,” Comey says.
Though it might not appear so in the studio’s relative calm, the past year has been busier than usual for
the fashion designer. Bruno (that baby) was born in fall
2010, Comey’s and her boyfriend Sean Carmody’s first.
“I thought I did twenty things at once before,” Comey
says of being a working mom. “Now it’s double time.”
Then in December she moved her crew from their
longtime, cave-like Tribeca digs to a space three-times
bigger (and with amenities like a bathroom) on an especially busy stretch of South Broadway in NoHo. Little
more than a month after the move came New York’s fall
fashion week. No wonder Comey and her staff have yet
to even decide where their desks, when they get them,
will go.
Comey has a petite beauty, somewhat like the French
actress Audrey Tautou, contrasted by a broad smile
and a hearty laugh. Her face is wrought of strong lines,
pointed chin and dark eyebrows. Her manner is downto-earth for a business and city that is anything but. “My
friends in New York say they think of me as a Vermont
person though I’ve been here fifteen years,” she says.
When Comey landed here in 1997, she worked as a
production assistant, chauffering models to shoots and
FA L L 2 0 1 1
22
the likes of Kirsten Dunst and Maggie
Gyllenhaal and carried by more than
one hundred stores, including Barney’s New York.
Most fashion designers of Comey’s rank have wanted
to be such practically since they were in onesies. For
Comey, though, it was a slow evolution, one that started
in Burlington, where she studied sculpture at UVM and
scoured the city’s second-hand shops for bits of worn
inspiration.
Comey grew up in suburban Hartford, Connecticut,
but her clan often headed north to Ludlow, Vermont,
for vacation. The family spent so much time there that
when Comey cast about for colleges, UVM seemed a
natural pick. “It felt like my state university,” she says.
At UVM, she majored in Asian studies but her real
love was art. She studied printmaking with now retired
Professor Bill Davison and sculpture with his wife, Professor Kathleen Schneider ’79. Both teachers, Comey
says, were formative influences—from teaching her the
mechanics of how to make things to shaping her nascent
artistic sensibility.
Comey, however, did not make much of an impression on either professor at first, if only because she was
so quiet, “not one of the cool kids,” as Schneider says.
Then Comey turned in her first assignment in Schneider’s
sculpture class using found objects,
a mirror framed by feather pillows.
“It just surprised me so much,
this radical use of soft pillows,”
Schneider says. “From that point
on it was clear that she was a more visionary student
than others.”
After graduating, Comey spent a few years in and
around Burlington. She waited tables in a granny skirt
and then landed a job at Jager Di Paola Kemp Design,
first as a receptionist and then as the first director of the
advertising/marketing firm’s Exquisite Corpse Gallery.
Comey continued to make sculpture during those
years, but increasingly thought beyond the studio. She
designed a line of novelty underwear. She created costumes and stage props for then-boyfriend Eugene Hutz
of the gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello.
“With sculpture you are alone in a studio,” she says. “I
wanted to be more involved with industry.”
fetching props. She and Hutz rented an
apartment on the Lower East Side for $400
a month. “We had to pay in cash, that kind
of place,” she says. Comey kept making
sculpture as well as props and costumes for
Hutz’s band. She had yet to set her sights
on fashion. “It took a few years for me to get
interested, to not see it as being frivolous,”
she says.
Her costumes for Hutz drew requests
for other one-of-a-kind garments, which
eventually led to the job at Theory. After
Theory, with her unemployment checks
in hand, Comey stuck with menswear for
her first few collections. Then, after learning women were buying her men’s shirts in
extra-small sizes, Comey added women’s
wear and her down-to-earth shoes. Still,
it took Comey, who juggled credit cards
to finance her company, six years to turn a
profit. “I never realized it would take that
long,” she admits.
Early on Comey got tagged a hipster
favorite, with live music at her shows and
her vaguely vintage frocks with a contemporary twist that anyone could wear, and it
has stuck. Throughout her collections, there’s an ease in
her clothes, in the boxy yet loose shapes, that would flatter the average woman.
“My design comes from a very pragmatic view rather
than from a red carpet glamour place,” she says.
Balancing the business side and her creative work
doesn’t seem to faze Comey. She loves working with
manufacturers, pushing them to make unusual fabrics,
such as printing a cable knit sweater pattern on a delicate
chiffon or hand painting on a cotton. The designer finds
inspiration in the world around her, at bookstores or
flea markets, but fabrics are her creative building blocks.
Only once she’s decided on them, which are all custom
made, does she start designing the garments. Just as
when she made sculpture, materials remain all important to her.
Around her hang samples of each of her collections
from the past ten years. There isn’t a sculpture in sight.
Comey kept none of them, just some prints from her
student days, and hasn’t made one since she launched
her label. She doesn’t miss it. Making sculptures isn’t
that different from making garments, she says, and those
she has racks and racks of, and racks more to make. VQ
23
Twenty years ago, the UVM women’s basketball team opened the 1991-92 season
by beating Rhode Island, 75-45, in a game
played before a Kingston crowd so small
no one bothered to record the attendance.
Yet that Catamount victory was a quiet
landmark, the first step on a journey that
would transform the place of women’s basketball at the University of Vermont.
Vermont marched through that winter
stacking victories like cordwood. By midJanuary, UVM stood as the only undefeated team in Division I women’s basketball. A season that began with crowds
so sparse the university opened only one
side of the bleachers at Patrick Gymnasium ended with fans standing for hours
in sub-freezing temperatures to buy tickets. Over the course of four months, a program largely unknown in its own community became the darlings of an entire state
and part of the national conversation in
women’s college basketball. In March, the
Cats’ 29-0 record earned an invitation to
the NCAA tournament, a first for both the
school and the North Atlantic Conference.
29-1
19 9 1 / 19 9 2
WO MEN’S B A S K E T B A L L
the
RUN
LONG
24
Against all odds, Vermont duplicated
its undefeated regular season the very next
year. But the 1991-92 Catamounts stand
alone. They are the benchmark against
which all others are measured. Four
players and the head coach have been
inducted into UVM’s Athletic Hall of
Fame. Over the last two decades, the members of that team have forged careers in
engineering, accounting, coaching, town
government, and college administration.
by Andy Gardiner G‘75
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
Looking back on a historic season
SALLY MCCAY
25
1991
1992
SEASON OF
CATCHING UP WITH
THE ’91/’92 CATS
CATHY INGLESE was head
coach at Boston College for
fifteen seasons after leaving
Vermont, taking the Eagles to the NCAA
tournament seven times. She has been the
head coach at the University of Rhode Island
since 2009.
SHARON BAY is a senior project manager
at non-profit Vermont Energy Investment
Corporation working to reduce the economic
and environmental costs of energy. She lives
in St. George with her husband, Eric Hunter,
and daughters Bray and Addi.
KARI GREENBAUM earned a degree in
carpentry from Southern Maine Technical
They have married
and become mothers.
And beyond even the
tight bonds formed
among teammates, they have remained close friends and
colleagues. The 1991-92 season endures as a touchstone
in their lives.
“That group of players was a team. As much as their
talent, that was what made them successful,” says their
head coach, Cathy Inglese. “To look at them now and
see how they have stayed together and how connected
they are, that to me is the epitome of coaching success.”
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
RAISING THE BAR
26
Inglese had a hard time tempering her excitement as the
start of practice approached in fall 1991. In the sixth year
of her first head coaching job, she had turned a mediocre program into one of New England’s most promising.
UVM had gone 22-7 the previous season, setting a school
record for victories before losing to reigning NAC kingpin Maine in the conference tournament finals.
“I thought it could be a breakout year for us,” Inglese says. “We had steadily gotten better, we had a good
group coming back and I really liked our chemistry.”
Seniors Missy Kelsen ’92 and Sue Marsland ’92
started in the backcourt, where highly-touted freshmen
Carrie LaPine ’95 and Kari Greenbaum ’95 were poised
to add quality depth. Sharon Bay ’93 and Sheri Turnbull
’94 gave Vermont a frontcourt tandem that could score
and rebound. Junior Jen Niebling ’93 completed the
starting lineup. A fierce competitor who could play any
position on the court, her personality embodied that of
the team’s. These Catamounts had moxie.
Preseason practice unfolded in the same manner as
in previous years. Assistant coaches Pam Borton and
Keith Cieplicki, both of whom would later lead UVM
to the NCAA tournament as head coaches, were extensions of Inglese’s single-minded coaching personality.
Practices were intense.
“We were doing everything the same as when I was a
freshman— nothing changed,” Marsland says. “We were
in the gym at least two-and-a-half hours every day. One
of the running jokes was when coach said we were going
to have a short practice, it meant two hours and fifteen
minutes.”
But the players thrived on Inglese’s demanding
approach.
“I think Cathy just challenged us so much every day,”
Niebling says. “Practices were so much harder than the
games. You just wanted to get through Wednesday, get
through Thursday, get through Friday. When Saturday
came, it was like ‘whoo-hoo,’ we finally have a game and
can get a little break.”
The over-arching goal that fall was to beat Maine and
win the conference title. It took a freshman to broaden
that vision.
“Cathy would always have us list our goals before
the season began and I remember Carrie LaPine asking
why we couldn’t put making the NCAA tournament up
there on the board,” Turnbull says. “None of us had even
TOP LEFT AND RIGHT: SALLY MCCAY; ALL ELSE, WILLIAM DILILLO
thought of that before.”
While LaPine’s question kicked the team’s level of
aspiration up a notch, a January run through stiff competition in a tournament at Central Florida made that
sense of potential real.
“I remember thinking after we won the Central Florida tournament that we had really taken another step as
a team,” Niebling says. “We felt we could be at another
level instead of just grinding out game after game. We
were just ready to start pounding people.”
FILLING THE GYM
The wins kept coming as January ran into February. Vermont cleared a major hurdle when it beat Maine 69-62
in front of a then-record crowd of 1,150 at Patrick. The
Catamounts had begun to attract a following.
Malcolm Levanway, a native Vermonter from Essex
Junction and a comptroller at Hackett, Valine and MacDonald, had begun attending UVM women’s games
in the late 1970s. Suddenly he had company, lots of it.
“There had been so few people at games it almost felt as
if you were inside the locker room when you sat in the
stands,” Levanway recalls. “When they opened the other
side of the bleachers it was a momentous day. We felt
like we were big-time then.”
The players weren’t quite sure what to make of their
newfound fame.
“People were stopping you in the supermarket to talk
about the game and know more about the team. Little
kids would ask for your autograph,” Turnbull says. “No
College after her graduation from UVM. She
is now co-owner and lead carpenter of Skada
Builders, a residential design-build company
based in Westford, where she resides with her
life partner and two dogs.
SUE (MARSLAND) HAGENS returned to
the University of Vermont in 2001 and is an
associate director of athletics. She lives in
Colchester with her husband.
MISSY KELSEN is vice president for finance
for CommutAir, a small regional airline in
South Burlington. She lives in Bristol with
children Anna and Austin.
SHERI (TURNBULL) LACY played in Europe
for three seasons and for the last fourteen
years has been an engineer with Husky IMS in
Milton, where she lives with her husband and
daughters Rileigh and Shaleigh.
CARRIE (LAPINE) LEE is the co-founder of
Alliance and Property Management, Inc.,
specializing in the management of affordable
housing. She, her husband, Chris, and their
golden retriever, Midas, divide time between
their home in Jericho and log cabin in
Jeffersonville.
JEN NIEBLING was head women’s coach at
Trinity College for three years, an assistant
at UVM for five seasons, and has been head
women’s basketball coach at St. Michael’s College since 2003. She lives in Burlington.
“Opening up the bleachers,
receiving votes in the
national polls, being the
only undefeated team in the
country—so many things
were happening that we
hadn’t planned on.”
—Head Coach Cathy Inglese
a chant of “N-C-A-A” rose from the bleachers in the
game’s closing minutes.
An at-large invitation was still uncertain when the
team gathered at Inglese’s house the next day to watch
the selection show on ESPN. But the suspense didn’t
last long. Vermont was one of the first teams announced
in the field, seeded ninth in their region and drawing eighth-seeded George Washington in the opening
round.
“I felt such joy,” Inglese says. “We were going to be
the first team from our conference to reach the tournament and now we had a chance to play on the national
stage.”
28
one had ever done that before, but we embraced it. It
was empowering.”
Inglese realized Vermont’s profile was rising with
every win but she would not let her team’s focus waver.
“Opening up the bleachers, receiving votes in the
national polls, being the only undefeated team in the
country—so many things were happening that we hadn’t
planned on,” she says. “I remember not talking with the
team about winning, only about what they needed to be
prepared for a game and be successful.”
On March 1, Vermont beat Boston University,
70-63, to bump its record to 25-0. Sitting in the stands
was Linda Bruno, an assistant commissioner in the Big
East Conference and a member of the NCAA Division
I women’s tournament selection committee. She was
there to measure UVM’s worthiness for an at-large bid.
“They had obviously caught the attention of everyone because they were undefeated,” Bruno says.” I don’t
care what league you’re in or who you play, going undefeated is a tremendous accomplishment.
“But there weren’t a lot of options (for tournament
berths) back then. If Vermont had stumbled somewhere
along the way, I’m not sure what would have happened
in terms of the NCAA tournament.”
Inglese feared that one false step would, indeed, shatter Vermont’s dream of an NCAA bid. “I never said it to
the kids, but if somebody gets sick, something happens,
we lose to anybody and we’re not going,” she says.
The Catamounts never faltered. After completing the
regular season 26-0, they easily ran through the first two
rounds of the NAC Tournament, setting the stage for
the championship game against Maine before a record
house—a crowd worthy of counting—3,228 in Patrick
Gym. On the way to a comfortable twenty-point win,
But the storybook season would not have a storybook
end. Turnbull still has not been able to bring herself to
watch the film of Vermont’s loss to George Washington
in its NCAA debut.
UVM had bolted to a seventeen-point first half lead
only to fall behind by ten in the second half when the
Colonials kept pounding the ball inside to their towering
center. But the Catamounts rallied and had the ball for the
game’s final possession, trailing by a point—then a heartbreaking turnover and GW killed the remaining seconds.
“That was a tough locker room, a lot of sadness,”
Turnbull says. “We sat there thinking, what do we do
now?”
Two busloads of fans had traveled to Washington,
D.C., for the tournament game, and back in Vermont
several hundred supporters gathered at Burlington
International Airport to greet the team on its return.
“I thought, win or lose, look at what we have accomplished,” Inglese says. “All these people are getting such
joy and pleasure out of watching our team. We changed
the attitude of what women athletes could do.”
Niebling has given a great deal of thought to the
legacy of that team and the bond the players still share.
“It was the community’s team and it was great that we
shared it with so many people,” she says. “It took an
unwavering commitment from a lot of people, starting
with Cathy. It didn’t just magically happen.
“But looking back, we had such a level of trust and
respect for each other that it became a transformative experience. Maybe it’s a comfort level, maybe it’s a
defining-who-you are level, but we have been through so
much together that you feel you can just call each other
up and it’s still like you’re sisters. I feel very fortunate to
be a part of that.”
VQ
L I ST E N I N G
to the
STARS
story & photography by Joshua Brown
I
T IS ALMOST NIGHT on the
island of Puerto Rico. Astronomer Joanna Rankin raises her
head toward the sky. A few of the
brightest stars shine through blue cracks in a ragged dome of gray
clouds. To her back, a jungle throbs with the insistent call of frogs.
In front of her, a giant bowl made of perforated metal dips steeply
and rises on the other side of the valley, a thousand feet away. It
looks like a colossal contact lens dropped from outer space.
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
VERMONT’S TEAM
29
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
No bright glowing ball of gas like our home-star, pulsars are the burned-out core of a moderately large star
that has consumed all its fuel. With no more outward
pressure from the burning hydrogen, the star suddenly
collapses on itself and then rebounds, blowing off its
outer layer in a spectacularly violent explosion. Compressed by the explosion and gravity, what remains is
a sphere so dense that its atoms degenerate into naked
neutrons and exotic particles smashed on top of each
other in unearthly layers that contain about a billion
tons per square centimeter.
“Pulsars are about the size of a small city, like Burlington—maybe ten miles across,” Rankin says, “with
mass comparable to or somewhat greater than the sun.”
Compared to a black hole, a pulsar is a kind of scrawny
cousin not quite massive enough to fall into complete
light-sucking density. Still, a sugar cube of this star-stuff
would weigh more than all the people on Earth.
And, like a twirling figure skater who suddenly pulls
her arms in and starts spinning much faster, this tremendous compression of mass during the formation of
a pulsar sets it spinning so fast it challenges our Earthbound conception of speed. A “regular” pulsar will spin
several times per second, but another family of pulsars
gathers additional speed by pulling in gas from another
star nearby. These so-called millisecond pulsars can spin
as fast as seven hundred times a second, nearly onequarter the speed of light.
“Pulsar” is a contraction for “pulsating star”—but
they’re actually more like a lighthouse. As a pulsar
spins—or more accurately because a pulsar spins, like
the universe’s most powerful electrical generator—it
shoots out two cones of radio emissions from several
hundred miles above its bogglingly powerful magnetic
poles. Then this dual beam sweeps across the cosmos for
hundreds or thousands of years, until it happens
“I’ve never lost
to shine on Earth, and a few of its photons chance
sight of my privito fall on a reflector in a limestone sinkhole in a
lege in using this
Puerto Rican forest—where this radio energy
instrument, to come
appears as a methodical flash in a telescope tuned
here and have a
to the right frequencies.
T
kind of one-way
conversation with
nature that almost
no one else can.”
—Joanna Rankin
wo days later, Rankin and one of her
students, Isabel Kloumann, are in the
Arecibo Observatory’s control room,
tuning in pulsars. They’ve been allotted about
three hours to run the telescope. The place looks
like a cross between the bridge from Star Trek and the
nurse’s station in an intensive care unit. Behind a curving bank of double-stacked computer screens—filled
with pulsing graphs and long rows of numbers—a twostory window looks out on the telescope. From speakers
FA L L 2 0 1 1
30
This is the reflecting dish of the Arecibo Observatory: the largest radio telescope in the world,
located in Puerto Rico due to ideal natural conditions, a sinkhole in the limestone hills over which
to suspend the dish. Rankin has been coming here
to study stars since she was a graduate student in
the 1960s. Now she brings her own students here
to, as she says, “get their hands on the wheel.”
Tonight, she stands next to one of the three concrete towers that surround the dish, chatting
amiably in the fading pink light with her partner,
Mary Fillmore, and three undergraduates from the
UVM physics department: Isabel Kloumann ’10,
Mateus Teixeira ’11, and Stephanie Young ’11.
Above them, 450 feet over the center of the
reflecting dish, floats an impossible-looking
metal lattice triangle. Suspended by cables from
the three towers, it looks like some child’s fantasy airship made from an erector set—except it
weighs nine-hundred tons. From the underbelly
of this contraption dangles a huge antenna and
a flattened silver ball sixty feet across, the telescope’s Gregorian dome.
“I’ve never lost sight of my privilege in using
this instrument,” Rankin says, again turning her head
skyward, “to come here and have a kind of one-way conversation with nature that almost no one else can.”
What Rankin listens for in this conversation are the
sounds of pulsars—one of nature’s strangest objects.
And what she hears from these unlikely stars may help
to prove one of Albert Einstein’s most outlandish theories: the existence of waves in the fabric of space itself.
But even if the sky were perfectly clear tonight, the pulsars Rankin has come here to study would not be visible.
Instead, she relies on the staggering sensitivity of this
telescope to gather infinitesimal drops of radio-wave
energy from them, which she then teases apart looking
for sidereal meaning, the language of stars.
At first, astronomers thought pulsars might be aliens.
In 1967, an enterprising graduate student at Cambridge University named Jocelyn Bell was baffled by the
extreme regularity of highly focused radio wave bursts
she accidentally discovered coming in from one point
in the Milky Way. On then off—every 1.3 seconds.
Nothing like this had ever been observed in the heavens; nothing like it had even been imagined. She dubbed
the source LGM-1, for “little green men.” Had she made
contact? The extraterrestrial messages turned out to be
radio bursts from a pulsar.
31
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
analysis by Rankin and her students. And much of what
has been learned about pulsars in the last four decades
has been from radio data gathered, just like what Rankin
and Kloumann are doing, here at the Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation.
“But there is much that remains mysterious,” Rankin
says. “We have a very good cartoon,” she says, “we know
that pulsars tap their rotational energy—somehow—
and turn it into radio waves.”
“But we don’t exactly understand the emissions
processes,” she says, “is it more like a laser or clouds of
particles?”
To even get to the cartoon stage of understanding,
astrophysicists like Rankin have tried to decipher the
language of emissions that different kinds of pulsars produce. And her students do the same.
“The flash is not just a flash,” Kloumann says, “it has
structure to it.”
When you shine a flashlight on the wall, some parts
are bright, some are dim. Ditto for pulsar emissions. The
radio beam surges and shifts like a rotating carousel of
lights. “The devil is in those details of the pulse’s variations and geometry,” says Rankin.
Or consider pulsar B1944+17 that Kloumann has
been studying on her own for several years. She will
be presenting a scientific paper on this star here at the
observatory in a few days—in a conference dubbed
the “Fab Five Fest,” to honor five astronomers,
including Rankin, who have been the leading
pulsar scientists at Arecibo over the years. Kloumann will tell them how B1944+17 sometimes
just turns off. And no one is exactly sure why.
“All of us in Joanna’s group, we’re looking at
these really unusual stars that don’t fit the perfect model,” Kloumann says. “They test the bounds of
the theory—which is what you always should do in science: push the limits of the theory.”
N
ight has fallen again and Joanna Rankin,
Mary Fillmore, and Isabel Kloumann are
sitting on the porch of one of the small
plywood huts that dot the steep hillside about the telescope, mixing drinks with pineapple juice. Again the
darkness is laced with the sound of frogs, a hint of salt air
from the nearby ocean, and thin bands of stars through
the thick vegetation.
Over the years, with funding from the National Science Foundation, Rankin has brought many crews of
students to Arecibo. “They’re my pulsar mafia,” she
says with a deadpan look and then laughs, “watch out
for astronomers.” Some of the students do go on in
astronomy. Isaac Backus ’11 came back for a summer
internship at the observatory and then onto another
post at a telescope in India. He’s about to begin a doc-
FA L L 2 0 1 1
32
on the wall, a soft repetitive beeping fills the air, sounding a bit like Arecibo’s nighttime frogs. It’s the noise of
motors and gears on the telescope’s platform, moving
overhead to follow a star.
Rankin and Kloumann have almost finished a fortyminute run of having the telescope track a faint pulsar
named, without even a whiff of poetry, B2044+15. “So,
we should make a move to a new star,” Rankin says, and
then looks through the top of her glasses with a smile.
“Do you want to drive?”
“I’d love to, yes,” says Kloumann and Rankin pushes
back her chair so that her student can get to the keyboard.
Rankin points to one of the flat-screen monitors glowing blue in the strange half-light. “If you go over to the leftmost panel you can bring up pointing control,” Rankin
instructs. “And let’s go to pulsar 2110+27,” she says.
Kloumann begins to enter instructions into the computer and soon the massive telescope outside starts moving to her commands, the Gregorian dome ponderously
sliding along its curving track as the whole circular base
rotates. Soon radio waves from B2110+27 will begin
bouncing off the reflecting dish up to helium-cooled
receivers in the Gregorian dome. Then, as improbably as
picking out a mosquito’s heartbeat in a roaring stadium,
the star’s pulses begin thump, thump, thumping across
the screen.
In these pulses is the raw material for months of future
torate in physics at the University of
Washington. Megan Force ’09 G’11
came to Arecibo with Rankin and is
now enrolled in a doctoral program in
astrophysics at Dartmouth. And this
is Kloumann’s second trip to the telescope. She has leveraged her training
in astronomy and applied mathematics into a slot as a doctoral student at
Cornell.
Rankin, and several of Kloumann’s
other professors, describe her as one
of the finest students they’ve taught. Winner of a Goldwater Scholarship and other awards, she’s first author on
a publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is a co-author on a forthcoming
article in the journal PLoS One.
In her turn, Kloumann raves about Rankin. “Joanna
is a pulsar goddess,” Kloumann and the other physics students say several times during the Arecibo visit.
“She’s a fantastic mentor who is there when you need
her and leaves you alone when you don’t.”
Tonight, Rankin and Kloumann are tutoring a somewhat more plodding student of physics. They’re explaining to me, for a second time, how a better theory of pulsars may, in turn, help confirm one of Albert Einstein’s
most intriguing predictions: the existence of gravitational waves.
In 1916, Einstein put forth his general theory of relativity and that was the end of Western science’s twohundred-year trip on Isaac Newton’s leaking boat. In the
first great scientific revolution of the twentieth century,
“Joanna is a pulsar
goddess,” Isabel Kloumann and the other
physics students say
several times during
the Arecibo visit. “She’s
a fantastic mentor who
is there when you need
her and leaves you
alone when you don’t.”
33
Einstein demonstrated that space and time flow
together—that they are, really, as physicists now say,
“spacetime.” Equally strange, Einstein demonstrated
that this spacetime, “like a vast sheet of rubber,” says
Kloumann, can be bent by matter and energy.
And it’s this bending, these dimples and depressions
in this substanceless sheet, that are responsible for gravity. In Isaac Newton’s universe, the moon and Earth simply attract each other. In Albert Einstein’s universe, the
moon falls into the depression the Earth has made in
the fabric of spacetime. And the flow of time, too, slows
down as spacetime is warped near massive objects, like
Earth, or, far more so, stars.
From this general theory, Einstein conjectured that
when two massive objects, say two black holes, “go spin-
human-made atomic clocks. Scientists can now show
that, about five hundred light-years away, the pulsar
J0437-4715 spins on its axis every 5.7574451831072007
milliseconds—give or take a pinch.
And that accuracy—and more—will be necessary to
surf the trough of a gravitational wave. Which is what
a consortium of U.S. and international astrophysicists,
including Rankin, aims to do. The group, NANOGrav, is
assembling a selection of highly precise pulsars in many
parts of the sky and is timing the arrival of their pulses
for years.
These dozens of pulsars, working as far-off clocks,
will allow the team to sift out when a gravitational wave
has passed by. They’ll be looking for a distinctive pattern
in the arrival time of emissions from pulsars in opposite
“To detect gravitational waves is in some sense
the missing link of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”
IN THIS ISSUE
Reunion/Homecoming
Planned Giving
Philanthropy
Calendar
Class Notes
Janette Bombardier ’80
Annie Selke ’85
In Memoriam
35
39
40
42
43
50
54
60
ALUMNI
CONNECTION
34
ning around each other like a whirling dumbbell,” says
Kloumann, they should make waves in the fabric of
spacetime. “A bit like ripples from a pebble tossed into
a pond,” she says.
These waves, physicists now are confident, travel
through the universe, passing through Earth, you, this
magazine—at the speed of light.
“To detect gravitational waves is in some sense the
missing link of Einstein’s theory of general relativity,”
says Rankin. Problem is, gravitational waves are small.
“Exceedingly tiny, tiny, tiny,” says Kloumann. So small
that a passing gravitational wave would stretch this magazine by only a fraction of the width of an atom. Which
is why, though they were indirectly confirmed in 1993,
they have never been directly observed.
Here’s where pulsars may help. To understand how,
consider another freakish aspect of these stars: they
are the universe’s best clocks. In 1967, Jocelyn Bell discovered that her little green men didn’t flash every 1.3
seconds, they flashed exactly every 1.337 seconds. No,
every 1.33728 seconds…and when she and her professor were done calculating they realized that the finest human-made clocks of the day were not accurate
enough to time this strange signal.
Because of their extreme density and enormous
speed, pulsars turn out to be a nearly perfect flywheel—
and this stability makes the arrival of each pulse so regular that some pulsars rival or exceed the precision of
sides of the sky. And this requires developing enough
precision to distinguish the wave’s faint but unmistakable signature from many other disturbances to the
incoming radio waves.
“Pulsars are highly precise, but they’re not perfectly
precise,” Kloumann says. Sometimes pulsars appear to
have starquakes. These kinds of glitches and the variations within single pulses that Rankin studies are one
form of noise that need to be accounted for in the
NANOGrav models—so the team can pick out the
puny voice of gravity from the roaring din of the cosmos.
If gravitational waves can be detected, then the location and strength of their sources can be calculated. And
that, Rankin thinks, could be as revolutionary as Galileo’s invention of the optical telescope. “Being able to
detect gravitational waves opens up a whole new equivalent spectrum,” she says. “We’ll be able to study gravitational radiation as well as electromagnetic radiation.”
Some astronomers anticipate the invention of gravity telescopes that will be able to look at spinning black
holes, cracks in the universe called cosmic strings, and
deeper into space than the most-distant quasars now
visible. Some speculate about revealing new galaxies of
invisible stars made from exotic dark matter. Perhaps
some member of Joanna Rankin’s pulsar mafia will, like
Jocelyn Bell in 1967, make the next unexpected discovery. “Who knows what we’ll find out there,” says Kloumann. “It’s like never having seen light before.”
VQ
REUNION
2011
HOMECOMING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SALLY MCCAY
T
here are big weekends and Big Weekends. This
was a BIG WEEKEND.
For the first time this fall, UVM combined
its Reunion, Homecoming, and Family Weekend into
a three-day fall extravaganza that had alumni, students,
families, faculty, and staff on the go at every corner of the
campus and beyond for more than 125 events scheduled
—and not—during every waking hour.
There were diversions aplenty, with energetic sixtysomethings buzzing about on their Segway two-wheelers while their grandchildren scaled a climbing wall or
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
—Astronomer Joanna Rankin
35
REUNION/HOMECOMING
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
CONNECTION
REUNION
2011
HOMECOMING
had their faces painted. No matter
what your age or inclination, there
was something for you—campus
historic tours, lake cruises, an alumni
art show, a 175th anniversary Greek
Gala celebration, exhibits at the
Fleming Museum, and a Fall Fest
between Bailey-Howe and the Davis
Center with the authentic look and
feel of a Vermont county fair.
The runners in attendance can
forever boast that they were there
for the first lap on UVM’s new track
facility on the Archie Post complex.
And speaking of running, Roger
Zimmerman, Class of 1961, crossed
the finish line on his 166-mile 50th
Reunion “Payback Run” from his
hometown in Bethel, Maine, to raise
money for scholarships.
The annual Scholarship Luncheon provided poignant examples
of the power of giving, including
words from and about UVM students benefiting from gifts in memory of the alumni who perished in
the World Trade Center attacks of a
decade ago, and the announcement
of a new $1 million gift to scholarships from alumnus Don McCree
’83 and his wife, Gabby.
Even the weather did its best to
cooperate in orchestrating a weekend that “couldn’t have been better,”
according to the organizers.
Check VQ on-line for a slideshow
and more on alumni award winners.
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
ONLINE
EXTRA
Roger Zimmerman
’61 (center) takes a
well-deserved rest
after his “Payback
Run”; something
for everyone at a
festive fall weekend
in October.
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36
ALUMNI
37
CONNECTION
2011 DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD WINNERS
Leon Heyward ’81
Louise Weiner ’61
Tim Thomas ‘97
Martin St. Louis ’97
Bruce Rockowitz ‘80
(not pictured)
John M. Dineen ’86
Diane B. Greene ’76
OUTSTANDING YOUNG ALUMNI AWARD
James Bishop ’04
Michelle Veronneau ’04
Katherine Kasarjian Murphy ’06
Life itself
THE GEORGE V. KIDDER
OUTSTANDING FACULTY AWARD
Stephanie Kaza
ohn Dewey, UVM Class of 1879, famously
averred, “Education is not preparation for
life. Education is life itself.” He would have
been pleased to see how his dictum has been put
into practice by John and Helen Newton ’63 of
Swanton, Vermont, for whom learning has been
a lifelong passion. Now retired, the couple’s
enthusiastic interest in the world around them
has found the perfect outlet in UVM’s Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute.
At their picture-postcard summer property
on an idyllic Lake Champlain shore point, John
and Helen speak with obvious pride of the Osher
Institute’s St. Albans lecture series, which they
helped organize some six years ago and today
attracts several dozen of the area’s over-50 set
each month. Topics this fall ranged from “Limits of Power
in the Middle East” and “The Lake Champlain Bridge
Project” to “Vermont Politics as We Enter the 2010 Election Year.” Speakers are drawn from an eclectic slate of
authors, researchers, artists, scholars, political figures—
people with a good story to tell and preferably a Vermont
connection, says John.
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) was
established in Vermont in 2003 when UVM received a
grant from California’s Bernard Osher Foundation to
develop courses and programs for Vermonters age 50 and
over. The university received three subsequent grants followed by a $1 million endowment in October 2006 to
permanently establish the institute at UVM. In addition
to Burlington, institutes now exist in eight other Vermont
communities—Brattleboro, Rutland, Montpelier, Newport/Derby/Stanstead, Springfield, St. Albans, Lamoille
Valley, and St. Johnsbury.
The Newtons’ involvement with OLLI is one way they
have chosen to express their belief in the importance of
education and those who provide it. Another is the charitable remainder trust they established to benefit each of
their alma maters—Norwich University, where John
earned his degree in mechanical engineering, and UVM,
where Helen earned both her bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in English. Half of the trust will be used to establish the Helen W. Newton Scholarship Fund at UVM,
with interest awarded annually to a student from Windham or Franklin counties in Vermont.
Helen spent more than three decades as an English
teacher at Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans, where
she estimates she taught upwards of 3,500 students over
those years. She was the first in her family to earn a college degree and benefited from scholarship support herself to do so. “It seemed only fair that I should return it so
someone else can use it,” she says. Then, like most good
teachers, she summarizes. “I like teenagers. They’re some
of the best people in the world. They’re idealistic. They
still think they can change the world. Well, maybe one of
them will.”
THE OFFICE OF PLANNED GIVING
411 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont 05401
Voice: (802) 656-9535 Toll-free voice: (888) 458-8691
SALLY MCCAY
Website: alumni.uvm.edu/plannedgiving
Email: [email protected]
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V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
PROFILES IN GIVING
J
2011 ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNERS
38
PLANNED GIVING
A L U M N I AW A R D W I N N E R S
ALUMNI
39
PHILANTHROPY
ALUMNI
CONNECTION
UVM FOUNDATION BOARD
APPOINTS LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
Record giving a “perfect start” for UVM Foundation
T
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
40
SALLY MCCAY (2)
abode at 61 Summit
Street is expected to be
a central gathering and
relaxation spot for visiting alums when they
arrive on campus.
A $1.5 million gift
announced in August
from James Edward
“Ted” and Danielle
“Dani” Virtue of Rye,
New York, is funding
construction of a new synthetic turf field on
Giving’s impact:
the athletic campus. Virtue Field, as the new
the Bloomberg Lab
facility will be called, will serve as the home
in Kalkin Hall and
for the UVM men’s and women’s lacrosse
Newton Library in
and men’s and women’s soccer teams and
Alumni House
will also be used for campus recreation activities. It is the first phase of a planned stadium
project that will include grandstand seating for 3,000 spectators,
game-day locker rooms, public restrooms, concessions, and storage space.
A highlight at the annual UVM Scholarship Luncheon during
Reunion & Homecoming Weekend in October was the announcement of a $1 million commitment from Donald “Don” H. McCree
’83 and his wife, Gabrielle “Gabby” McCree, to support scholarships. The couple established the McCree Family Scholarship
Fund with a half-million-dollar gift in 2006 and decided to double
that commitment with a gift to be divided equally between their
named scholarship and UVM’s general scholarship fund.
And also in October, as the Foundation’s first major fall weekend drew to a close, the university learned of a $500,000 gift from
alumnus Bill Davis ’71 and Bill’s father, Robert Davis ’41, to name
the Davis Ballroom in the top floor of the UVM Alumni House on
Summit Street.
All told, it’s been a whirlwind of activity for the UVM Foundation even prior to its official operating start-up in January 2012.
“We’re off to a tremendous start, and we’re just beginning,” said
Bundy.
—Jay Goyette
Dr. James Betts ’69, MD’73, Trustee Emeritus
Physician, Alameda, CA
Michael Carpenter P’09
CEO, Ally Financial, Greenwich, CT
John Frank ’79
Vice Chairman, Sidney Frank Import Co., Greenwich, CT
Grant Gund ’91
Coppermine Capital, Weston, MA
Meg Guzewicz ’73
Vice President, Iridian Asset Management, Westport, CT
Joan Kalkin, Trustee Emerita
Bernardsville, NJ
Dr. Samuel Labow
Faculty, UVM College of Medicine, Stowe, VT
Victor Livingstone ’87
Managing Director, Morgan Stanley, South Hamilton, MA
Wolfgang Mieder
Professor, UVM College of Arts and Sciences, Williston, VT
Julie Simon Munro ’86
Larkspur, CA
Jeff Newton ’79
Managing Director, Gemini Investors, Concord, MA
Dr. Jacqueline Noonan, MD ’54
Professor, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
David Spector ’56
President, Little Pond Management, New York, NY
Dr. John Tampas ’51, MD’54
Physician, Colchester, VT
Kenneth Wormser ’78
Managing Partner, Greens Ledge Capital Markets,
Demarest, NJ
Charles Zabriskie ’53
Wellesley Hills, MA
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The impact of private giving spanned across the entire
university, touching on everything from financial assistance for medical students to program support for the
Asian Studies Outreach Program in the College of Education and Social Services, the “Greening of Aiken” renovation project, scholarships and facilities for UVM Athletics, and operating support for UVM’s historic Morgan
Horse Farm. Donors also generously supported UVM
programs and initiatives that benefit Vermont seniors and
children, such as the UVM Center on Aging and the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. Included in this
year’s total is nearly $9 million in new endowed and current use financial aid support for students.
UVM has fared well in the fundraising arena compared
with national trends. According to data from the Council for Aid to Education, charitable contributions to the
nation’s colleges and universities were roughly flat during
fiscal 2010 following a precipitous decline of 11.9 percent
in 2009, and overall, giving was 8 percent lower in 2010
than it was in 2006 in inflation-adjusted terms. Comparable data for fiscal year 2011 have not yet been released.
Giving to UVM has been strong in recent months. A
$250,000 gift in April from the Grossman Family Foundation of Cos Cob, Connecticut, enabled the School
of Business Administration to create a state-of-the-art
Bloomberg Lab in Kalkin Hall. Bloomberg is a computer system that enables
“. . . just the first of what we expect will be many
financial professionals to analyze realsuch milestones in the years ahead.”
time financial market data movements
and place trades.
In June, alumnus Stephen Ifshin ’58 and his wife, Bilprograms, and facilities during fiscal 2011. The total, a
4.5 percent increase over 2010, marked four consecutive lie Lim, made a $100,000 gift to support career services
years of growth in private giving to UVM and exceeded for students in the School of Business Administration.
the previous record of $28,615,707 set in 2007, the final Designated to the School of Business Administration
Career Services Fund, the gift is being used to help stuyear of UVM’s last comprehensive campaign.
“What’s been accomplished here is a tribute to our dents develop their career management skills.
The Newton Library in UVM’s new Alumni House
many generous benefactors and speaks very highly of the
fundraising capabilities already in place at UVM as we will be named in recognition of a $250,000 gift from
continue to build our foundation and plan for the univer- alumnus Jeffrey Newton ’79 and his wife, Sarah. The elesity’s next comprehensive campaign,” Bundy said.
gant oak-paneled enclave in the expansive Queen Anne
he University of Vermont had its best
fundraising year in history for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 2011, a result that
UVM Foundation President and CEO
Richard Bundy called “the perfect start
for the UVM Foundation and just the first of what we
expect will be many such milestones in the years ahead.”
Donors to UVM contributed a grand total of
$29,069,046 in support of UVM students, faculty,
An integral part of the volunteer leadership of the
UVM Foundation is the Foundation Leadership Council,
whose members advance the foundation and university
through their philanthropy, service, skills, networking, knowledge, and strategic business acumen. The
council provides a platform to engage the institution’s
most passionate, influential, and accomplished alumni
and friends. Council members are appointed by the
UVM Foundation Board of Directors from the membership of the Ira Allen Society by virtue of their previous
philanthropic involvement and interest in advancing the
University of Vermont. Any open seats on the Foundation Board of Directors are filled from the membership of
the Foundation Leadership Council. Members inducted
by the Board of Directors in October 2011 are—
41
C A L E N DA R
Uncasville, Connecticut
November 19-20
Men’s Basketball Hall of Fame
Tip-Off
Burlington, Vermont
November 22
Chittenden County Night
at Gutterson
Boston, Massachusetts
December 14
Museum of Fine Arts Event
Coast to Coast January 7
Frozen Fenway Game Watch
JAN
Boston, Massachusetts January 7
Frozen Fenway
DEC
New York, New York
December 7
Holiday Party
Going Greek
Boston, Massachusetts
January 12
Career Networking Night
Washington, D.C. February 6
Faculty Lecture
FEB
Boston, Massachusetts
February 1
Faculty Lecture
New York, New York February 8
Faculty Lecture
alumni.
uvm.edu
for details & registration
42
quarters over admitting minorities.
But as is the case nationally for
fraternities and sororities, it’s a
history not without its struggles.
“Unfortunately, alcohol abuse and
hazing still exists on campuses
today,” Monteaux says, but the
increased support colleges have
committed to Greek Life—in the
form of full-time advisor positions
like Monteaux’s, for example—has
helped provide to students the
education they need to make Greek
Life a safer environment for everyone. UVM’s Panhellenic Council has not had to use its judicial
board once in the past five years, an
accomplishment that helped garner
the group a national award for risk
management this year.
Monteaux, a Northern Michigan
University alumna and a member
of Phi Sigma Sigma, is quick to sing
the praises of fraternity and sorority life and what it can mean for
students’ success. “As a first-generation high school graduate, without
joining my sorority, there’s no way I
would have graduated from college.
And today I’m a doctoral student.”
At UVM, she sees more evidence
that Greek Life is thriving and,
in turn, helping students thrive.
“Since 2006, our chapter number
has grown, our individual membership has grown, and our GPAs have
gone up,” Monteaux says. “We’re
doing something right.”
SALLY MCCAY
VQ
ONLINE
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
Alumni Gallery
LIFE BEYOND GRADUATION
‘‘
Freshman Max Maltby ’15 is living right across the hall
from the dorm room where his mom, Jane Bernholz Maltby ’87,
lived her first year at UVM.
33
’’
—from the class of ’88
In September 1929 Fraser
Professor, stay in touch with him as
Middlebury, VT 05753
[email protected]
Drew entered UVM as the
do UVM Lambda Iota members of
class baby at age 16.
the 1960s and later decades.
Now at 98 he fears he may be the
Send your news to—
class survivor. If anyone else is still
UVM Alumni Relations
out there, he would be happy to
411 Main Street
36
Burlington, VT 05401
39
hear from him or her. His last 1933
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
Shelburne, VT 05482
word was from Betty Aiken Martin
[email protected]
several years ago. Fraser lives at 10
Burlington, VT 05401
40
Vermont, North Carolina, New York,
34
37
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
Vermont. She was born on the Sul-
Cuba, Quebec, Ireland, and Britain.
[email protected]
38
livan farm in Panton, Vermont on
Harbridge Manor, Williamsville, New
York, 14221, where he continues to
write memories of his long life in
Former students from Green Mountain College and from Buffalo State
College, where he was the college’s
first SUNY Distinguished Teaching
Send your news to—
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
35
Send your news to—
Ray W. Collins, Jr., M.D.
15 South Street
Send your news to—
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Send your news to—
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Send your news to—
Mary Shakespeare
Minckler
100 Wake Robin Drive
Elinor Sullivan Adams died
May 19, 2011 at the age of
90 at Helen Porter Health
Care & Rehabilitation, Middlebury,
Send your news to—
November 2, 1920. Elinor attended
UVM Alumni Relations
the one- room school on the Sand
411 Main Street
Road, Vergennes Union High School,
Burlington, VT 05401
and then the University of Vermont
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
TUNE IN TO THE CATS ONLINE
UVM Athletics has partnered with the Alumni
Association to launch CatamounTV for the 2011-12
season. The partnership will allow CatamounTV to
webcast more than one hundred Vermont home
athletic events for free via UVMathletics.com.
CatamounTV, which is accessible through UVMathletics.com, is the home of all of UVM’s online video
content, which includes: live online video streaming of home games, updates on Vermont Athletics,
interviews with coaches and student-athletes, team
and player profiles, game highlights, and press
conferences throughout the season.
F
ounded in 1836, UVM’s
Greek community this year
celebrates its 175th anniversary. At Reunion, Homecoming, and Family Weekend, UVM
fraternities and sororities feted the
occasion with a gala, shared stories
at a Greek Life history hour, and celebrated with chapter open houses,
pig roasts, and pancake breakfasts.
It’s a past—and present—worth
commemorating. While UVM’s
Greek community may not be as
large in size as neighboring institutions’—about eight hundred
students are members of the eighteen fraternities and sororities at
UVM—Greek students impress
with other numbers. Annually,
they raise more than $90,000 for
non-profits and complete about
22,000 hours of service, numbers
that are “phenomenal for our size
Greek community,” says Kimberlee
Monteaux, Student Life advisor to
UVM’s fraternities and sororities.
Service and social justice are
hallmarks of Greek Life at UVM.
“Students who choose to join a
fraternity or sorority are choosing
not only to be UVM students, but
they’re also choosing a path where
they’re dedicated to philanthropy
and service and personal growth,”
Monteaux says. This commitment
to make the world a better place
spans the community’s 175 years.
“There’s a rich history within UVM
Greek Life of opening the doors to
women and eventually students of
color,” Monteaux says, noting that
several UVM chapters splintered
from or argued with their head-
CLASS
NOTES
ALUMNI
PHOTOS
CONNECTION
NOV
ALUMNI NOTES
ALUMNI
43
CLASS NOTES
gennes in 1939. They built a home in
Panton on the Sand Road and raised
their five children: Claire Cunningham, Howard Adams, Marthe Fisher,
Sharon Clements, and Mark Adams.
Elinor was always very interested
in town affairs and so became the
first woman to serve on the board
of select persons. As the chair of the
board she used to say that “I was
good enough to serve where ever
I was capable but not too good to
drive a manure spreader through the
center of town if it needed driving.”
In 1980 Elinor retired after teaching for forty-three years. She and
George became “snow birds” for the
next fifteen years, spending the winter seasons in Arizona and returning to Panton each spring. In 1995
George and Elinor returned to Vermont to spend the rest of their lives.
Most of their family lives there; also
many of her former students and
those who have been neighbors.
All of the people that Elinor’s life
touched were a small part of her as
she is of them. Elinor donated her
body to the University of Vermont
College of Medicine. She hoped this
helped to extend her teaching life
into the future. In 1998, her husband
of forty-nine years, George, predeceased her. Elinor was survived by
five children, eight grandchildren,
four great-grandchildren, nieces,
nephews, cousins, former students,
and friends.
Send your news to—
Mary Nelson Tanner
209 Heron Point
501 East Campus Avenue
Chestertown, MD 21620
42
70TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
In your recent Green & Gold Newsletter, you may have noticed that
there was a discrepancy. The Class of
1942 had sixteen donors who gave
$33,645. Congratulations! Jane Badger Schultz of Sharon, Massachusetts, died on February 3, 2011, and
was buried in Lakeview Cemetery in
Boston. She worked at the Shawmut
Bank in Boston and The Kendall
Company in Sharon, Massachusetts.
The family had a vacation home in
Duxbury, Vermont. Dr. Edward A.
Keenan, Jr. died on April 18, 2011 in
Essex Junction, Vermont. He spent
his life as Commander in both the
Army and Navy, for both WWII and
the Korean War. He also had a family
medicine practice in Brandon, Vermont, and Essex Junction, Vermont.
He was well-known as a hiker. He
reached his goal of walking on every
highway (dirt roads too) in Vermont.
Sherburn Searl of Johns Creek was
one of several World War II veterans
honored for service by the French
ambassador. At the High Museum of
Art on May 27, Ambassador François
Delattre inducted nine veterans who
had participated in the liberation of
France into the Order of the Legion
of Honor, which was founded by
Napoleon Bonaparte and recognizes
distinguished service to the French
Republic. See a photo and read more
at alumni.uvm.edu/vq.
Send your news to–
Gwendolyn Marshia Brown
60 Slim Brown Road
Milton, VT 05468
43
I knew the day might come
when I would have to report
to you all that my husband,
Walter “Red” Dorion, had passed
away. He died on June 16, 2011.
ther states that she noticed in the
last issue of the Quarterly that the
Greek alphabet had been superimposed over a photo of “our beloved
Old Mill.” However, much to her chagrin, the Gamma and the Mu were
missing. She immediately called the
proper office at UVM to report this
oversight. In a very pleasant conversation with someone in the office
she was informed that it was done
to include all Greek organizations
on campus only and not the whole
alphabet. Mary continues to say that
she didn’t know of any Mu, but she
feels that Alpha Gamma Rho got
cheated. When Mary asked whether
anyone else had called to report
this, she was told no one had. She is
very proud of being so alert at this
stage of her life and we should all be
proud that someone in the Class of
1943 reported it! Keep in touch!
Send your news to–
June Hoffman Dorion
8 Lewis Lane
Fair Haven, VT 05743
[email protected]
44
In your recent Green & Gold
Newsletter, you may have
noticed that there was a discrepancy. The Class of 1944 had
twenty-nine donors who gave
$29,928. Questions? Call Pat Brennan
at 802-656-8284. Congratulations
and sorry for the error! We were saddened to hear of the death of Phyllis Fein Perelman. Phyllis not only
received her undergraduate degree
from UVM, but also a master’s in
education in 1969 and was a former
faculty member in the College of
Education.
Send your news to–
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
anniversary this year are Alberta
Read Reed and husband, Wendell,
and Ruth White Lyons and husband,
Howard. Many of us are traveling
less. Nancy McNamara Harris and
husband, Cliff, have decided to enjoy
New England winters again and not
go to Florida. Mary Boardman Chiasni did not go to Greensboro for
the summer. She is enjoying a senior
apartment in Charleston, South Carolina, near her daughter, Carol. Betty
Clark Vialle missed her summer on
South Hero as the Lake Champlain
flooding did so much damage to the
camp, it had to be rebuilt. Charles
Michelson wrote in with the sad
news that his wife, Wanda Hopkinson Michelson, died on December
27, 2010. If you missed the 65th, our
70th is only five years away. Start
planning now to attend.
Send your news to–
Harriet Bristol Saville
203 Deer Lane #4
Colchester, VT 05446
[email protected]
47
65TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
In your recent Green & Gold Newsletter you may have noticed that
there was a discrepancy. The Class
of 1947 had twenty-five donors who
gave $2,758. Questions? Call Pat
Brennan at 802-656-8284. Congratulations and sorry for the error!
Send your news to–
Louise Jordan Harper
15 Ward Avenue
South Deerfield, MA 01373
48
Send your news to–
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
49
Jane Long shared news of
the death of Edward Comolli
’50 on April 26, 2011. Ed
lived in Columbus, North Carolina.
He grew up in Barre, Vermont, where
his family was associated with The
Rock of Ages business there. His
daughter, Beth, with husband, Ed,
and son, Tom, both reside in Vermont. Ed was a star football player
for UVM after returning from service
in the Korean War. Ed’s wife died two
years ago. There are no grandchildren. Ed was a close friend and fraternity brother of my husband, Dick
Long, Phi Delta Theta, at UVM. For
the last fifty years Beverly Beach
Bretthauer and her husband, Walter, have lived and are now retired in
Orange, Connecticut, where she was
a nurse working mostly with moms
and newborns. A biology major at
UVM, she then went to graduate
school at Yale Nursing School. She
said that one day a whole group
of the Kennedy family came to see
the famous “rooming in” program
there. She met her husband, on a
blind date at a party where they
were singing hymns and he came
to share a song book with her. The
next day he called for a date, and
they have been together ever since.
He’s a chemical engineer, and they
have three sons. Bev and Walt were
at our 60th Reunion at UVM in 2009.
She has remained close friends with
Natalie Clapp Barber and Ed Barber who now reside in Green Valley, Arizona. On July 1 I went to a
memorial service in North Hero for
Dr. Jack White who died in West-
chester, Pennsylvania. He graduated
from UVM as an undergraduate and
from medical school. He was a member of Sigma Phi fraternity, sang in
the Sig quartet, and was a cheerleader. He completed his internship
and residency at Abington Memorial Hospital where he met and then
married Shirley Umlauf, a student
nurse. After serving as a ship doctor in the Navy from 1954-1956, Jack
returned to his hometown of Westchester to his general surgery practice, later becoming chief of surgery in Paoli. Their two sons and
daughter, together with their families, attended the Vermont memorial
gathering at Shore Acres Motel and
Restaurant which he and fraternity
brother, Douglas Tudhope ’50, have
owned and operated for many years.
A short message came from Martha Wood Sullivan of Jamesport,
New York, sending along an impressive diagram and information on
the Atlantis Marine World where she
works part-time. She mentioned that
she gets to Vermont every August
to go with Gladys Clarke Severance
to the Camp Hochelaga reunion on
Lake Champlain. Martha added that
her Gramma Wood was a house-
Green Living
At Wake Robin, residents designed and built 3 miles of
walking trails. Each Spring they produce maple syrup in
the community sugar house. And they compost, plant
gardens, and work with staff to follow earth-friendly
practices, conserve energy and use locally grown foods.
45
Live the life you choose—in a vibrant community that
shares your “green” ideals. We’re happy to tell you more.
Visit our website or give us a call today to schedule a tour.
Send your news to–
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
802.264.5100 / wakerobin.com
46
Our 65th Reunion will have
come and gone by the time
you read this. I know we do
have several who were there. Also
sixty-five years ago, I remember
weddings in Fairfax and Wilmington. Celebrating their 65th wedding
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
41
Frank Nye writes “In fairly
good health at 92, but
maturing slowly. Do hope to
be with you for the 70th Reunion.”
Our class was the first to have its
70th Reunion during Vermont’s
beautiful fall foliage. Our president,
Carole Stetson Spaulding, has a
delightful email about her UVM
memories on the Reunion website,
www.alumni.uvm.edu/reunion. Oletha Thompson Bickford and Dawn
Nichols Hazelett planned to join
classmates for the event and your
committee hopes others made it,
too. Dick Healy recently reported
that in the Memorial Day issue of the
Westborough Daily an article honored him as the “oldest living veteran
of World War II” residing in Westborough. He served in the U. S. Army
Air Corps.
Send your news to–
Maywood Metcalf Kenney
44 Birch Road
Andover, MA 01810
[email protected]
He had been in the hospital for five
days, followed by two weeks in a
rehabilitation center in Rutland. We
thought he would come home. Up
to that point he had a good quality of life, considering his age and
chronic ailments. He had a long productive life, dying at age 91, and as
he said: “June and I had a great ride.”
This was “classic Red” as those of you
who knew him will attest. He will
be missed by his family, his friends,
and his community of Fair Haven.
Patricia Pike Halleck was in attendance at his funeral service which
made me very pleased. On to happier news, I recently had the good
fortune to have lunch at the Gables,
a retirement community in Rutland, with a group of friends, among
whom was Mary Beth Bloomer. She
seems very contented there and we
had the opportunity for a good visit.
After lunch we joined a group of
people who are writing their memoirs and who shared some of their
writings with us. Art Wolk, M.D., a
UVM alum about the same vintage
as we are and a good friend of Red’s
from grade school days in Rutland,
read from his writings. I found all of
this fascinating and plan to embark
on the same venture when life gets
back to normal for me. I pass this
idea on to all of you. We have a lot
to say that is valuable. Needless to
say, I will have to sharpen my writing
skills before attempting this project. During my chat with Mary Beth I
posed the same question to her that
I had asked all of you: “Is there anything you would like to share with
your classmates that you think they
might not know about you?” She
responded that she and her husband, Bob Bloomer, at one point in
their lives had great fun riding separate motorcycles. I’m sure with helmets and all. They evidently did a
lot of “touring” in that way. He initiated the “hobby.” She joined him
since she worried about him taking
off alone. He bought her a Honda
90, she got her license by practicing
on her own, and then proceeding to
really learn how to drive. Any more
sharing out there? A final humorous comment: Mary Butler Bliss,
my roommate at Grasse Mount my
junior year, continues to be my most
regular correspondent. She calls herself “an old lady classicist” and says
she has led “a blissed life.” She fur-
SH EL B U R N E, V E RM ONT
44
UVM QUARTERLY_WAKE ROBIN GREEN LIVING AD_6.85" X 4.45"
45
mother at Delta Psi where she visited
with her family as a youngster. That’s
it for news, and I appreciate receiving any updates from all of you. My
life goes on happily between Morgan, Vermont, West Hartford, Connecticut, and New Smyrna Beach,
Florida, or anywhere on route where
we’re invited.
Send your news to–
Arline (Pat) Brush Hunt
236 Coche Brook Crossing
West Charleston, VT 05872
[email protected]
46
51
Arthur R. Hill passed away
in December of 2010. Upon
graduation from UVM, Art
married Pat Greenup in Barrington,
Rhode Island, and soon after he was
called to serve his country in the U.S.
Army in Korea. He was promoted
to First Lieutenant and awarded
the Bronze Star. Art was then stationed in the Detroit Arsenal where
he was involved in tank design. He
and Pat moved back to Barre, Vermont, where he joined his father at
Hill-Marten Corporation and they
raised five children. Art was very
active in the Barre community. In
1995 he married Christine Litchfield and in 2003 he retired to do
the things he enjoyed such as singing, sailing, and spending time in
Maine. Norma Ann “Nan” Nelson
Small died on March 11 surrounded
by her family. She graduated in the
first class of UVM’s dental hygiene
school. Nan was a longtime resident of Charlotte and worked at the
Basin Harbor Club, practiced dental hygiene, and was an advocate for
children. She was a dedicated volunteer for the American Red Cross and
enjoyed tennis, walking, and teaching line dancing. Nan is survived by
her husband of fifty-eight years, Dr.
Melvin H. Small, two children and
five grandchildren. Valerie Meyer
Chamberlain and John C. Page ’50
received an award that honors Dean
Emeritus Robert Sinclair and “recognizes retired faculty whose careers
served the College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences and UVM with distinction.” The recipients are retired
faculty who have achieved excellence in their professions, demonstrated exemplary records of service, and have strong commitments
to serve the people of Vermont.” Valerie is the only woman to have ever
received the Sinclair Award. Among
her many recognitions, she received
Outstanding and Distinguished
52
60TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Send your news to–
Helene Hemmendinger
16 Meadow Lakes 11L
East Windsor, N.J. 08520
[email protected]
53
As we turn eighty years of
age, items posted in past columns are helping us weave
UVM threads into the fabric of our
present! You may remember that
Dr. Elizabeth Borrone of western
Washington contributed last spring.
As a result, Helen Wippich Greene
picked up the thread and was planning to reconnect with Elizabeth in
Victoria, British Columbia, last summer at the conclusion of a trip to the
Canadian Rockies. After living and
working in marketing research in
New York City for thirty-plus years,
Helen’s family had moved to the
shoreline of Connecticut, and the
lovely towns of Guilford and, now,
Clinton. After a short stint in real
estate she has retired and enjoys
VQ
ONLINE
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
Alumni Gallery
traveling to far-off lands when taking time away from concerts and
choral rehearsals. Helen continues to
enjoy vacationing in Bondville, Vermont, at the Greene-Crichton family property, now owned by a third
generation of the family. She reports
that a grandnephew is now at UVM.
Helen hopes to see many of you
at our next class reunion. William
(Bill) Meyer continues the memory
thread regarding Jim Healy’s eightieth birthday celebration. Bill recalled
that Kappa Sig house brothers had
nicknamed Jim “Gabby” because he
wasn’t much of a talker, although
they all had lots of good times
together at the Kappa Sig house. Bill
and his wife, Patti Rule Meyer ’54
live a comfortable and active life in
Poughkeepsie, New York, “with many
old cronies like ourselves.” They have
four grown children and nine grandchildren that take up much of their
lives. Bill’s main hobby has been hiking; he has climbed the 100 highest mountains in New England. His
favorite hike was on the John Muir
Trail, in California, for a week above
10,000 feet, ending on Mt. Whitney with his daughter and husband,
who live in Carlsbad, California. Patti
and Bill recently attended Roger
Belden’s funeral in Burlington and
saw Howie Brathwaite ’55 among
the Belden family members. Richard Wolfe has shared the following: “A lot of change in the last few
years: after a succession of illnesses,
my wife, Lynn, died in 2009. Following a year of reorganization, I married Sheila Ann Hardaway; sold the
yacht; sold the farm in Virginia and
moved into my riverfront ‘Captain’s
Row’ house in Mystic. I still operate
the Nantucket rental properties and
have a few more boats to play with.”
In your recent Green & Gold Newsletter you may have noticed that
there was a discrepancy. The Class
of 1953 had 122 donors who gave
$23,892. Questions? Call Pat Brennan
at 802-656-8284. Congratulations
and sorry for the error!
Send your news to–
Nancy Hoyt Burnett
729 Stendhal Lane
Cupertino, CA 95014
[email protected]
54
In your recent Green & Gold
Newsletter you may have
noticed that there was a discrepancy. The Class of 1954 had 107
donors who gave $28,635. Questions? Call Pat Brennan at 802-6568284. Congratulations and sorry for
the error!
Send your news to–
Kathryn Dimick Wendling
Apt. 1, 34 Pleasant Street
Woodstock, VT 05091
[email protected]
55
Dale Blandin Golis of Tucson,
Arizona, moved on to her
next great adventure, which
surely begins this side of heaven at
the Rainbow Bridge. She has been
spotted and is in joyous reunion
with the many pets she knew and
loved. Dale passed on Friday, June
10, 2011, after two difficult years living with lung cancer. She made sure
that all those around her knew she
was busy living with courage, grace,
and dignity. Dale had a thirty-twoyear career as an elementary school
teacher and principal. She received
a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont and a master’s
degree from the University of Idaho.
She and her husband, Eugene F.
Golis, of Brooklyn, New York, were
married in 1955 and were avid travelers. Both of them learned to pilot
their single-engine plane and to sail
their thirty-nine-foot sailboat. Summers were spent camping, hiking,
boating and fishing. They retired in
1991 and spent the next four years
sailing their boat from Anacortes,
Washington, down the West Coast,
around Baja, California down the
Mexican Coast, through the Panama Canal, and on to Florida. Gene
passed away in 1996, and Dale continued the adventures and moved
to Tucson, Arizona. She bought a
motor home and summers were
spent driving to the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and beyond. She was
rarely without one of her beloved
rescue animals during these travels,
and spent many a happy day with
Pinto, Sunny, Riley and Dewey, plus
one traveling cat named Fleurs. Dale
was an avid reader, political news
enthusiast, loved music, and considered herself a student of the world.
In her later years, she quilted and
was a scrapbook enthusiast. She
was an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Northwest Tucson in Arizona. Memorial
donations can be made to the University of Idaho Foundation for benefit of the Eugene F. and Dale B. Golis
Family Endowment to support the
Waters of the West Program’s River
Basin Fund. This is an endowment
fund to support water research on
the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers
in Idaho. Margaret Shirley writes
“I’ve been retired for eleven years
after teaching English composition
and women’s studies at the University of New Hampshire for sixteen
years. Now I’m a tutor and a substitute teacher at Berwick Academy in
South Berwick, Maine. Last spring I
had an essay published in Assembly,
the West Point alumni/ae magazine.
My Vermont Quarterly essay and pictures were published in the spring
2010 issue. I raised three sons with
my former husband, Peter Louderback ’55, a Sigma Nu. Our second son, Jim Louderback, graduated from UVM in 1983. He is now
CEO of Revision3.com, a startup that
has to do with Internet TV. He was
editor-in-chief of PC Magazine for a
few years.
Send your news to–
Jane Morrison Battles
Apt. 125A
500 East Lancaster Avenue
Wayne, PA 19087
[email protected]
Daniel A. Burack
37 Osborn Road
Harrison, NY 10528
[email protected]
56
No news this time, but look
for a full report of our 55th
Reunion in the spring issue.
Send your news to–
Jane Stickney
32 Hickory Hill Road
Williston, VT 05495
[email protected]
57
55TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
With the holidays nearly upon us,
please take a precious moment or
two to drop a greeting to your UVM
classmates. Time flies and one of the
best ways to hear from each other is
through the Vermont Quarterly. Give
us all a gift of correspondence as the
year of 2011 goes fleeting by. UVM
was a part of our college years so we
need to continue to communicate
with each other. Write soon!
Send your news to–
Marilyn Falby Stetson
P.O. Box 281
Bristol, VT 05443
[email protected]
58
Class news? None today. As
this column goes to press,
schools are gearing up.
Remember the shock waves of the
first days of every new school year?
Here, a fall menu for retirees in
OLLI’s continuing education includes
tours of three sites of national interest: a satellite station in New Boston, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
with its nuclear submarine, and the
Seabrook nuclear power plant. Add
Shakespeare, de Tocqueville, Poetry,
The New Yorker and scores more—
a full schedule. No exams or grades!
Yea! Don’t you wish quality public education could be available to
everyone, young and old, for little
cost? How often I hear, “I’m not sending my kids to public school!” Sad,
huh? A lot of us not only survived
public school, but liked it. My son,
Patrick, just completed a 387-pillar solar field in South Burlington,
Vermont—helping to green-ify the
Green Mountain State. Meanwhile,
UVM, with new buildings that have
won awards for energy efficiency,
can boast that its university colors
of GREEN and gold are aptly chosen.
UVM will have new leadership soon;
Dan Fogel’s vitality is a hard act to
follow. We’ll have a lot to discover at
our next Reunion! Now, who in our
class had, or has, sons, daughters, or
grandchildren at UVM? What do the
younger generations major in? The
first ten of you to respond will get a
prize. I dare you.
Send your news to—
Libby Kidder Michael
65 Victoria Street, Unit 27
Manchester, NH 03104
[email protected]
59
Send your news to—
Henry Shaw, Jr.
112 Pebble Creek Road
Columbia, SC 29223
[email protected]
60
Send your news to—
Paul F. Heald
Foulsham Farms Real Estate
P.O. Box 2205
South Burlington, VT 05407
[email protected]
61
Miriam Portnoy DavisNeches wrote in with this
news: “My husband, Bob, and
I just celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. We met years ago as actors
and have now both become therapists, which keeps us both quite
busy. I just visited my son, Gary, and
wife and my granddaughter, Isabella, twelve, in Tacoma, Washington
but get to spend much more time
with my daughter, Hilary, and her
husband and their five-and-a-halfyear-old son, Colby, who live just a
mile from us. Hilary teaches second
grade in the charter school where
Colby attends kindergarten. Bob and
I are looking forward to a late April
vacation in Hawaii. Our brains and
bodies need to relax!! Bob still does
voice overs, Hilary still does back-up
singing and Todd still acts in television shows and commercials. I’m
now content to watch and help the
actors who come through my office
door as patients. I do enjoy the occasional residuals I get for films or
TV shows I did decades ago!! Was
that really me??” George Anderson
reports the following “Just returned
from Italy. Two weeks in Florence
and the Amalfi coast. Alive and well
in Sun City Center, Florida, for the
winter and Joe’s Pond in Vermont for
the summer.” Tom Amidon writes:
“Spent a nice weekend last summer with Steve and Louise Berry
at their place on Martha’s Vineyard
and caught up on lots of news.” Julie
Cass Kullberg writes: “I have been
retired from my nursing career since
1996. I volunteer at a comfort care
home for the terminally ill weekly.
We welcomed our second grandchild, Charles Nathaniel Kullberg, in
November 2010 and then left for our
usual winter in Clearwater, Florida.
We spend seven months there and
the rest of the year at our condo on
Irondequoit Bay in Rochester, New
York. This summer we are traveling
to Rutland,Vermont, and from there
to the Maine Inn in Poland Springs.
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
50
Bill van Scoik died of lung
cancer October 14, 2010.
Most of his working life he
was in the employ of the Agricultural
Division of the American Cyanamid
Company. John Lincoln Ballard,
social studies teacher and football coach at Dundee High School
from 1951-1983, died peacefully at
his home in Dundee, New York, on
August 14, 2011. John was born
February 12, 1925, in Milton, the son
of the late Fred M. and Anna Mae
Hammond Ballard. He graduated
from Milton High School in 1943. He
served in the United States Army–Air
Force 29th Bombardment Squadron
during World War II. After serving his
country, he graduated from the University of Vermont where he played
football, receiving the Wasson Medal
given for athletic and academic
achievement. John and his beloved
wife, Reba, moved to Dundee in
1951. In the classroom, he was an
inspirational teacher who shared his
love of history and civics with generations of Dundee students. As a
coach, he compiled an outstanding
record and was inducted into the
NYS Section V Football Hall of Fame.
After his retirement, he was proud
of the program’s continued success.
In his retirement, John continued to
serve the Dundee community in a
variety of ways, including the preparation of tax returns for senior citizens. He also managed the design
and building of a home in Ocracoke,
North Carolina, where family members have vacationed for more than
a quarter century. John is loved and
will be missed by his wife of sixtyfour years, Reba; and his six children,
Cynthia, Rae, John F., Craig, Jason
and Rebecca; as well as nine grand-
children and one great-grandchild;
a sister, Ester Weiss-Buffum; a niece;
several dedicated caregivers; and
countless friends.
Send your news to–
Hedi Ballantyne
20 Kent Street
Montpelier, VT 05602
[email protected]
Alumni Awards at both Florida State
and UVM. Nationally, she was the
recipient of two American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Awards, one for leadership
and one as Author of the Year. Valerie has authored ten text books
and teacher resource guides as well
as 168 professional articles. She
received teaching awards at Florida
State, Texas Tech (both College and
University), and UVM. Four service
awards were also given at these universities. Valerie was delighted that
Mary Ellen Fuller Fitzgerald and
Betty Lawrence Gadue surprised
her by attending the recognition
banquet. Alma Warrell Briggs and
her husband, Jack, who is a retired
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force,
celebrated their fiftieth wedding
anniversary in Washington, D.C., in
June, which their son was able to
attend. Their son is a brigadier general as is Jeanne and Bill Semonite’s
son, Todd. We can brag about many
successful children!
Send your news to–
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
ALUMNI
PHOTOS
CLASS NOTES
47
48
Frank Diller ’61 (Ann), Mike Johns
’62 (Norma), Dave Carr ’62 (Janice), Buzz Stone ’63, Don Steele
’64, Bob Shattuck ’65, Cedric Farrow ’61, Charles Church ’64, and Art
Bliss ’64. The wives in parentheses
are MFH 50th alumni. The highlight
of the MFH Reunion was an evening
cruise on Lake Champlain, on The
Spirit of Ethan Allen. The Theta Chi
mini-reunion was an evening at the
Snowfarm Winery in South Hero. A
few other Theta Chi’s also returned
in July, including Mill Simmons ’61,
Tom Sherman ’62, Dick Aldinger
’62 and Ted Jewett ’63, and wives.
Hello to all 50th alumni who
returned in October. We were with
you in spirit.” And finally, from Class
President Louise Magram Weiner:
“Steve and I enjoyed planning the
50th Reunion along with a dynamic
committee of dedicated volunteers.
Thanks to all who attended—we
hope you enjoyed the weekend as
much as we did. A very special thank
you to our own Carole Demas, who
with the assistance of her husband,
Stuart Allyn, entertained us so graciously at the Saturday night dinner.
A nice surprise was Carole’s performance with Roy Kelley and Chuck
Eldred! The Class of ’61 is full of
talented people and luckily for us,
many came back and participated
in our 50th celebration. What more
could we ask? We’re also full of gratitude to Ray Pecor for donating his
“Northern Lights” boat for our afternoon on beautiful Lake Champlain.
What fun! And what about Roger
Zimmerman’s “Payback Run” from
Maine to Vermont to show what his
four years at UVM meant to him?
Some of us can barely run to get out
of a rainstorm, much less from one
state to another! Good job, Roger!
Let’s all stay healthy and happy so
we can reconvene at our 55th! Keep
all the wonderful memories and for
those who couldn’t join us, you were
missed. Wishing you all a warm and
meaningful holiday season.”
Send your news to—
Steve Berry
8 Oakmount Circle
Lexington, MA 02420
[email protected]
62
63
Send your news to–
Toni Citarella Mullins
210 Conover Lane
Red Bank, NJ 07701
[email protected]
64
Scott J. Edson is married to
Nancy Edson and they live in
Jericho, Vermont. Scott retired
from teaching U.S. history and world
civilization at Mount Mansfield Union
High School after thirty-five years.
Nancy retired from the UVM Pathology Department after fourteen years.
Both now spend three and a half
months in Florida for the winter and
enjoy golfing in Florida and Vermont.
While in Florida they attended the
UVM night held at the Orlando Ale
House in Orlando to watch the UVM
hockey team. After a brave and courageous battle with cancer, with much
sorrow we announce the passing of
Harold Seymour Wilensky on Friday,
June 24, 2011. Beloved husband and
friend of Arlene for forty-two years.
Hal was born in Bronx, New York, and
raised in Oceanside, Long Island. He
lived life to the fullest, and shared his
love for travel and adventure with
family and friends. Talented in athletics, Hal was recruited to the University of Vermont to play football before
an injury refocused his energies on
a business degree. With great passion and success, Hal worked in the
watch industry for over forty years,
and is a respected leader, mentor, and
colleague. Hal will be deeply missed
and his guiding hand will remain on
our shoulder forever. Memorial donations can be made to glioblastoma
research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. Mary
Paquet shared this update: “With life
partner, Bob Eltgroth, I recently rode
our fully-loaded tandem on a selfsupported tour from Key West, Florida, to Portland, Maine, covering a
total of 2,081 miles by bicycle. We
began the ride on April 7 and completed on June 19. We rode the bike
fifty-two of the seventy-four days
on the road, sometimes for short
distances to visit historic sites, and
other times for longer distances to
advance northward. We stayed in
hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts of all price ranges that included
tiny Midway Motel in Midway, Georgia, where $30 got us a room in the
only motel for many miles. We took
many days off to tour such places as
St. Augustine, Savannah, Charleston,
Richmond, Fredericksburg, Williamsburg, Washington, D.C.-area, Amish
Country, and the Hudson River Valley. We had two mechanical issues
that held us up, so we got to enjoy
Baltimore for almost a week, and
skip some of the riding we planned
in Pennsylvania. Days fifty-four and
fifty-nine of our online journal document those challenges. The journal is
here: http://www.crazyguyonabike.
com/doc/bobandmary2. This was a
ride through history, visiting the sites
of the first European establishments
and many associated with the Civil
War. We appreciated the changes in
terrain, customs, foods, and speech as
we rode from south to north. I have
to admit, though grits were never
my thing, I missed the hush puppies
when we crossed the Mason-Dixon
line. With no support following us, we
depended upon physical and mental
stamina to complete the ride. Experiences both on this trip and a ride
from our home in San Jose, California,
to Portland, Maine, in 2008 (http://
www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/
bobandmary) were very positive. We
met wonderful people along the way
and never had a moment of fear that
someone would do us harm. We were
quite thrilled to accidentally meet up
with George McGovern, the presidential candidate who challenged Richard Nixon, when we stopped by a coffee shop near St. Augustine. In South
Carolina, we were charmed by two
men in a pickup truck who stopped
to ask if they could help in any way
and said, “We want you to know we
are rednecks, but we are nice!” We
had invitations from strangers to their
homes. I retired in 2008 from a thirtyyear career with IBM at their Silicon
Valley Laboratory where I was a software project manager. With my late
husband, Gary Paquet ’65, I traveled to many places around the world
before his death in 1998. I continue
our passion for travel both by traditional means and by bicycle. When I
completed my tour in New England,
I joined a friend for an art workshop
in Provence, France, with a side trip
to Ireland. I am an artist working in
watercolor, acrylic, pastel, and charcoal. I am currently serving on the
workshop committee for the Santa
Clara Valley Watercolor Society and
will assume leadership of this group
in 2012. My art life is documented
here: http://mary-artadventures.
blogspot.com/ I stay in close touch
with family on the East Coast, including my sons, Jeff, in North Danville,
and Jason, in Fishkill, New York, and
I make frequent visits. Two granddaughters in Vermont are very dear to
us. I always enjoy reading news of my
classmates in the alumni magazine,
so I hope that others will share their
lives with us. I also look forward to
our 50th Reunion.” Wayne Mirsky and
his wife, Charmi, chaired a fund raiser
for Voices Against Brain Cancer which
was honoring Alan Rhein, his wife
Alice, and their family with the 2011
Vision of Hope award. The event took
place at the Hammerstein Ball Room
in New York City on June 16, 2011.
Joining in the evening festivities were
Jeff Robinson and his wife, Harriet,
and Ratner who brought Beth Duncan. The overwhelming support from
Alan’s friends by way of contributions
was extraordinary. Those University
of Vermont graduates who contributed were: David Bederow, Richard Berliner, Dr. Bill Perlow, Dr. Neil
Yeston, Dr. Fred Cahan, Bob Cohen,
Judy Ruskay Rabinor, Jane Farrell
Leventhal, Stuart Leventhal, Paul
Wellen, Joe Zicherman, Terry Finkel,
Gerry Sack, Mike Steinberg, Howard
Gorney, Jeff Lawenda, Jack Lipkins,
Howard Jacobs, Tom Gould, Don
Rudolph, and Larry Solomon, all
from the class of 1964. Dr. Rick Nalin,
Chuck Lowsenstein both from 1963,
and Joan Klonsky Ustin and Carol
Greenblatt Brecher from the class
of 1965. Hopefully, all of these classmates will consider joining together
once again at our 50th Reunion!
Send your news to—
Susan Barber
1 Oak Hill Road
P.O. Box 63
Harvard, MA 01451
[email protected]
65
In June, former roommates
Joe Pogar from California
and Albert Pristaw from
ALUMNI
PHOTOS
From there we travel to Needham,
Massachusetts to visit our son and
family on our way to our usual stay
in Dennisport on Cape Cod. We will
return to Florida in October.” Margaret Connolly Leeper says: “We are
very busy moving to Big Sky, Montana, and selling our Bozeman, Montana, home—too much yard work
with three acres and a trout stream,
so we are downsizing big time. Our
son was married on October 8 in
Atlanta. We have two grandchildren now after thinking we would
never have any. Isabel Teal is twoand-a-half and Calvin Matthew is
two months. Parents are Matthew
and Krystan Leeper. Our other son,
John, and wife, Jamie, are moving to Hawaii for a year after helping us manage our property for nine
years. Lots of changes but all good.
Still enjoying the skiing and hiking
and less lawn mowing.” And from
Bob Murphy: “Lynda and I enjoyed
a trip to Madrid, Spain, in May with
daughter Maureen Murphy ’88,
her husband, Norm Landry, grandson Jack Murphy Landry, granddaughter Caitlyn Landry and Cait’s
friend Marcy Webster. It was especially enjoyable as this was our second trip with Maureen back to the
place of her birth which occurred
while we were stationed there with
the Air Force in the 1960’s. Lynda
and I are both retired, and involved
in volunteer activities, Lynda with
the Greater Barre Community Justice
Center, I with the Vermont Historical
Society.” Joe Buley wrote: “Geri and
I had to make a tough decision. Her
Mary Fletcher Hospital 50th reunion
was also this year, from August 4 to
August 7. Her class will be one of
the last to be recognized from the
MFH School of Nursing, so we opted
to attend and forego the UVM 50th
in October. The other deciding factor was that a few of the nurses in
the 50th class had an affinity for
Theta Chi, Delta Nu Chapter brothers. So we combined a Theta Chi
and MFH Reunion. Geri’s class had a
marvelous tour of the Fletcher Allen
Health Care Center that is the largest private employer in Vermont,
employing over 6,000. It is affiliated
with UVM, as a research and teaching hospital. Our returning Theta
Chi’s included Joe Buley ’61 (Geri),
50TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Send your news to—
Patricia Hoskiewicz Allen
14 Stony Brook Drive
Rexford, NY12148
[email protected]
VQ
ONLINE
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
Alumni Gallery
Woodstock came to Burlington to
have lunch with Jean Davison ’44.
Professor Davison was their favorite
professor and they had a lively conversation with her, presenting her
with a dozen red roses after lunch!
See a photo at alumni.uvm.edu/vq.
Send your news to—
Colleen Denny Hertel
10 Norwood Street
Winchester, MA 01890
[email protected]
66
Janet Manning shared that Dr.
James E. Manning, Jr. passed
away on December 19, 2010.
David Mallory recently wrote a book
about growing up in Vermont which
has gotten good reviews and is available on amazon.com. The title is Dad
and I and may be ordered in paperback and on Kindle. He is now working on his second book called It Came
to Pass which is about his four businesses in Vermont. Dave has a coauthor, Tom Marx ’56. David and
his wife, Pauline, have been doing a
great deal of traveling and have visited the Baltic countries, Europe, as
well as Iceland and all the way to the
Arctic ice cap with plans to cruise
through the Panama Canal in April
2012. Both are retired and living in
Seminole, Florida where he plays
Taps at military funerals. He also plays
trumpet with the Clearwater Community Band and another group, The
Second Time Arounders. They even
marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving
Day Parade in 2009. My husband, Ken
McGuckin, and I spent a delightful
evening in August with Doug Martin and his wife, Klaire Cozzi ’65, at
their wonderful camp on Joe’s Pond
in Danville, Vermont. Also joining in
the fun was Dave McDonald and
his wife, Nancy, who drove up from
Sunapee, New Hampshire, where
they are now living. The guys are all
fraternity brothers and enjoy all those
old stories from way back when. We
attended the christening of Nancy
Castellanos Miller’s grandchild, Charlotte Hill, in August in Ticonderoga,
New York, where Nancy and her hus-
band, Chris, have a summer home on
Lake George. Their permanent home
is in Saratoga, California. Suzanne
Seeley Beyer is scheduled to give a
speech in October in Cavendish, Vermont, on her grandparents’ influence
in that small historic town. Cavendish
is celebrating its 250th anniversary.
The speech was supposed to be given
in her grandparents’ home of “Glimmerstone” however, the house won’t
be fully restored as a bed and breakfast until November. Along with her
speech, her co-author, John Pfarr, will
present their book, The Inventor’s Fortune Up For Grabs. Please send your
news! I am always looking for something to write about our classmates!
Send your news to–
Kathleen Nunan McGuckin
P.O. Box 2100 PMB 137
Montpelier, VT 05601
[email protected]
67
45TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Send your news to—
Jane Kleinberg Carroll
44 Halsey Street, Unit 3
Providence, RI 02906
[email protected]
68
The Class of 1968 has been
singing “The No News Blues”
for far too long. I know you
are all doing awesome and amazing
things. Please share.
Send your news to—
Diane Duley Glew
64 Woodland Park Drive
Haverhill, MA 01830
[email protected]
69
Send your news to—
Mary Moninger-Elia
1 Templeton Street
West Haven, CT 06516
[email protected]
70
Send your news to—
Doug Arnold
3311 Oak Knoll Drive
Pepper Pike, OH 44124
[email protected]
71
Annie Viets’ daughter, Anna
Viets ’11, graduated in May,
carrying on a legacy established by her grandfather, William
Viets ’50, as the third generation of
Viets to graduate from UVM.
Send your news to—
Sarah Wilbur Sprayregen
145 Cliff Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
72
40TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Ten years ago Joe Wetherell retired
from the U.S. Army after twentyseven years of active duty. As a combat engineer he commanded a company in Korea and later a battalion in
the 101st Airborne Division. He was
assigned to the British Army for two
years in an exchange program, and
even worked with Jody Williams
in Europe on the landmines issue.
Joe is now the associate director of
admissions as well as the director of
commencement at the University of
Scranton in Pennsylvania. Joe and
his wife, Cheryl, a Champlain College
graduate, have three children and
six grandchildren spread around the
East Coast.
Send your news to–
Debbie Koslow Stern
198 Bluebird Drive
Colchester, Vermont 05446
[email protected]
73
Christopher Corbett, formerly of Austin third and now
living in Albany, New York,
recently wrote a book to help nonprofits improve their governance
and accountability: Advancing Nonprofit Stewardship Through Self-Regulation: Translating Principles into Practice, Kumarian Press. He says the book
was inspired by the many high profile
nonprofit scandals that continue to
occur and a desire to help nonprofits prevent future problems. Beyond
managers and board members, the
book also provides insight to donors
seeking ethical and transparent nonprofits worthy of their support. He
credits his unique educational and
life experiences at UVM with preparing him to write a book on ethics and
accountability. Please take a minute
and send me your news.
Send your news to–
Deborah Mesce
2227 Observatory Place NW
Washington, DC 20007
[email protected]
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
CLASS NOTES
49
hear from all of you! Keep sending
us your news!
Send your news to—
Emily Schnaper Manders
104 Walnut Street
Framingham, MA 01702
[email protected]
75
Susan M. Erlichman, executive director of the Maryland Legal Services Corporation, has been appointed to serve
on the American Bar Association’s
Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts.
I heard from Candace Lovely that
her artwork, Volcano, a 36x24 oil on
linen, was on the cover of Pink Magazine’s July cover. The cover story
is by Alex Levin and is very interesting. Candace’s website is www.
candacelovely.com. I came across a
press release from Land’s End Business Outfitters blog, announcing
that they had just signed a multiyear endorsement contract with
the men of Chikago International.
Chikago members used all the business acumen they learned at UVM
in negotiating their deal. Their initial payment comes in the form of
ten Performance Polo shirts with
the Chikago 2011 logo. These will be
very popular on their trip to Prague,
Krakow and Budapest. Members of
their International fraternity include,
Fred “Chico” Lager, Al “AlBob”
Dimick, Fred “Gilles” Bussone,
Bob “Smokie” Musser, Jim “Marv”
Thomas, Albert “Anderjock” Anderson, Billy “GerDill” Dillon, Scott
“Baldy” Baldwin ’76, Dennis “Redman” Canedy and Hans “The Godfather” Puck. Leslie Fry sent an article
that was published in the New York
Times on June 15, 2011. It discussed
the unusual collaborative garden
made by sculptors Leslie and her
father, John Fry, behind John’s home
in Katonah, New York. The garden is
described as having “magical beings
that are part human, part animal
and part vegetable, so arresting and
complex they might be figures in a
children’s book.” One of Leslie’s first
commissions was in Pomerleau Park
in Burlington, Vermont.
Send your news to—
Dina Dwyer Child
1263 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
Advocate
for engineering
C
hances are, a young person planning a career
in civil engineering is thinking more in terms
of roads and bridges than chips and wafers. So
how did Janette Bombardier, who graduated from
UVM in 1980 with a degree in civil engineering
and went on to earn her master’s in the field four
years later, find herself in the top executive’s seat at
of one of the world’s largest producers of semiconductor technology?
“If I had ever thought when I graduated from
UVM that this is what I’d be doing today… I
didn’t even know this kind of job existed,” she
laughs. “You know, when you’re twenty-two years
old, you haven’t seen what there is to do yet. But
an engineering background is such a solid background for so many other types of work that it really enables you to go in a lot of directions.”
She applied for a position at IBM right out of
UVM, she says, “even though I didn’t really think
IBM would hire a civil engineering grad. But at
the time they were going through a significant
expansion of the site, and they had a lot of traffic
issues. I had construction and traffic engineering
experience, a strong academic record, and so I was
a match for their needs at that time. That’s why I
got in the door.”
Initially, she was called on to use her civil engineering background on projects like roadway construction, traffic management, and Act 250 permitting, and she was the engineer for the bridge
that spans the Winooski River—still the only
bridge that exists in IBM’s expansive worldwide
facilities infrastructure.
That civil engineering background, in fact,
turned out to be an excellent match for the kinds
of skills needed to run a major plant like IBM Burlington. Today, as director of site operations and
senior location executive, Bombardier is in effect
running a small city—a 3.5 million-square-foot facility housing semiconductor manufacturing and
test operations as well as labs, data centers, and
JANETTE BOMBARDIER ’80
office space, among other operations. On
top of that, she has the primary responsibility within IBM for relationships with
government agencies and political leaders in the State of Vermont, where IBM is
critical to the economic well-being of an
entire regional economy.
As a woman in a leadership role in a
traditionally male-dominated profession,
Bombardier has been a tireless booster
of programs designed to get young people—particularly young women—interested in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics in the critical middleschool years. “Women are going into the
sciences, especially the life sciences, at a
very high rate,” she says, “but not in engineering.” IBM hosts an annual summer
camp for young women to boost their
interest in technical careers, and Bombardier is a frequent speaker at career events
in Vermont middle schools. “I try to influence them as a role model and show
them there are really cool things to do as
an engineer that they might be interested
in.” It’s not just women who will meet the
needs of the technical workforce, however. “We need a lot of engineers,” she
says, “and we try to encourage everyone
to look at STEM (science, technology,
engineering, mathematics) education.
We think it’s a national issue.”
Her advice to young people? “Try to
understand what engineering jobs are
all about and how much fun they can
be. I think all of us got into it because we
like to solve problems and solve puzzles.
That’s what an engineering job is.”
While Bombardier helps to build a
tech savvy workforce for the future, many
in Vermont wonder how secure are those
thousands of IBM jobs that have become
so much a part of the Vermont economy
and quality of life? Does the corporation
still have a bright future in Vermont?
“The team here works hard every day to
come up with new technologies and new
products to ensure we will have a successful future,” she says. “There are plenty
of people who twenty years ago said we
weren’t going to exist ten years ago, and
ten years ago that we wouldn’t exist today.
But we’re a very innovative community of
people. IBMers locally generate around
six hundred patents a year, which is enormous. We’re very innovative at taking the
technologies we have, extending them
and creating new applications for them,
as well as developing new technologies,
and doing it in a facility that’s been here
over fifty years.”
—Jay Goyette
FAVORITE STUDY SPOT
209 Votey. I think the engineering
students lived there!
FAVORITE HANGOUT
B.T. McGuire’s
ACTIVITIES/EXTRA-CURRICULAR
Indoor and outdoor track my freshman
year; intramural soccer, ice hockey, and
racquetball; American Society of Civil
Engineers; Tau Beta Pi, the engineering
honor society
INFLUENTIAL PROFESSOR
There were a lot of great professors in
the Civil Engineering Department. Dr.
Robert Dawson was one of my favorites. He was a good instructor, cared
about the students, and presented
interesting real-life problems. I have
used his approach to complex problems in my career.
IF YOU COULD DO YOUR
UNDERGRADUATE YEARS
ALL OVER AGAIN?
As engineering students we studied
all the time. It would have been nice
to have found a way to fit in exploring
more of the Vermont outdoors.
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
74
Sarah Butterfield shared that
her father, Mark Butterfield, died following a long
illness on May 2, 2011. Paul Jerry
has been living in the Michigan area
for twenty-two years. He married a
childhood friend and has three children: twin girls who turned thirty
this summer and a twenty-four-yearold son who is anxiously waiting
to hear from medical schools. Paul
has been an emergency room physician for thirty years and is looking
forward to retirement in the Carolinas. He would love to connect with
Sue Geier and Pam Johnson—two
great friends from years ago. His
email is [email protected].
Jane Bradbury and her husband
are just about to become empty
nesters with their second daughter
heading off to college. Jane lives in
Sea Cliff, Long Island, and is working with a new national public television show called “The Artist Toolbox” (www.theartisttoolbox.com).
“I miss UVM all the time and would
love to reconnect with fellow classmates. You can find me on the UVM
alumni group on LinkedIn.” Deborah
Kelly’s daughter, Molly, graduated
from UVM in 2011, studied political science, adored Garrison Nelson’s class, is active in Democratic
politics (she works two days a week
for the President Pro Tempore in the
Vermont Senate) and was co-editor of UVM’s alternative news magazine, The Water Tower. Deborah lives
in Larchmont, New York, is still practicing law and heads up her firm’s
employment group at Dickstein Shapiro in D.C. (“a job much needed
to pay UVM’s out-of-state tuition”).
She received the “Women in Law
and Leadership Award” from her law
school, American University’s Washington College of Law, last year making her feel both honored and old as
dirt. In July, for the twelfth year, she
swam across Long Island Sound to
Larchmont, New York, with similar
jellyfish-toleraters in a group called
Swim Across America to raise money
for cancer treatment and prevention. She plays tennis regularly. She
has lost track of all UVM friends
other than occasional shout-outs
from Dick Mayo, Gary Horton, and
Annette Laico. Her son, Kyle, will
graduate from UVM in 2012. Great to
ALUMNI FOCUS
CLASS NOTES
SALLY MCCAY
50
51
76
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
Annalee Ash writes “Well, I
never took a course in political science, but learned a
huge lesson in our nation’s capital
on May 11. I’m proud to say I was
arrested. That’s right—frisked, handcuffed, rode in the paddy wagon
with my boss and six others to the
Capitol Hill jail, fingerprinted and
placed in my very own cell for two
hours—all for protesting for democratic rights for the residents of
Washington.” Catherine Burdick
Mattheis writes “My husband, Bernd
’77, and I enjoyed more than twenty
years in the military service, traveling the world. Of our three children,
the two boys, Erik and Geoffrey, are
married and have remained in Connecticut. Our first born, Allison, is living in Minnesota and finishing up
her doctorate degree. She is planning to go into public school policy and administration.We’ve lived
in Connecticut now for twenty-one
years and are looking at retirement
closely! Where does the time go?”
Kathleen Schuenzel Miller had the
following update: “So sorry I missed
our thirty-five-year Reunion as I was
going through chemo after a bilateral mastectomy for breast cancer
in 2006. Will finally finish treatment
this fall (hooray!) but hope to get to
our 40th. I retired to Black Mountain, North Carolina, with my husband, Steve, in 2009 after thirty-two
years as a sworn criminalist with
the Miami-Dade Police Department.
We built our craftsman-style dream
home in the mountains of western
North Carolina, moved in six months
ago and haven’t looked back! All fellow alumni are welcome to visit anytime!”
Send your news to–
Pete Beekman
2 Elm Street
Canton, NY 13617
[email protected]
77
35TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Apparently, summertime distracts
from the urge of alumni to write
to their class secretary. I choose to
believe this is the reason for only
one bit of gossip to reach my ear.
My accounts of the SAE crowd
prompted Mark Kevorkian to share
some memories, and good ones at
that. Here is the heavily edited version: “I transferred to UVM in the fall
of 1977 after my sophomore year
and, unable to find dorm housing or
a habitable apartment, got a room
as a boarder in SAE. Ritchie Berger’s
room was next door. Ritchie was
among the leading denizens of the
roof beach, which enabled us to get
deep, rich suntans in March, then
go downtown and impress girls. I
vaguely recall the Peter Welch stories, and their obscure profundity.
Later that fall, I, along with the most
of the rest of the SAE boarders (Mike
Maglio ’79, Jeff Bacon ’80, Rhino
’80, and a bunch of others) pledged
SAE. Ritchie was my sponsor.” Thank
you for that, Mark. By the time you
have read these notes, I will have
self-published my novel, Diary of a
Small Fish. If you google the title, you
will have a lot of fun seeing what I’ve
been up to the last several years. If
you read it and love it, please leave
your thoughts for the Amazon crowd
to see. There is far too much contact
information below for so few to use
it. I hope to hear from more of you
before the next deadline arrives.
Send your news to—
Pete Morin
41 Border Street
Scituate, MA 02066
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/pete.morin2
www.petemorin.wordpress.com
78
Happy fall everyone! I haven’t
heard from many of you in
a long time … what’s up?
Please check in with me so I can
report some news to our classmates.
Earlier this year, Vermont Governor
Peter Shumlin appointed our own
Chuck Ross as the Vermont Secretary of Agriculture. As most of you
know, Chuck served as U.S. Senator
Patrick Leahy’s State Director for sixteen years, and before that, he was
a farmer and state legislator from
Hinesburg, Vermont, where he currently resides with his family. Steve
Seitz reports that his first novel,
Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of
Dracula, will be published in an
Italian edition by Gargoyle Books
in Rome. Gargoyle also publishes
American fantasy authors George
R.R. Martin (Games of Thrones) and
Robert McCammon (The Hunter from
the Wood). Steve is currently working
on two other novels, another featuring Sherlock Holmes, and a contemporary thriller. Tom Brassard,
owner and president of Paw Print &
Mail, announces the addition of Catamount Marketing to his twentyone-year-old print and direct-mail
company. He says that Catamount
Marketing offers a full menu of services, including: website development, email marketing, multi-channel direct marketing that features
high levels of segmentation and personalization, graphic design, copy
and content writing, and the appropriate use of social media outlets. As
for me, after looking for work for the
better part of five months since leaving my job with the State of Idaho,
I began working in the shipping
department of Scentsy, the wickless candle manufacturing company
based in Meridian, Idaho. Scentsy
sells wickless candles, ceramic
warmers, and a variety of fragrance
products through a field sales force
of more than 100,000 independent
sales representatives. What makes
Scentsy so unique, and what really
interested me about their products,
is that because there is no flame,
there is no smoke, soot, or lead,
making their candles extremely safe
and environmentally friendly. You
may not have heard of Scentsy yet,
but Inc. Magazine ranked Scentsy as
the fastest-growing consumer products and services company in the
country earlier this year. I continue
living in Idaho with my nine rescued
dogs, which definitely keep me busy
and I am enjoying every moment of
that. I would love to hear from you if
you have anything at all you would
like to share, do please drop me a
note at the address below or catch
me on Facebook at www.facebook.
com/audrey.bath
Send your news to—
Audrey Ziss Bath
10567 West Landmark Court
Boise, ID 83704
[email protected]
79
Walter Ellison shares news of
his book that was just published by The Johns Hopkins University Press entitled The
Second Atlas of the Breeding Birds of
Maryland and the District of Colum-
bia. Andrea Sassi Merritt sends
updates of a recent reunion she
shared in Burlington with Joanne
Johnson Barry, Mary (Mo) O’Rourke
and Susan Maynard Iverson. A gorgeous weekend filled with laughter and a review of many Tri-Delta
photos. Andrea is currently teaching health at Dover Sherborn Middle School in Dover, Massachusetts.
She and her husband, John, have
three daughters, Emily, Class of
2011 UVM, Erin at Endicott College,
and Jessica, a junior in high school.
I also shared a summer reunion
weekend with fellow Pi Phi’s Susan
Thomas Englander and Anne Trask
Forcier at the home of Mary Kay
McGuire Conte in Long Island. We
greatly enjoyed ourselves reviewing numerous Pi Phi photos of yesteryear while the husbands took in
a Yankees game. I hope many of you
were able to take in Reunion weekend last month on campus and will
have news for me to share with our
classmates. I look forward to hearing
from you!
Send your news to—
Beth Nutter Gamache
58 Grey Meadow Drive
Burlington, VT 05401
bethgamache@burlington
telecom.net
80
As the crisp fall days and
bright colors give way to
winter’s stark cold, it seems
fitting to reflect on days past and
bid a fond farewell to friends no longer with us. I am saddened to report
that Ardith Campbell Dentzer died
on November 30, 2010. I send warmest regards, comfort, and strength to
her friends, family, and loved ones.
She will be missed.
Send your news to–
MaryBeth Pinard-Brace
P.O. Box 655
Shelburne, VT 05482
MaryBethPinard_Brace@alumni.
uvm.edu
81
Brian Dorsey Farrell has just
been awarded a Fulbright
Scholarship to the Dominican Republic for 2011-2012. He
writes “I will be teaching in Spanish and doing biodiversity research
with colleagues and students at the
Universidad Autonoma de Santo
Domingo, first university in the
Americas (and 100 years older than
one of my own universities, Harvard). My first formal training in
biology was in UVM’s twin departments of zoology (now biology)
and botany, to which I am forever
grateful. Those were heady years!”
Alan Goodfried writes “After graduating from UVM with a B.A. in psychology, I moved to California to
pursue a master’s degree in clinical psychology. I obtained this in
1984 with a specialization in treating eating disorders. Since 1988, I
have been licensed by the State of
California as a marriage and family
therapist and have been in private
practice in Walnut Creek, California. I have also held various agency
positions within my field. I am
married and have two wonderful
(adult) daughters. In 2005, I experienced a medical problem known
as orthostatic hypotension. I wasn’t
getting sufficient blood to my brain.
I became unconscious, fell and suffered a broken neck at the C2 vertebra. If it wasn’t for the fast action of
my wife (who, thankfully, was home
at the time) and my brother-in-law
(who is an M.D.), I would not have
survived. And, if it wasn’t for the
excellent medical care I received, I
would most likely be a quadriplegic! Thankfully, I am not either and
I have just published Haloman: A
Memoir of Survival Against All Medical Odds. My book is available
on Amazon.com and can also be
ordered through local bookstores.
Happy 30th Reunion!” Thomas
Horan has been appointed dean,
School of Information Systems and
Technology, at Claremont Graduate University. Linda Ciufo Mullin is enjoying teaching first grade
at Rutland Town School in Rutland
Town, Vermont, and she received a
master’s degree in education May
2011. Michaella Maley wrote in to
share this news “My brother, Martin Maley, was just appointed superior court judge by Governor Shumlin. He grew up in Burlington, and
is the son of alums Donald Maley
’41, UVM Hall of Fame member, and
Rita Mahoney Maley ’38.
Send your news to–
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
82
30TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Annunziata “Nancy” Daniele Hoffman passed away on July 18, 2011.
John Scambos
20 Cantitoe Street
Katonah, NY 10536
[email protected]
83
As I submit my deadline for
Class Notes, we have just
passed the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. Like John F. Kennedy’s
assassination or the 1986 Challenger
space shuttle disaster, we often
remember where we were when
we heard the news. I was teaching
business in Durham, North Carolina when 9/11 happened. We were
working on a stock market exercise
and one of my students notified me
that the NYSE was closed. I told him
that was impossible because it was
10:30 a.m. on Tuesday and the NYSE
stock exchange could not possibly
be closed. As I sat down and looked
at his computer screen in the upper
right hand corner, I stood corrected
by my student as I saw in black bold
ALUMNI
PHOTOS
CLASS NOTES
VQ
ONLINE
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
Alumni Gallery
print “NYSE closed due to terrorist
attack on NYC”. As my children were
so little then, and I had to evacuate
them from a federally funded Head
Start program, it’s hard to believe
my oldest is now at the University of
Kansas, and I will soon be looking at
colleges for my junior. My younger
two are now hockey and football
playing freshman at Highland Park
High School. I think of all of those
victims, and their families and what
they have endured. I am currently
working on developing a non-profit
surrounding cancer survivorship,
and I am proud to announce my
own survivorship of breast cancer.
Everybody has something to endure,
and with that said, aren’t we lucky to
have had such a fine education from
the University of Vermont? Andre
Stark is producing a non-profit ven-
ture that motivates production companies to donate their time for a
week to a non-profit that cannot
afford a media presence on television. It is called the 7DAYPSA. Read
about it at http://www.examiner.
com/television-in-boston/7daypsacompetition-a-win-win-for-producers-and-non-profits.
Send your news to–
Sharon Morrissey Young
444 Broadview Avenue
Highland Park, Il 60035
[email protected]
84
Josh Elliott shared, “Several of the class of 1984’s finest gathered for our almost
annual ski weekend at Loon. Bob
Frawley hosted the crew who
included Brad Dore ’87, Mike Norris, Mal Caldwell, and John Gabbeitt. Pete Ryan was also supposed
to be there from Phoenix, but alas,
it was ‘too cold’ for him. Lots of libations and conversation were consumed throughout the weekend.”
Terry Lambert has been serving
as the chief of staff of the Vermont
Army National Guard since December 2009. He graduated from both
19th c. Bed & Breakfast Charm with 21st c. Comfort & Service
randly built by a lumber merchant
in 1881, today the Lang House is an
Historic Inn in Burlington.
Each of the 11 guest rooms, with
en suite bathrooms, is elegantly and
comfortably decorated. Our breakfast
fare is inventive, nutritious and locally
procured and grown.
Conveniently located one block west
of the UVM green, the Lang House is
owned by UVM alumni family.
We strive to make every guest feel
at home.
www.langhouse.com
360 Main St., Burlington, VT
✦
802-652-2500
✦
877-919-9799 (toll free)
52
LangHouseAd-UVM-final.indd 1
9/30/10 2:17:31 PM
CLASS NOTES
F
life has been made up of literally just
that—fabric. A lifelong lover of textiles, Selke began collecting material as a
child and was enrolled in sewing lessons
by age seven. Today, as the founder of
home textile businesses Pine Cone Hill,
Dash & Albert Rug Company, and Annie
Selke Home, her spirited, color-infused
wares can be seen regularly on the pages
of shelter magazines such as House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens, Town &
Country, Real Simple, and countless other
popular titles.
For someone whose passion surfaced
so early in life, Selke sensed during her
first semester at UVM that something
wasn’t quite right. “I thought I was going
to be political science… [My first class]
was not that positive and so I thought
‘OK, I like the idea of being an international foreign-service agent but the fact
that I don’t want to memorize the book
of every GDP of every country…’ It was a
reality check.” Selke quickly made tracks
to the erstwhile Department of Textile
Science where she found, as she describes
FAVORITE INTERIOR SPACE
The Marino Casino in Dublin, Ireland.
It is the most charmingly sophisticated
interior with perfect proportions.
INSPIRATIONAL ARTIST
Andy Goldsworthy because he works
with nature to create extraordinary pieces, some permanent, some ephemeral.
FAVORITE COLOR (CURRENTLY)
Robin’s egg blue
HANGOUT IN BURLINGTON
ANNIE SELKE ’85
household name.
Her recent publication, Fresh American Spaces, is what Selke hopes is the
first of many books. As described in the
introduction, “‘Fresh’ is the willingness
to embrace new ideas, styles, and colors.
‘American’ means freedom of choice and
freedom of expression.” Working with
five viewpoints—“everyday exuberance,
cultured eclectic, happy preppy, nuanced
neutral, and refined romantic”—Selke
demystifies her home décor design process by breaking it down into a practical
step-by-step approach.
Fans can also look forward to her appearance in a year-long feature for Woman’s Day magazine starting this month.
“Fresh American Dream Makeovers” follows Selke as she helps women renovate
their personal spaces during transitional
times in their lives. “It’s a wonderful way
of combining design and real life,” she
says.
Even with new projects on the horizon, Selke is never far from her original
inspiration. Stacks of textiles sit outside
her office and she refers to them often. “I
probably have about four thousand different antique document fabrics going way,
Doolin’s on Main Street
UVM STUDY SPOT
The library or on my bed
HOME LIFE
I just put my daughter Charlotte on a
plane to Tucson, Arizona, where she will
spend a year as a wrangler at a dude
ranch before she heads to Colorado
State next fall to study equine science. I
live with three funny and furry Clumber
Spaniels—Dash, Daisy, and Emmet. They
are spokesdogs for the Dash (one and
the same) and Albert Rug company.
Abby Goldberg Kelley
303 Oakhill Road
Shelburne, VT 05482
[email protected]
way, way, back… things that are probably
from the 1600s to current day things;
all ethnicities: Chinese, Indian, French,
English, Italian. I have tons of different
fabrics that I love looking at.” For Selke,
loving what she’s looking at has made all
the difference. “If you do what you love
and what you’re interested in, that’s what
gets you out of bed every morning for the
rest of your life.” And when that bed is
covered with sheets of your own design,
that’s saying a lot.
—Kathleen W. Laramee ’00
Kelly McDonald
10 Lapointe Street
Winooski, VT 05404
[email protected]
Shelley Carpenter Spillane
336 Tamarack Shores
Shelburne, VT 05482
[email protected]
85
I hope everyone is well and
having a great year. News
from the class is coming in
very sporadically, so please send me
a quick update that I can share. Marc
Hartstein tells me that he and his
wife, Chris Pizzo Hartstein ’86, are
happily living in Baltimore, Maryland,
where Marc works for the federal
government’s Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services managing the
group that sets Medicare’s rates for
most health care services. Chris owns
a home organizing business. They
have three children; Joey is a junior at
the University of Maryland, College
Park, and Luke is a freshman at Emory
University, while daughter Hannah is
in fifth grade. To help with the transition to an empty house, Marc, Chris
and Hannah added a dog to the family that they named Emory to remind
them of Luke away at college. Jackie
Weyde McBride just moved to the
Bristow, Virginia, area, and would
like to get together with fellow UVM
alumni.
Send your news to–
Barbara Roth
140 West 58th Street, #2B
New York, NY 10019
[email protected]
86
Hope Connors is thrilled to
read about UVM’s sustainable
efforts. She writes “I have
been working and researching in the
sustainable and Beyond Green Building and interior design for thirteen
years. Now also teaching elementary
and junior high students and loving
it! Had ankle surgery after my ankle
blew out on geo field trip in 1983
and replaced my knee. My sevenand-a-half-year-old daughter, Hopie,
and I are loving life and grabbing it
by the horns!”
Send your news to–
Lawrence Gorkun
141 Brigham Road
St. Albans, VT 05478
[email protected]
87
25TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Brenda Bouchard Singal who is
now a pediatrician working in York,
Pennsylvania, recently received the
“Pediatrician of the Year” recognition from the Central Penn Parent
Magazine as part of their Annual
Health Care Hero Awards program.
Candidates are nominated by the
patient and/or their parents. A team
of judges and readers of the publication voted to select the winners.
Central Penn covers seven counties
including York county where Brenda
works. The May edition of Central
FA L L 2 0 1 1
it, “a very happy home.” Courses like art
history, drawing, fashion construction
and analysis, history of costume, and a
junior-year exchange program with the
Fashion Institute of Technology laid the
groundwork for her future success.
Selke’s foray into entrepreneurism
came on the heels of a stint in New York
City where she worked for Ferragamo,
Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, and
the Museum of American Folk Art.
When she moved back to her native
Berkshires to start a family, Selke decided to venture out on her own. Sitting at
her dining room table with a newly purchased industrial sewing machine, Pine
Cone Hill was born. With an initial order
for custom chair pads completed, Selke’s
product development experience kicked
into high gear with more ideas than her
sewing machine could keep pace with—
so many ideas that she added a garage to
her home to accommodate her first employees.
That garage would certainly not be
the last home for Pine Cone Hill. As she
recalls, “I think we moved seven times
in seven years.” In 2003, in response to
customer demand for floor coverings to
coordinate with Pine Cone Hill linens,
Selke founded the Dash & Albert Rug
Company. Annie Selke Home, a collection of licensed furniture and fabric, followed in 2008. The Annie Selke Companies, as they are now collectively known,
employ a staff of eighty-six in the United
States and forty more based in an office
in India. With more than three thousand
high-end retail partners, including Garnet Hill, Neiman Marcus, and Sundance,
Annie Selke is on the road to becoming a
ALUMNI FOCUS
Designing Success
Litor Annie
goes
electric
Selke ’85, the fabric of her
the U.S. Army War College (2008)
and the Harvard Kennedy School
(2011). He is also serving as the president of the Green Mountain Battalion ROTC Alumni Association
(2009-present). Terry resides in Milton, Vermont. Jack T. Scully has published a new novel, Eyewitness, now
available electronically at the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook
stores. For a preview, visit www.
jacktscully.com. Jack’s novel is an
action-adventure tale with a spiritual
twist. An American archaeologist
at Qumran, home of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, finds a startling ancient scroll
that purports to be an eyewitness
account of Jesus’s last days on Earth.
The discovery unleashes lethal forces
that threaten not only the revelation
but the lives of its founders. Dawn
Lawson Re lost her long battle with
cancer in February 2011. She is survived by her husband, John, and her
three wonderful children, Samantha,
Matthew, and Jason. Her children
continue the fight by participating in
the American Cancer Society’s Relay
for Life (in Middlebury, Vermont and
in their home town of Chappaqua,
New York) collectively raising almost
$20,000 this year alone. Dawn, her
kindness, her sense of humor and
her unending smile, will be profoundly missed by all who knew her.
Send your news to–
Laurie Olander Angle
12 Weidel Drive
Pennington, NJ 08534
55
Penn Parent Magazine recognized
the winners and finalists.
Send your news to–
Sarah Reynolds
2 Edgewood Lane
Bronxville, NY 10708
[email protected]
88
Dave MacLaughlin is currently serving as chairman
of the Nashua Conservation
Commission. He was also elected
to serve as a member of the New
Hampshire State Republican Committee and was named by NHJournal.com as one of the top fifty
Republicans in the state. I recently
attended Jane Bernholz Maltby’s
’87 son, Max’s, graduation party
from Chatham High School in New
Jersey. I was there with my husband Jonathan ’88 and Mia McLean
Hitchcock ’87. Max will be attending the University of Vermont this
fall. His freshman dorm room is right
across the hall from where Jane lived
as a freshman at UVM!!
Send your news to–
Cathy Selinka Levison
18 Kean Road
Short Hills, NJ 07078
[email protected]
89
Send your news to–
Kate Barker Swindell
2681 Southwest Upper
Drive Place
Portland, OR 97201
[email protected]
90
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
Rob Cioffi was the UVM delegate at the inauguration of
Susan Herbst at the University of Connecticut on September
16, 2011.
Send your news to–
Tessa Donohoe Fontaine
108 Pickering Lane
Nottingham, PA 19362
[email protected]
56
91
Hello UVM Class of 1991
alumni! As you are reading
this fall Vermont Quarterly
issue, we will have just celebrated
our 20th Reunion. WOW. I am sure
we had a great time and enjoyed
reminiscing, remembering, and
renewing. Thanks to all of you who
sent me your updates. Leigh Ross
Husband was excited to run into fel-
low UVMer, Meghan Lambert Healy
’92, on Fire Island this summer. She
also shared a great meal with Alyson
Becker ’92 and Rob Balazy ’95 on
Fire Island. This past year was exciting for Leigh as she ran her first halfmarathon and is currently training
for her first full…”crazy” is how she
described it. At the time of her post,
Leigh was very excited to see lots of
friends at our 20th Reunion and getting back to Vermont…could be a
climate shock as she has been living in Miami since 1998 and doesn’t
have many “cool weather” clothes.
I also heard from Aimee Bashaw
Marti who reported that friends and
alumnae, Cynthia Mueller Donely,
Anne Post Freer, Britt Jacobson Dittrich, and she will be at Reunion!
Aimee saw Britt this past weekend
in Saratoga, where they were talking
about the Reunion and are looking
forward to it! Another old roommate,
Julie Gumminey Holleneck, is back
in Vermont after living out west for
fifteen or so years. Aimee is so happy
to have her and her family back in
Vermont. And of course, Julie will
be at the Reunion! I also heard from
Alyson Becker ’92 who wrote to tell
me about the event honoring Cesar
Augusto Murillo with a dedication
at the ALANA Center during Reunion
weekend. You may recall that Cesar
passed away on 9/11 and I know his
presence will be missed at Reunion
this year. I heard from Gabrielle Taft
Jensen that “it has been a year since
Tim Sloate died of a heart attack. He
has been sorely missed. He is survived by his wife, Hillary, and daughters, Lily and Rosemary.” Makes me
think back to other alumni who we
have lost in the past ten years. As
for me, I’ve enjoyed reconnecting
with alumni as I participate in preReunion planning calls, emails and
Facebook posts. I’ve been wicked
busy traveling for work and have
been fortunate to fit in some visits
to see old UVM friends like Heather
Campbell Wager, her husband, Jay
Wager ’90, and family while in Boston this summer. I connected with
Benilda “Nini” Avila Fenton on Facebook (we have a class page there, by
the way) who shared with me that
she and her husband, Scott Fenton
“are so proud of our son, Cole, who
is in third grade, and daughter, Ava,
who is starting kindergarten. It’s
amazing how time flies!” Then she
also shared a reflection back on how
time has really flown by when she
reminisced about her “wonderful
memories of how I met my husband
Scott Fenton at UVM. He chauffeured
me from Jeanne Mance Hall to Redstone campus for band practice at
night when he drove Cat Patrol parttime to pay for school. I’m thankful
we didn’t have the buses back then!
We’ve been together ever since!”
I remember hearing some statistic about some crazy percentage of
UVM alumni marry each other and,
yup, here’s another example. I wonder if this still holds true. Share your
stories with me and I’ll post the
(family-friendly versions only) here
in the next class notes! Hope you are
all well. Keep the updates coming
and take care.
Send your news to–
Karen Heller Lightman
2796 Fernwald Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
[email protected]
92
20TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
After eleven years working in the
beautiful mountains of West Virginia, Ken Sturm is finally returning
to the Green Mountain State. He will
be working at the Missisquoi NWR
in Swanton, Vermont. Ken, his wife,
Angie, and six-month-old son, Finn,
moved in July. He would love to
meet up with any UVM’ers still in the
area as we move back to the Champlain Valley!
Send your news to–
Lisa Kanter
10116 Colebrook Avenue
Potomac, MD 20854
[email protected]
93
Fellow classmates, we
have had several quarters
go by without many submissions of fun announcements
or changes in your lives. Keep us
posted and reconnect with your fellow classmates by sending us news
of weddings, births and adoptions,
reunions, job changes, moves, etc.
Jonathan Decker will be happily
marrying Brittany Tranquillo on
October 8 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Jon is always showing his sup-
ALUMNI
PHOTOS
CLASS NOTES
VQ
ONLINE
alumni.uvm.edu/vq
Alumni Gallery
port of UVM with his license plates:
UVM 93 and CATAMNT. He is the
manager of the Merrill Lynch office
in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Send your news to–
Jessica Ellis
[email protected]
John Gates
Apt. 3, 476 Shawmut Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
Gretchen Haffermehl Brainard
Unit 402
4195 South Four Mile Run Drive
Arlington, VA 22204
[email protected]
94
Greetings everyone! I hope
you all had a great summer.
Thanks for all of your updates!
I’ve been keeping busy with the boys
and photographing lots of weddings
this summer/fall which has been lots
of fun. (No bridezillas yet!) In June we
had the chance to reconnect with lots
of UVM friends at Andy O’Connell’s
beautiful wedding in the Berkshires.
Congratulations to Andy and his stunning bride, Julie! Some UVM’ers at
their wedding included: Jeff Abbott,
Paul Zedlovich and Lisa Goodrich
Zedlovich ’95, Dave Donohue, Tyler
Buck, Jeff McNulty, Narric Rome,
Mark Abramowitz, Myles Kelman,
Chris Rose ’93 and Carey Smith Rose
’93, Severn Taylor Switzer ’93 and
Scott Switzer ’93, Elaina Cristoforo
St. John ’93, Jay O’Kieffe ’93, and
Travis St. Peter ’93. Sorry for anyone
I may have missed! Jeff and I are also
looking forward to a mini vacation in
Bermuda early this fall to celebrate
Doug McGregor’s wedding. Congratulations to Doug and his bride-tobe, Bridget! Other fun news to share
is that Jeff McNulty recently became
engaged to his girlfriend, Lindsay.
Congratulations, JJ! And Cathy Holahan Murphy is expecting her second child this December. Congratulations to Cathy, her husband, Chris,
and big brother, Owen! Deanna Fryer
Kamienski and her husband, Chris,
welcomed their son, Jake Edward,
into the world on June 20, 2011.
Jake joins proud big brother, Ryan.
The family resides in La Plata, Maryland, where they have been living
since April 2011. James Christian (I
love his updates by the way!) writes:
“Having survived an elephant charge,
a spitting cobra attack and countless nights kept awake by the hyenas
in the compost, my wife, Kerry, and
I find ourselves with hands full caring for our three-year-old twins while
running a walking safari company
in the wilds of northern Kenya. Best
to all my classmates.” Jon Mozenter
writes: “It’s been a long time since I’ve
sat upon the green grass of UVM (the
grass you could see between September/October and April/May.) I’m
happily married to Alix Bearman and
we are enjoying our baby girl, Emma
Taryn Mozenter, born July 7, 2007.
I’m a marriage and family therapist,
working at a counseling agency in
downtown Los Angeles. Would love
to know about anyone from our class
in Los Angeles—a long way from Burlington.” Shawn Taylor, M.D. lives in
the southeast with his wife, Lisa, and
their three children. He is a residencytrained, board-certified emergency
medicine physician. Mary Martialay
lives in Schuylerville, New York, and
writes: “I just got engaged to Andrew
Casabonne. We’ve been together for
four years. He went to SUNY Plattsburgh, and apparently visited Burlington a fair bit while he was in
school (of course, we had the better scene!) Though I’m loath to admit
it, he’s a much better skier than I am.
He proposed while we were sailing
on Lake George on July 31.” Andrea
Noel-Doubleday writes: “My husband
and I welcomed our second child on
June 17, Andrew, who joins four-yearold big brother, Christopher. I enjoyed
my summer off on maternity leave
with lots of family time but returned
to work after Labor Day.” Christine
Demarest Trowbridge writes: “I am
a kindergarten teacher in Williamsburg, Virginia. My husband, Dale,
and I enjoy our two children, Abigail
(seven), and Quentin (four) and sailing in our new, nineteen-foot Mariner sailboat.” Rachel Jolly is enjoying
her two-year-old daughter, Shayna,
and her job as director of programs
at Vermont Works for Women. She is
also making herself very happy by
planning for a two-hundred-andtwenty-mile hike of the John Muir
Trail next summer. Pete Corradino
writes: “I’m excited to announce that
my wife, Malena, recently gave birth
to our first child, Theodoro Alexander Corradino, in January. I continue
as the director of operations of the
Everglades Day Safari out of Fort
Myers and Fort Lauderdale and I am
the vice-chair of the Florida Society
for Ethical Ecotourism. I was born in
Florida but I am happily tethered to
Vermont. I write for the Woodstock,
Vermont-based Green Mountain Digital’s Audubon Guides. My sisters Tiffany Berish ’90, Tara Gibbs, Amanda
Corradino ’96 and I all attended the
dedication of the Janey Schreiber
Memorial Nature Center at Coolidge
State Park in Plymouth, Vermont. My
mother, Janey, graduated from UVM
in 1964. She worked at Coolidge State
Park from 2000 until 2005 when she
passed away. Her husband, Ranger
Bill Schreiber, spent the last few years
building the log cabin nature center
from materials on site in her memory.” Dr. Martha R. Rainville writes:
“I graduated from the University of
Vermont dental hygiene program in
May of 1994 with an associates of science degree and worked as a dental
hygienist until the summer of 2006.
At that time I began taking courses at
the Community College of Vermont
(prerequisites) in preparation to enter
the doctorate of chiropractic (DC)
program at the New York Chiropractic
College (NYCC) in Seneca Falls, New
York. While attending NYCC, I completed a bachelors of professional
studies in the fall of 2009 and am
graduated on Saturday, July 30, 2011,
with my Doctorate of Chiropractic
degree. My title now is: Dr. Martha
R. Rainville. I am currently searching
for a location in Swanton, Vermont,
to open a chiropractic office with my
wife, Dr. Michele Wilkie. My son, Elijah
(Eli), turned fourteen years old on July
23, 2011, and will be a freshman this
fall at Missisquoi Valley Union High
School in Swanton. We hope to purchase a home within the next year in
Swanton, Vermont.” Michael Goldberg writes: “Since graduating from
UVM in ‘94 I’ve gone on to graduate
with a master’s in physical therapy,
moved to Charleston, South Carolina,
ON CAMPUS. REIMAGINED.
802.861.7710
www.redstonelofts.com
[email protected]
NOW LEASING FOR FALL 2012
INDEPENDENT.
Studio, 1, 2, 3, & 4 bedrooms
Fully furnished
Full kitchens
In apartment washer / dryer
Air conditioned
CONVENIENT.
Free wireless internet
Secure key card access
Community garden
Outdoor barbecue
Covered bike storage
LEED Silver (planned)
Abundant natural light
Mountain / Lake views
On campus shuttle service
Theater / Media room
COMMUNITY.
Fitness facility
Study rooms
Game room
On site parking
On site property manager
Locally owned & managed
CLASS NOTES
and currently manage four outpatient locations in the greater Charleston area. I’ve met my wife, Amy, also a
physical therapist, and have two children. Sarah is two years old and Melody is seven. We are currently preparing for our yearly beach vacation and
are very excited about it.” Thanks for
the updates, keep them coming!
Send your news to–
Cyndi Bohlin Abbott
114 Morse Road
Sudbury, MA 01776
[email protected]
97
95
98
Tina Cole is married to Tim
Cole and lives in Jericho, Vermont. Tina has been teaching at Smilie Elementary School in
Bolton, Vermont, for twelve years.
She has taught first grade and kindergarten. Tina and Tim enjoy their
gentleman farm with cows and
chickens. They also enjoy their camp
in Eden, Vermont.
Send your news to–
Valeri Pappas
1350 17th Street, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80202
[email protected]
58
Danielle Morseman and
Philip Mastil were married at
the New York Botanical Gardens on August 5. UVMers in attendance were Kristin Morseman, Jessica Mann, Sharon Nomburg, Joe
Peters, Jordan Taub, Eve Schott and
Heather Ardia. The couple honeymooned in Fiji.
Send your news to–
UVM Alumni Relations
411 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
[email protected]
99
Hello 99ers! Not too many
updates this time around
but hopefully after summer
we can catch up on all the exciting happenings! Donald Saucier,
associate professor of psychology,
received a 2011 Presidential Award
for his impact, compassion, and
leadership as a teacher from Kansas State University. Congratulations
on the award! Brian Munger married a beautiful Puerto Rican princess on April 3, 2011, in downtown
Orlando. Brian and his wife, Michelle,
are expecting their first child in January 2012. In addition, Brian recently
opened his own resume writing
company, Resume Phenom, LLC.
(www.resumephenom.com). Brian,
best of luck to you and your bride!
Please remember to send your
updates.
Send your news to–
Sarah Pitlak Tiber
4104 Woodbridge Road
Peabody, MA 01960
[email protected]
00
Rayna Freedman received
the United Regional Chamber of Commerce 2011
01
By the time this issue hits, we
will have celebrated ten years
together, a big thank you to
everyone who attended Reunion! I
hope to have a lot of great updates
for the next issue. Per usual, we have
some exciting baby updates. Martin
and Sarah Laidlaw Wilde welcomed
their first child this summer, her name
is Malin Harper, born on April 20, and
she is precious. The happy family lives
in Shelburne, Vermont. Aimee Bode
Konevich and her husband, Mike,
welcomed their son, William, into the
world almost right on their one-year
wedding anniversary, on June 9. Mike
and Aimee live on the North Shore of
Massachusetts and are loving parenthood! Lindsay Cutter Bingenheimer
married Pete Bingenheimer on June
25 at the Dedham Country and Polo
Club. The bride looked stunning, Pete
is a lucky guy! UVM attendees were
Sarah and Mike McGuirk, Liz Lundgren, Betsy Keyes, Ryan and Nicole
Hintlian Angell, Dan Tosches, Laura
Waske Bronson and Amanda Starbuck. Kate Wheeler writes: “I live in
Southern California and I’m a pilot
for a large aerospace company and
have worked there for the past three
years. I got engaged last spring and
I’m getting married this October in
Stowe, Vermont, to Jason McDermott.
He’s also a pilot and is from Southern California.” And from Sara Badger
Sockol: “I recently saw Kate Dwyer
and Sloane Berrent while attending
Lauren Purple’s wedding in Connecticut in July. Lauren married Shawn
Sales and recently moved to Maryland. We were also celebrating that
Sloane recently got engaged to Taylor Davidson while on vacation in Barbados. As for me, I’ve been working
for Stonyfield for nearly five years as a
communications manager, and living
in Massachusetts with my husband,
Steve Sockol.” Scott and Abby Shaw
LeBlanc just bought their first home
on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
While I am happy for them, I will certainly miss having them in Boston.
Please keep the updates coming!
Send your news to–
Erin Wilson
10 Worcester Square, #1
Boston, MA 02118
[email protected]
02
10TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Greetings to the class of 2002! I
want to start by congratulating my
former UVM roommate, Junjira
Saengvanich, on her recent marriage
to Dr. Richard Pavao. The two were
married in Newport, Rhode Island,
on June 3, 2011. UVM’ers in attendance included two of her bridesmaids, Jackie Haley Daigneault and
Sarah Herring Kneale ’03, as well
as Heather Bushey ’03, Jill Russo
Ruane ’03, Shawna Wells ’04, Becky
Wise Gibson, Kim Bennett, Romi
Kimell, Jessica Powers and her
fiancé, Jon Ernest ’01, and myself
and my husband, Jason Godin ’01.
Susan Vaughn Grooters has been
appointed to the National Advisory
Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods by U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Currently
the Director of Research and Education with STOP Foodborne Illness (formerly Safe Tables Our Priority). Susan
will serve a two-year term on the
NACMCF as a consumer representative and will provide an important
consumer viewpoint to the committee’s food safety work. On the west
coast, Kat Russell Billesdon wrote in
with news of her new marriage. She
wed Chris Billesdon on May 14, 2011,
at The Biltmore in Santa Barbara, California. They are living in Manhattan Beach, California, where Kat is a
regional sales manager for a software
company specializing in multi-family
housing called On-Site.com and her
husband, Chris, is a managing director at WellsFargo. UVM’ers in attendance included Kinsley McGrath
Minella ’01, Kristen Frank Bessette
’01, Julie Linville ’01 and Maria
Manalo Sevigny ’00. Jackie Salent
Orent joined the philanthropy staff
at Home & Hospice Care of Rhode
Island. She resides in Pawtucket with
her husband, Jonathan. Thanks for
writing in–until next time!
Jen Khouri Godin
Send your news to–
Jennifer Khouri Godin
[email protected]
03
I have lots of good news to
report this fall! Congratulations to Megan A. Mercier
and Newman J. Evans, III, who were
married on July 16, 2011 in Washington, D.C. at the Arts Club of Washington. Kate Mercier Lee ’00, sister of the bride, was the matron of
honor. Other Catamounts in attendance were Amanda Suomi, Amy
Ludwig Koller, Tara Taylor Lynn,
Corrie Hulten ’02, Susan Moffat
Hill ’71, ’74, and ’77, Ross Mercier
’74, Bruce Moffat ’76, and Pamela
Lessard Moffat ’77. Megan is manager at Deloitte LLP, an audit, financial advisory, tax and consulting
services firm. She is currently supporting Deloitte Consulting LLP in
the Federal Energy & Resources practice. Commander Evans is a grad-
uate of The Ohio State University
and earned a master of arts from
the Naval War College. He is a Surface Warfare Officer stationed in
the Pentagon serving the Department of Navy Deputy Chief Management Officer. Megan and Newman
reside in Washington, D.C. Rebekah
“Boo” Stuwe and Brad Baril got
married in a beautiful ceremony
on August 5, 2011 in Warren, Vermont, and celebrated with a reception at Sugarbush. The wedding
party included Boo’s sisters Sarah
Stuwe Pashby ’98 and Hannah
Stuwe Skalecke ’01. Other UVMers
in attendance were Rich Pashby
’99, Meghan Woodruff Maurice ’01,
Robyn Kampf Fulton, Joye Mudgett ’96, Korinne Moore, Kim Quirk
Jones, Heather Pearson Edmund-
son, Janine White, Jessie Rosenfeld ’04, Kara Egasti Dooley ’04, Liz
Brunst ’04, Kelly Kisiday ’04, Jenny
Casartello Eddy ’04, and Jim Eddy
’04. Korinne (who is my Class Notes
secret weapon as a trusty informant) reported that it was a perfect
Vemont weekend filled with family, friends, and a very fun bride!
Erin Socha Leonard was married in
March 2010 to Paul Leonard in Cabo
San Lucas, Mexico. Erin and Paul celebrated with the help of Catamounts
Mike D’Alessandro and Georgiana
Perna-Rice D’Alessandro ’04, and
Nicolle Clemente Miller and Colin
Miller ’01. Erin and Paul live in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and they
have been enjoying the summer
with their beautiful new baby girl,
Reilly, born April 16, 2011. Speaking
what’s so funny about paintings, poems & understanding?
continued from page 19
“People will sometimes say to me, ‘Wow, that’s such a depressing double whammy—Macbeth and the Civil War. How
much bleaker can it get?’” Nemerov says with a slight smile. “But
the point I make is that it was exhilarating to research and write
that book, just a thrill.”
Though Nemerov is reluctant to reduce his professional pursuits to “just being a cipher of my parents,” he sees clear connections. “My father, who had an absolute aversion to the past, to the
archive—to dust—this would horrify him,” Nemerov says of the
research process. “He gave me this sense of the present. That is one
of the wonders of his poetry; it is trying to find the now.” His mother, by contrast, instilled his sense of the past. While his father taught
in Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School in the summer, Alex’s mother
took him on visits to Fort Ticonderoga, Shelburne Museum, and
other sites that seeded his love of the past and of Vermont.
%
Acting in the Night, Nemerov believes, is his best attempt yet to
stretch the scholarly protocols of academic writing and find “a
more elastic and more infinite form for talking about the past.”
Nemerov clarifies that he isn’t speaking about writing history as
fiction but that he “envies novelists the greater capacity of their
form to meditate about the world.”
Nemerov fosters the same independence of thought and approach in the Yale graduate students he advises. He tells them
that he doesn’t want to read a dissertation that focuses its first
thirty-five pages on setting the table with what other scholars
have done. “I say, ‘First sentence, first page, what do you think?’
Does that mean you should disregard what others have written?
of new babies, Kimberly Henderson
Tuttle and Spencer Tuttle welcomed
an adorable baby boy, Henry, in April
2011. Heather Fifield LeTourneau
and her husband, John, also welcomed a baby boy on July 12. Handsome baby Jack is getting settled
at the LeTourneau home in Ipswich,
Massachusetts, with the help of big
sister, Julia. By the time you read
this, Jill Russo Ruane and her husband, Jay, will have welcomed a new
addition to their family! Ruane baby
number two is due in October, and
twenty-month-old Julianna is very
excited to be a big sister. Congrats to
everyone on such wonderful news!
Send your news to–
Cara Linehan Esch
[email protected]
Of course not. But their work is subordinate to your claims. To
me, it is very Emersonian. To paraphrase—Why shouldn’t I
have an original relation to the universe?”
This spirit of originality comes to play in “To Make a World:
George Ault and 1940s America,” an exhibit that Nemerov curated for the Smithsonian American Art Museum this year. Writing
for the Washington Post, reviewer Phillip Kennicott notes that the
show is “a focused and intense look at things we have collectively forgotten about the 1940s. But it is also very much about the
mind of Nemerov, a thinker unafraid to take big chances, make
tenuous associations and connect highly disparate material.”
While his maverick direction dares to break new ground in the
study of art and cultural history, it is some decidedly old school
values that may be driving enrollment in his Yale art surveys.
While talking about his scholarly approach, Nemerov shifts the
conversation to larger questions regarding the role of the humanities at universities. He notes the fact that “pleasure” and “presence” have come to be regarded as “bad words” in academic discourse, but suggests that undergraduates think otherwise as they
seek something more fundamental from their study of literature
and art.
“I think students want someone to be passionate about the
material and to believe in it, and present it in a way that relates not
to the discourse of a particular field or specialization—but truly
in the old-fashioned sense of a painting or a novel or a poem mattering to you,” Nemerov says. “Mattering in the sense of being capable of transforming your life. It is that naive view, which is much
in dispute in academic circles, that I actually embrace totally.” VQ
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
96
Co-Class Secretary Michelle
Richards Peters and her husband, Jonathan Peters, welcomed their third child, Katherine Louise, on June 12, 2011. Katie
joins proud big brothers, Jack, age
5, and Henry, age 2, in the family’s
home in Seattle, Washington. Steven Gauck writes that he will be
going to Campbell Law School this
fall in Raleigh, North Carolina, and
that first-year studies will likely prevent him from attending our 15th
Reunion in October. Give your classmates something to read in the next
issue of the VQ; send us your latest
and greatest news!
Send your news to–
Jill Cohen Gent
31760 Creekside Dr.
Pepper Pike, OH 44124
[email protected]
Michelle Richards Peters
332 Northwest 74th Street
Seattle, WA 98117
[email protected]
15TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
David Edson is married to Ana and
they have twin children, Zachary
and Eleanor, age 4. David works as
a physical therapist at Dartmouth
Hitchcock Hospital and is presently
two classes away from getting his
MBA from Plymouth State University.
Send your news to–
Lee Carstensen Genung
[email protected]
Teacher of the Year award in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
Send your news to–
Sara Kinnamon Fritsch
4401 Southwest Hamilton Terrace
Portland, OR 97239
[email protected]
59
CLASS NOTES
04
Hello friends! We have lots
of great news to share this
quarter! Lets kick it off with
Charlie Brooks who shared this
news: “My wife, Sarah Brooks, gave
birth to our first child, Quentin Richard Brooks, at Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans.” Stephanie
Butler wrote in with the following update “I gave birth to a son in
August 2006. He will be five years
old this August. His name is Noah.
I graduated with my second bachelor’s degree, a bachelor of science
in nursing from the Massachusetts
College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences in Worcester, Massachusetts
in May 2011. I plan on becoming a
nurse-midwife.” Katie Bengtson and
her husband, Jonathan Bengtson,
welcomed their baby girl, Annelie
Joanne, on February 3, 2011! Nina
Graham got engaged to Michael
Socha (James Madison University)
this past May! The happy couple
is planning an August 2012 wedding in Maine. I had the pleasure of
attending the nuptials of Rebekah
“Boo” Stuwe ’03 and Brad Baril this
past August in Vermont. UVM was
well represented. (See the class of
2003 column for a full list.) A grand
time was had by all! I can’t wait to
hear your news for the next Vermont
Quarterly!
Send your news to–
Kelly Kisiday
39 Shepherd Street #22
Brighton, MA 02135
[email protected]
05
Brendan Matthews was the
UVM delegate at the inauguration of Reverend Scott
Pilarz at Marquette University on
September 23, 2011.
Send your news to–
Kristin Dobbs
1330 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, DC 20015
[email protected]
06
Lisa Hovey was married on
August 20 in Mt. Hood, Oregon. The ceremony took
place on top of a mountain, with
guests riding alpine slides down
the slope to the reception. UVM
alumni in attendance included Jennifer Fife, Leah Starr Finch, Alexandra Mumaw, David McAndrew,
Garrett Sabourin and Jane Trivett.
On July 27, 2011, Andrew Denson
LaMar married Catherine L. Harnish
’05 at Walt Disney World in Orlando,
Florida. The couple has begun their
life together in Edmond, Oklahoma
where Andrew will be attending
medical school at the University of
Oklahoma. Catherine will continue
her career working from home as
assistant vice president for the Bank
of America Merrill Lynch. The couple
met at UVM as dorm mates in 2001.
Lynn Mondani wed Ryan Pierce
(Champlain College ’06) this past
60
Irving Lisman ’34, of Rye, New York,
June 28, 2011.
Louise Goodell Hills ’35, of West
Swanzey, New Hampshire, August
9, 2008.
Madeline Ainsboro Page ’35,
of Needham, Massachusetts,
April 26, 2011.
Stephen P. Belcher, Jr. ’37, of
Washington, District of Columbia,
May 26, 2011.
Herbert Jackson Cannon ’37, ’38,
of Baytown, Texas, July 8, 2011.
Katharine Tupper Fugiel ’38, of
North Charleston, North Carolina,
June 8, 2011.
Pauline Hunt Peters ’38, of
Vergennes, Vermont, May 30, 2011.
Raymond M. Snow ’38, of Island
Heights, New Jersey, March 24, 2011.
Leonard J. Bisaccia, M.D. ’39,
M.D.’43, of West Chester,
Pennsylvania, April 30, 2011.
Raymond R. Rogers ’39, of Chelsea,
Vermont, May 30, 2011.
Robert B. Smith ’40, of Franklin
Lakes, New Jersey, June 8, 2011.
07
5TH REUNION
OCTOBER 5–7, 2012
alumni.uvm.edu/reunion
Petra Smejkal opened an extension of 156 Bistro & Bar called 156
The Loft in downtown Burlington on
St. Paul Street. As Art Loft Ambassador, she features a monthly artist
during the First Friday Art Walks and
all month long. This space is available for private party rentals too as
it’s only open to the public on select
days and times. Renee Lariviere was
sworn in as a U.S. Foreign Service
Officer in August and will spend the
next year learning French and Creole
before moving to Haiti to serve in
the U.S. Embassy for two years.
Send your news to–
Samuel Madden
64 Frederick Place
Mount Vernon, NY 10552
[email protected]
08
Send your news to–
Elizabeth Bearese
[email protected]
Emma Grady
[email protected]
09
Sarah DeStefano completed
a graduate assistant position
at Saint Francis University
this past May. This fall she will be on
faculty at Oldfields School in Glencoe, Maryland, as a middle school
history teacher and lacrosse coach.
Elaine Dennis and Alex Watson
got engaged on February 11. They
will be getting married in August
of 2012! Congratulations to Elaine
and Alex!
Send your news to–
David Volain
[email protected]
10
11
Send your news to—
Daron Raleigh
[email protected]
Payback runner crosses the line
I’m hoping to raise money for a kid
“who
deserves a chance to come to this great
university but can’t afford it without the help of
scholarships and financial aid. You can help me
help that kid by contributing whatever you can.
So said Dr. Roger Zimmerman, age 72, UVM Class of 1961, before
setting out on a 166-mile run from his hometown in Bethel, Maine,
to raise funds on behalf of UVM’s General Scholarship Fund.
”
He crossed the finish line right on schedule, just in time to celebrate
his 50th Reunion with a cheering crowd of admirers during the 2011
Fall Fest at Reunion, Homecoming and Family Weekend.
Roger made good on his payback promise. And you can show
your approval by helping a deserving student keep striding
toward success at UVM.
Matt Henderson joined Marketing Partners, Inc. in Burlington, Vermont as an assistant account executive. In his new
role, Matt will provide public relations assistance and media tracking
services.
Send your news to—
Troy McNamara
[email protected]
Visit www.paybackrun.com and make your gift today
Mary Jane Higgins Coe ’43, of
Charlotte, Vermont, May 3, 2011.
Walter I. Dorion ’43, of Fair Haven,
Vermont, June 16, 2011.
Mary Streeter Gilmore ’43, of
Tinmouth, Vermont, May 1, 2011.
Cynthia Bailey Neil ’43, of St. Louis,
Missouri, December 25, 2009.
Ms. Dorothy Wimett Costello ’44,
of South Burlington, Vermont,
May 24, 2011.
Allan I. Glazin ’44, of Malden,
Massachusetts, June 27, 2011.
Patricia Maxfield McCormick ’44,
of Essex Junction, Vermont,
June 23, 2011.
Nancy Fawcett Pearl ’44, of Essex
Junction, Vermont, July 10, 2011.
Phyllis Fein Perelman ’44, ’69,
of Nantucket, Massachusetts,
June 16, 2011.
Annette Lilley Pestle ’44, of Vernon,
Vermont, July 7, 2011.
John W. Baxendale ’46, of Cicero,
New York, March 7, 2011.
Beverly Fifield Darby ’46, of Middletown, Rhode Island, May 11, 2011.
Michael F. Stefanelli ’46, of Bloomfield, New Jersey, June 7, 2011.
Loraine Guild Thorpe ’46, of South
Burlington, Vermont, March 8, 2011.
To make a donation by mail,
please send checks with “Payback Run” in the memo to:
UVM General Scholarship Fund, 411 Main Street, Burlington, VT 05401
PHONE:
ONLINE:
EMAIL:
MAIL:
UVM
FUND
888-458-8691 (toll free)
2012
alumni.uvm.edu/giving
[email protected]
UVM Fund, 411 Main Street, Burlington, VT 05401
FA L L 2 0 1 1
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
IN MEMORIAM
June in Connecticut. Jessica Scillieri ’05 and Mary Bove ’07 were
bridesmaids. Other UVM alumni in
attendance included Tiffany Martin, Jen Shainess, Nina Morato ’08
and Jamie Thomas ’08. The couple
lives in Dedham, Massachusetts with
their dog, Roman. Congratulations
to all of the newlyweds!
Send your news to–
Katherine Kasarjian Murphy
1203 Morning Dove Trail
Copperas Cove, TX 76522
[email protected]
61
CLASSIFIEDS
62
Mae Johnson Corbett ’47, of Hinesburg, Vermont, May 24, 2010.
Leland S. Marshall ’48, of Northborough, Massachusetts, May 29, 2011.
Geraldine Balich Calcagni ’49,
of Morristown, New Jersey,
March 26, 2011.
Paul L. Darby ’49, of Middletown,
Rhode Island, September 3, 2010.
Jack Carlton White, M.D. ’49,
M.D.’52, of West Chester,
Pennsylvania, July 1, 2011.
John L. Ballard ’50, ’54, of Dundee,
New York, August 14, 2011.
David M. Bell ’50, 51, of Alburg,
Vermont, May 9, 2011.
Roland E. Cater ’50, of Essex
Junction, Vermont, May 10, 2011.
Edward J. Comolli ’50, of Tryon,
North Carolina, April 26, 2011.
Wallace D. Lash ’50, of Sunrise,
Florida, April 16, 2010.
Robert H. Nelligan ’50, of Farmington, Connecticut, October 5, 2008.
Jane Hooper Provost ’50, of Williston, Vermont, May 2, 2011.
Eugene A. York ’50, of Morristown,
New Jersey, April 11, 2011.
Charles G. Adams, Jr. ’51, of Juneau,
Alaska, July 16, 2011.
John P. Barry ’51, of Bellows Falls,
Vermont, May 19, 2011.
Brendan J. Boylan ’51, of New York,
New York, March 31, 2011.
Anita Elliott Evans ’51, of Slingerlands, New York, August 10, 2011.
William E. Grant ’51, of Pompano
Beach, Florida, March 28, 2011.
Norma Nelson Small ’51, of
Charlotte, Vermont, March 11, 2011.
Russell W. Smith ’51, of Verona,
New Jersey, April 20, 2011.
David Gilson Boulanger ’52, ’62,
of South Burlington, Vermont,
March 21, 2011.
Joanne M. Burke ’52, of Benson,
Vermont, March 8, 2011.
David R. Cowles ’52, of Minneapolis,
Minnesota, February 6, 2011.
Janet Williams Galusha ’52, of
Westborough, Massachusetts,
June 11, 2011.
Barry Jay Grandeau ’52, of Albany,
New York, April 27, 2010.
Richard E. Randall ’52, of South
Pomfret, Vermont, February 18,
2011.
Robert A. Squire ’52, of Vero Beach,
Florida, May 27, 2011.
Stanley Peter Yankowski G’52, of
Brentwood, New York, April 17, 2011.
Laurence M. Bixby, M.D. ’53,
M.D.’56, of Missoula, Montana,
June 11, 2011.
Lawrence W. Erbe ’53, 55, of Breaux
Bridge, Louisiana, February 18, 2011.
Joyce Rosenberg Goldberg ’53, of
Burlington, Vermont, May 20, 2011.
Joan Steinmetz Wingate ’53,
83, of Burlington, Vermont,
March 31, 2011.
M. Scott Brodie ’54, of Charlotte,
North Carolina, May 4, 2011.
Ruth Crofut ’54, of Bridgewater,
New Jersey, March 29, 2011.
Thomas Patrick Fitzgerald ’54, of
Colchester, Vermont, March 11, 2011.
Beverly Ann Jarvis ’54, of Phoenix,
Arizona, June 12, 2011.
Allen Frederick Johnson ’54, of
Burlington, Vermont, April 19, 2011.
Dale Blandin Golis ’55, of Tucson,
Arizona, June 10, 2011.
Jerome S. Sokol ’55, of Miami,
Florida, July 16, 1995.
Edwin Anthony Korzun ’56, of
Melbourne, Florida, June 27, 2011.
Joanna Heller Spiro ’56,
of Pompton Plains, New Jersey,
December 24, 2010.
Marcia Cooke Decillo ’57, of
Rhinebeck, New York, June 4, 2011.
William Eugene Johnson ’57,
of Old Greenwich, Connecticut,
May 30, 2011.
Barbara Jeannette Graham ’58,
of Miami, Florida, May 16, 2011.
A. Robert Meserve ’58, of Monroe,
New Hampshire, May 10, 2011.
Joan Looker Dacy ’59, of Naples,
Florida, May 31, 2011.
Richard H. Dowhan ’59, of Rye,
New Hampshire, May 29, 2011.
Linda Wansker Hull ’59, of Canton,
North Carolina, July 8, 2010.
Bennett J. Woll ’59, of San Francisco,
California, April 16, 2011.
Pearl Dlugatz Bern ’60, of Atlantic
Highlands, New Jersey, July 30, 2011.
Edward Elmer Blake ’60, of Grand
Isle, Vermont, July 20, 2011.
John J. Broza ’60, of Glen Cove,
New York, July 26, 2011.
Alice Brechin Ohearn ’60, of
Alstead, New Hampshire,
May 7, 2011.
Donna Macy Kirby ’61, of Radcliff,
Kentucky, August 7, 2002.
Edward W. Smith ’61, of
Bennington, Vermont, July 30, 2011.
Louis Garcia, Jr. ’63, of Calais,
Vermont, July 2, 2011.
Phyllis Koledo Lester ’63, of
Monroe, Connecticut, April 2, 2011.
Harold S. Wilensky ’64, of Plymouth,
Massachusetts, June 24, 2011.
Rev. Leonard J. Nadeau ’65,
of Stillwater, Minnesota,
December 19, 2010.
David H. Parsons ’65, ’67, of West
Palm Beach, Florida, April 16, 2011.
Sarah Longacre Frost ’67, of East
Dorset, Vermont, March 25, 2011.
Andrea Lamb Lemery ’68, of
Queensbury, New York, May 4, 2011.
Barbara Knapp Hamblett ’69, of
Shelburne, Vermont, July 30, 2011.
Edith A. Pattee ’69, of St. Albans,
Vermont, June 12, 2011.
George C. Moulton ’71, of
Waterbury, Vermont, July 28, 2011.
Rodney E. Griffin ’72, 76, of Barre,
Vermont, May 24, 2011.
Paul Warner King ’72, of Springfield,
Vermont, June 27, 2011.
Clifford Baxter Smith, M.D. ’72,
M.D.’76, of Whitehall, New York,
July 8, 2011.
John Gardner Bishop ’73,
of Cheshire, Connecticut,
April 21, 2011.
Mark Richard Butterfield ’74, of
Bennington, Vermont, May 2, 2011.
Richard Eugene Dutil ’74, of
Brandon, Vermont, August 5, 2011.
David Gary Lewis ’74, of Burlington,
Vermont, June 9, 2011.
Sharon P. McCollum ’74, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, May 8, 2011.
Mark R. Fox ’75, of Lansing,
Michigan, June 22, 2011.
Anna Beers Lamos ’75, of
Waterbury, Vermont, April 28, 2011.
Michael Alan Benner ’76,
of Mt. Pleasant Mills, Pennsylvania,
July 23, 2011.
Paul Brian Connelly ’76, of Exeter,
Rhode Island, September 23, 2009.
David Bryant Ellis G’76, of Miami,
Florida, July 26, 2011.
Ferrell Glenn Thigpen ’77, of Jaffrey,
New Hampshire, July 9, 2011.
Patricia Ann Titus-Morrow ’78,
of Burlington, Vermont,
August 10, 2011.
Anne Goodwillie Underwood ’78, of
Marion, Massachusetts, May 5, 2009.
Alice Lawrence Douglas ’GA79,
of Center Tuftonboro,
New Hampshire, May 28, 2011.
Patricia Blubaugh Richardson ’79,
of St. Albans, Vermont,
August 14, 2011.
Ardith Campbell Dentzer ’80,
of Larchmont, New York,
November 30, 2010.
Annunziata Enza Daniele ’82, of
Enfield, Connecticut, July 18, 2011.
Bradley Walter Hall ’82,
of South Burlington, Vermont,
June 22, 2011.
Marilee Beth Huntoon G’82,
of Bellows Falls, Vermont,
April 21, 2011.
Deborah Charamut Mills ’82, of
Brandon, Vermont, March 31, 2011.
Ruth Mary Burfoot ’87,
of Enosburg Falls, Vermont,
July 7, 2011.
Holly F. Hungerford ’87, of Charlotte, Vermont, July 4, 2011.
Barbara Nord Marvin G’87,
of Burlington, Vermont,
June 30, 2011.
Arthur Louis Potvin, Jr. ’87,
of Winooski, Vermont, May 11, 2011.
Janet Hermsmeier Bossange G’89,
G’97, of Burlington, Vermont,
April 13, 2011.
Stephen Joseph John Mount ’89,
of Williston, Vermont, July 2, 2011.
George Trimble Murdoch, II ’89, of
Middlebury, Vermont, May 22, 2011.
Milton Potash ’93, of Burlington,
Vermont, April 17, 2011.
Washington C. Winn, Jr., M.D. G’93,
of Shelburne, Vermont, July 3, 2011.
Felicia F. Woolsey G’93,
of East Charleston, Vermont,
March 7, 2011.
Susanna Pellerito Keller G’97, of
Montpelier, Vermont, June 29, 2011.
Beth Alice Wright G’07,
of Essex Junction, Vermont,
August 7, 2011.
FOR SALE
KISSIMMEE, FL
2-5 acre lots, side by side, wooded/undeveloped
in development of Happy Trails Kissimmee, FL.
Each lot $150,000.00. Adjacent to Disney World,
Champion’s Gate and Reunion Resorts. Contact:
[email protected]
SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO
House on 10 acres. 1/12 share of 25,000 acre
ranch. Abuts protected state, federal, and private
lands. Custom designed house, 2 FP and 2 stoves.
Studio out-building. $700,000. Write [email protected]
VACATION RENTALS
CAPTIVA ISLAND, FL
2 BR beach cottage–South Seas Resort.
Magnificient uncrowded beach, photos & rates:
<http//www.vrbo.com/316453> or
<http://www.homeaway.com/331926>
or call Doug & Billie Tudhope, No. Hero, VT
802-372-8311.
GRAND ISLE, VT
Rustic elegance with a sunset view. 5BR year
round retreat on 520’ of private lakefront.
Call Becky Moore ’74. 802-318-3164 or
[email protected].
HARWICHPORT, CAPE COD
4 person apt–$625/wk, June-Sept, end-roadbeach: DVD/WIFI, CC Bike Trail nearby; National
Seashore 15 miles:
[email protected], 508-432-0713.
OCEAN REEF CLUB, KEY LARGO FL
Jane Battles, ‘55 Secretary, has a delightful
2 BR/2 B garden condo on the water. 39’ dock,
wonderful amenities—a very special place.
Call 610-688-5050, [email protected]
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MA
Let me help you find the perfect vacation
home to buy or rent. Visit our website at
<www.lighthousemv.com>. Call Trish
Lyman ’89. 508-627-4424 or email
[email protected].
ST. MAARTEN
Enjoy beaches, shopping, dining in the
“Culinary Capital of the Caribbean.” Family home,
1-4 bedrooms, view of St. Barth’s. See photos,
rates: <www.villaplateau.com>. Mention UVM
for discount.
SIESTA KEY, FL
Vacation 3BR/2B townhouse with access to Dr.
Beach’s No. 1 Beach (2011).
<http://www.rvasiestakey.com/rental/house.
html?ID=225&Avail=&Stay=Dana Gourley ’76>,
[email protected]
IN MEMORIAM
[ FA C U LT Y ]
Professor Albert M. Smith, whose thirty-five-
year career with the University of Vermont College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences culminated in his tenure
as associate dean of the college until 1993, passed away
June 15, 2011 in Fort Myers, Florida. He was eightythree. Smith was a tireless champion of high quality
undergraduate teaching and advising and a scientist
whose significant research in ruminant nutrition was
widely published. Among his service to many national
and Vermont organizations, Smith was a founder of the
Vermont chapter of Alpha Gamma Rho, a national agricultural fraternity, and a leader of what has become the
Vermont Feed Dealers and Manufacturers Association.
The Smith family established a UVM undergraduate
nursing scholarship, the Kathryn J. Smith Memorial
Scholarship Fund, to honor one of their two daughters,
a nurse, who predeceased him in 2001. Memorial
contributions may be made to the Kathryn J. Smith
Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o University of
Vermont, 411 Main Street, Burlington, VT 05405.
Advertise in
Vermont Quarterly
Contact Theresa Miller
(802) 656-1100
[email protected]
DEADLINES:
January 6, 2012
for March 2012 issue
May 18, 2012 for
July 2012 issue
September 21, 2012 for
November 2012 issue
Don’t forget to tell them
you saw it in Vermont Quarterly.
Professor Milton Potash, eighty-six, died on April
17, 2011, after an extended illness. He joined the UVM
Zoology Department in 1951, rising through the ranks
from instructor to full professor across the thirty-nine
years before his retirement in 1990. He especially
enjoyed student interactions and for a number of years
had, arguably, the greatest number of advisees of any
faculty member in the Arts & Sciences College. In
1981, he was honored with the UVM Alumni Association’s Kidder Teaching Award. Professor Potash and his
colleague Dr. E. Bennett Henson carried out a research
program on Lake Champlain for many years. Work
concentrated on identifying physical and chemical
characteristics of regions of the lake and establishing
base-line conditions. They were the first to promote
Lake Champlain as the sixth Great Lake, and presented
the results of their studies at annual meetings of the
Int’l Association of Great Lakes Research. Following
his retirement, Potash enrolled as an undergraduate
at UVM, receiving a bachelor’s in studio art in 1993.
Contributions in his memory may be made to the Ellie
and Milt Potash Endowment Fund, Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, 188 No. Prospect St., Burlington, VT 05401.
FA L L 2 0 1 0
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
IN MEMORIAM
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E RV
I EW
UN
ITS
RE M
AIN
ING
• 9’ ceilings
• 5+ Energy Star rated
• Granite countertops
• Fully tiled master bath with deep soaking tub
• Central heat & air
• Hardwood floors in entry and kitchen
• Deeded secure parking
• State-of-the-art gym
• Luxury appointed club room for entertaining
• Private riverfront courtyard with fire pit
60 Winooski Falls Way Winooski, VT 05404
RIV
802-654-7444
EXTRACREDIT
LY
4
the Cascades
ON
64
Enjoy the simplicity of living in a new riverfront condo.
Moments of Darkness 9.11.01
Bill Davison, professor emeritus of art, monotype with water-based pigments.
PHOTO BY SABIN GRATZ ’98
Prices Starting at $187,000
FA L L 2 0 1 0
V E R M O N T Q U A R T E R LY
• A short shuttle ride, walk or bike to UVM
www.cascadesvt.com
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NON-PROFIT ORG
US POSTAGE PAID
BURLINGTON VT 05401
PERMIT NO. 143
VERMONT QUARTERLY
86 South Williams Street
Burlington VT 05401
It’s All About Community
Welcome to The Lodge at Shelburne Bay and
The Lodge at Otter Creek Adult Living Communities
Welcome to The Lodge at Shelburne Bay in Shelburne, Vermont and The Lodge at Otter Creek in
Middlebury, Vermont.
The Lodges have established a core philosophy designed to cater to your every need. A world surrounded
by beauty, security and spirit. A world you’ll explore, experience and cherish. There’s something special
here and it’s just waiting for you. At The Lodges we offer a range of all-inclusive rental options that provide
our residents with luxury, amenities and elegance—Spacious Cottages, Independent Living, Assisted Living
apartments and The Haven Memory Care Programs.
There’s a deep and vibrant sense of community spirit that welcomes new residents, families and friends in
every conceivable way. Staff and residents bond together and create a family atmosphere that’s special and
unique to The Lodges.
At The Lodge at Shelburne Bay and The Lodge at Otter Creek it’s all about community. The only thing
missing is you.
The Lodge at Shelburne Bay • 185 Pine Haven Shores Road, Shelburne, VT 05482 • 802-985-9847 • www.shelburnebay.com
The Lodge at Otter Creek • 350 Lodge Road, Middlebury, VT 05753 • 802-388-1220 • www.lodgeatottercreek.com
Owned and operated by Bullrock Corporation