Month: February 2020

Learn & Play at Career Carnival!

Visit our first ever Career Carnival to meet career staff in a fun atmosphere! At this event, Career Advisors will help students set up their Pioneer Careers accounts and teach students about the new career milestones for each year during the student experience.
Once students visit the career services tent, it’s time to play in our milestone themed activity centers! Climb a rock wall, jump around in bouncy fun house, play Plinko, try out a bungee run and enjoy some popcorn and cotton candy. Meet local employers in a casual atmosphere to learn what they seek when hiring!
Career Carnival
Tuesday, September 19th | Noon-3:00pm
Driscoll Green
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

My Way to Score the Job

My Way to Score the Job
Often the students are not worried about their future when they come to the university. They do not think about how easy will it be to find a job after graduation. One day it occurred to me: the incredible emotions and feelings engulfed me when I was on the path to adulthood.
I needed to find a job that would be appreciated and would be consistent with my knowledge and skills. And when I was faced with looking for a job it was not easy and even very difficult. Because finding a suitable job I had an interview. When I came to the firm I have seen dozens of people who have already had experience and looked beautiful and confident. It was a big problem for me as I had no experience and felt insecure and frightened. Subsequently, I’ve been waiting for calls from those companies, but never got it.
But it is up to this time. When I stumbled upon a few useful points that really helped me in solving my question. It all started with the fact that I started to follow each of them and abide by them.
  • I have correctly filled out my resume and most importantly written correctly the purpose of what I want to achieve in my work;
  • As experience is missing, I produced a great effect on the employer during the interview. The first impression was of huge validity to my employment;
  • I prepared the answers to all the questions of the employer during the interview. The employees of the company helped me to understand all the inquiries;
  • First and foremost, I came for the interview in advance.
  • During the interview, I asked the question to the employer and he gladly answered them. He saw my competence, and within days was invited to work. Consequently, thanks to this I got the desired job.

Useful tips for the interview preparation

We understand how it can be exciting to make ready for an interview. Here’s the first rule – don’t make something out of anything! Only thorough and detailed lead-up will help you pass it easily and successfully. So, where should you start?
Ask yourself a question and think carefully, is this actually the perfect job for which you want to improve yourself and work for a long time? Does this company inspire certainty in you? Has it a positive image? Do you have any friends who cooperated with the chosen company?
If all the answers are positive, then take the time to prepare.

Information

  1. Be sure that before a live interview you have correctly understood all the responsibilities of your future job.
  2. Carefully read your resume, so that with any clarifying you can quickly provide the comprehensive reply.
  3. Ask the company HR what helpful resources or topics will lead you to the interview success; if they have frequently asked questions, how many stages conversation will have.
  4. Think carefully about the query “why did you decide to change jobs”. The response should be as simple and honest as possible. For instance, you want to increase the salary, and at the last place, this point could not be implemented.
  5. Prepare a list of questions you can ask the other party. You thus get a lively, constructive dialogue.

Research

  1. Before a meeting, learn in detail the company activities, main business directions, current partners. You should analyze the financial situation and future growth by checking annual reports. Think how you can increase profits being on your job, make truly prepositions.
  2. View not only the official site but also all links to social networks. Most events, both recent and future, you can learn on company social profiles.
  3. If you see that one of your friends is connected with the company, surely ask him about the details.
  4. Go to the sites that offer work, look for reviews about your company.

Emotional mood

  1. If you are experiencing fear or excitement – so it is normal. Try think not about how exciting this is for you, but about how much benefit and profit you can bring to the company if you focus on your strengths and dialogue with your interlocutor.
  2. Try to talk the monologue to yourself in the mirror about the previous places of work, or about the reasons why you are coming to this position. Are you satisfied with all the facial expressions?
  3. Do not forget to smile and be a friendly person, because excessive seriousness may lead to incorrect opinion.

Competence

  1. Punctuality is your everything. This is the first criterion by which employers can determine your attitude to future work. So, try to plan your day in a way when you can come to interview on time. Also, figure out the possible options for delays. In critical situations, on which you can not affect, immediately report the reason for being late.
  2. In fact, you understand that you can be judged by your clothes. If the company doesn’t declare a strict dress code, dress casually, but not too vulgar.
  3. Any point from your resume you should reproduce as transparently as possible. If you have told that you speak three languages on the native level, you have to prove it easily.
  4. Your attitude to the past workplace will also show your approach to work. Do not respond unflatteringly about the prior boss, given that the current employer simply will not want to be in his place in a few months.
  5. Bring your resume and portfolio to an interview along with a copy. When you show the calculation of all the risks, you could definitely be remembered better than other candidates could.
Take a luck and be yourself!
About the author:
Dortha Bush is a junior HR with a beginning but splash background in out staffing and concurrently a writer of scientific works on psychological topics. At the age of 29, she wrote many practical guides, allowing the student to get to the desired job almost after the first interview.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Developing Your Business Plan

Covers the elements of a business plan and its purpose. Participants would come out with a basic outline for their business plan.
Date: Thursday, May 18
Time: 12:30 to 2:30 pm
Location: Chemeketa Center for Business & Industry, 626 High Street NE, Downtown Salem
Cost: $59
Registration and Information: 503.399.5088

About Chemeketa SBDC

We provide the tools and environment for small business owners to make great decisions.

This entry was posted in Best Practices. Bookmark the permalink.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Alumni Advice: Eva Antczak Creates Inspiration at the Google Food Lab

Eva Antczak ’07 is program manager of the Google Food Lab, a platform for people in food policy, farming, corporate food service, healthcare, technology, corporate food companies, and academia to use their knowledge to solve pressing food system issues.
AlumniAdvice_newWe talked to Eva about her senior thesis on Vermont cheesemakers, managing the Google Food Lab, and why technology and innovation are critical to a sustainable food system.

You graduated from UVM with a degree in environmental studies and Spanish. What made you shift gears and focus on nutrition/food systems?

Food and agriculture have always been my passions, but once I began taking classes in environmental studies at UVM, I realized I could apply those interests to the study of local, regional, and global food systems. After taking classes in sustainable development, anthropology, herbalism, food science, and cheese and culture, I studied abroad for a semester in Oaxaca, Mexico. This experience anchored the information I had learned in a cultural context in which food, agriculture, and nutrition are intrinsically embedded.

Tell us about your senior thesis on artisan cheesemakers in Vermont.

I interviewed livestock farmers and cheesemakers across the state to better understand how and why cheese is such a strong part of Vermont’s identity, and what the biggest challenges, such as government policies, farming knowledge, and marketing, were to the success of these markets. These conversations were enlightening and energizing. I knew I wanted to continue to immerse myself in food systems work.

After graduate school, you ended up in San Francisco. Did your job at the Center for Food Safety bring you there?

After two years of traveling, working on farms, and volunteering for food and agriculture organizations, I attended graduate school at Tufts University in the Agriculture, Food, and Environment program. I gained a new perspective on food and nutrition policy, global agriculture, hunger and malnutrition, industrial food systems and trade, and local/regional foodsheds. I thought I would pursue food policy more deeply, even spending a summer at the USDA, but by graduation, I was still unsure which angle interested me the most.
Having never lived on the West Coast, but knowing there was a vibrant food scene, I landed in San Francisco. I took a position at the Center for Food Safety, a public interest nonprofit that works to protect human health through sustainable and organic agriculture. As a policy coordinator, I worked with the legal team on projects involving confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and GMOs.

You also worked for Farm Aid and FarmsReach.com before your position with Bon Appétit @ Google. What made you want to work for Bon Appétit @ Google?

I worked with FarmsReach, a small start-up providing services and resources to support small to midsize farmers across California, for nearly three years before joining Google. I wanted to not only explore the lens of food outside of the nonprofit, start-up world but also examine how to combine food with the power of Silicon Valley’s technology. I knew there would likely be the resources—whether engineers, partnerships, or capital—to have a bigger impact.

Could you describe your job at Google Food Lab?

I am the program manager of the Google Food Lab, which is a platform for thinkers and doers in the food space to apply their collective knowledge to solve our most pressing food system issues. We convene twice a year for summits at Google offices and between summits work on projects tied to our key focus areas. I plan all the summit programming (speakers, panels, work groups, keynotes, themes, agenda, etc.) while also managing core projects and communications throughout the rest of the year.

What is Google’s philosophy regarding food?

The Google Food program’s vision is to inspire the world to use food experiences to develop more sustainable lifestyles. We take a holistic approach, thinking beyond just minimizing our negative impact to how we can enrich the planet, our employees, our communities, our partners, and our suppliers.
Food plays a central role in supporting Google’s culture. Inspiring food experiences provide fuel for innovative thinking and collaboration among employees. By creating exceptional food experiences, Googlers will be happier, healthier, and more productive and creativ

5 Leadership Styles for Effective Management

5 Leadership Styles
By Tracey Maurer
What kind of leader are you? Do you follow the classic definition of a leader: someone who aims to influence and motivate employees to meet organizational goals and effectiveness?
If you’re doing your job, then this definition might sound familiar. But let’s get more specific. Do you have a particular leadership style that you usually use? Do you want to learn how to use your leadership skills more effectively?
Most leaders generally adhere to one or two preferred styles of leadership with which they feel comfortable. But the challenge is that great leaders have multiple leadership styles in their toolkit, and they are adept at diagnosing situations and using the right leadership styles at the right times, according to David Jones, professor of management at the University of Vermont Grossman School of Business.
Jones identifies five styles drawn from theory and research on leadership that he thinks are important for all leaders to have in their toolkit:
  • Directive: You’re no dictator, but you’re very clear in establishing performance objectives for your team. You’re adept at providing structure and skilled at clarifying employees’ perceptions of their roles. When needed – and this isn’t always a bad thing because some situations might require it – you tend toward micro-managing.
  • Supportive: If you’re approachable and empathetic, then you’re probably a supportive leader. You show concern for employees, and you treat them with dignity and respect. Your employees, in turn, feel valued and cared for. In times of change, they trust you to help them manage uncertainty.
  • Participative: If you’re someone who works hard for buy-in by soliciting employee input, then you’re most definitely a participative leader. You encourage employee involvement in decision-making and, more importantly, ensure they know that their views will be – and have been – considered. Depending on the situation, you consult directly with employees; other times, you delegate your authority to employees who engage in the decision-making.
  • Achievement-Oriented: If you always think you and your team can do better, and you push everyone to reach higher, then you clearly are achievement-oriented. You like to set “stretch” goals, and you encourage continuous improvement. You also empower employees and give them autonomy, assuming they’ll do their personal and team best. You constantly show confidence in the ability of individual employees and teams.
  • Transformational: Most leaders aspire to be transformational. If you are, you lead through vision. You have your eye on the future, and you model and communicate your forward-thinking commitment. You are an inspiration to employees, and they follow you because they believe in the common goals that you’ve shared and articulated.
Even if you identify with just one or two styles, you can learn from – and apply – other styles, Jones says. UVM’s Leadership and Management Professional Certificate program is a good place to start. For every situation – whether it’s communicating with an employee about poor job performance, inspiring a highly experienced team to achieve or guiding your organization through times of change and uncertainty – there are particular leadership styles and corresponding tools you can use to accomplish your objectives.
The Leadership and Management Professional Certificate program is designed for emerging leaders, supervisors and managers of all levels, including professionals currently experiencing obstacles or looking for advancement, and executives who want to reassess their ability to influence others. The certificate program consists of eight individual leadership seminars that focus on developing leadership capabilities and skills in the context of today’s business and management challenges. The seminars are taught by industry experts and held in Burlington, V
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Culinary Training Stirs Student’s Passion for Healthcare, Nutrition

A year in culinary school sparked Clementine Knight’s interest in medicine and public health.
While studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena — where she learned how to prepare everything from charcuterie to chicken stock — the science and safety of food piqued Knight’s interest.
“I never wanted to be a chef, but I wanted to learn how to cook,” says Knight, now a student in the UVM Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program. “Cooking led to my interest between the connection of food, nutrition, and chronic disease. On an epidemiological level, I was interested in the connections to the growing chronic disease epidemics in the US – diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and obesity.”
uvm-post-bac-premed

Clementine Knight
Before enrolling in UVM last year, Knight completed her culinary school training and also earned a bachelor’s degree in business, entrepreneurship and organizations at Brown University, where she also specialized in engineering.
Now her focus is on healthcare and she ultimately plans to pursue family medicine. Knight believes that working with patients over time affords opportunities to address problems, such as chronic diseases, that do not have quick fixes. She also hopes that more emphasis on preventative care will help community health as well as improve the economics of healthcare.
“Going to culinary school taught how me to cook and the science and chemistry of food,” she says. “I think what attracts me to being a family medicine practitioner is the long-term range of treating people of all ages.”

Building a Healthcare Foundation in the UVM Post Bac Premed Program

Since starting the post-bac program at UVM, Knight has volunteered for the UVM Medical Center’s Health Care Share Program at Milton Family Practice. The Health Care Share Program provides food insecure families and individuals with fresh produce, information on food storage and preparation, and increased access to nutritional counseling to underserved populations.
Knight is also president of MEDVIDA at UVM, the official chapter of the national MEDLIFE organization. In addition to its partnership with MEDLIFE, MEDVIDA also serves as a student hub for community service and social activism both internationally and locally. MEDLife stands for Medicine, Education, Development for Low Income Families Everywhere. The UVM chapter carries these same objectives with a focus on Vermont Individuals Developing Access (VIDA).
MEDVIDA has done some work with local refugee populations in the past, specifically doing community outreach around stroke awareness and outcomes. Knight says the group is also looking to partner with a UVM program called Healthy Fields that assists migrant workers to learn about healthcare options.

A Non-Traditional Path to Medicine

Many post-bac students come from a variety of different professional and educational backgrounds, and Knight is no exception.
Her interests were not always health related in a strict medical sense. Instead, she thought her career would focus on development, politics or policy design – all things she points out are necessary components to successful public health. Still, never did she imagine that learning how to cook would lead her to a career in medicine.
“I felt intimidated by cooking and wanted to go to culinary school and learn. As I learned cooking techniques and recipes, the real questions I wanted to ask were about access to healthy food as well as education about healthier eating options. Cooking was part of it, too — not just what we eat, but how, when, and with whom,” she says. “It was my experience at culinary school that really set me on a medical track as I realized that direct care was a powerful skill to have to create the change.”
Knight, who has spent time in Vietnam and Morocco, was drawn to UVM for its social consciousness as well as its location and diversity of served populations — from the refugee populations in the Burlington area to the migrant workers and large rural areas with limited access to medical services. She was also intrigued by Vermont for its political and social initiatives, including passing laws to label GMOs and putting forward a bill to tax sugar-sweetened beverages.
“I would hope that global health factors in to my focus or part of my career,” she says. “I’ve learned more than ever that the connection between food and health is something that always comes full circle, and that food systems, nutrition, and global health are all intricately related.”
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

ANALYZE THIS: PART I. TOP SKILL #4 IN THE EYES OF EMPLOYERS IS ANALYTICAL REASONING AND CRITICAL THINKING

According to the annual survey of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, one of the top skills sought by employers is a combination of critical thinking and analytical reasoning. Our own sample of 162 employers who attended the Job and Internship Fair in March 2016 has confirmed this finding: 89% of them were looking for candidates with this particular skill combination. These employers range from not-for-profits and businesses to government agencies and international organizations in various fields and industries.
What do the employers mean by “analytical” and “critical thinking” skills? Why are these skills so much in demand? Do you possess these skills? If you do, how would you demonstrate that to your potential employer? What activities would help develop analytical reasoning and critical thinking?
Find out this and more in my two part blog.
First, what are we talking about?
We are talking about two higher order cognitive skills. Both analytical reasoning and critical thinking help understand the information, topic, problem, data, etc. They enable one to tackle a problem and make the right decision in a more efficient way. However, these skills are not identical.
Analytical reasoning refers to a thinking process that entails breaking the information (topic, problem, data, etc.) into the parts, researching, and evaluating each part separately, to comprehend the complexity of the topic, discover connections, causes and effects, patterns, etc.  
Critical thinking refers to a thinking process that entails coming up with questions, searching for flaws or strengths, evaluating possible scenarios, etc., to interpret the complexity of the topic based on the facts as well as prior knowledge and experience. Critical thinking involves figuring out the “Why?” and “Why not?”
For sure, I have simplified the definitions of these skills — there is much more to both analytical reasoning and critical thinking.
Why do employers look for analytical reasoning and critical thinking skills? 
There are three major reasons:
First, employers look for these skills because of the complexity of the today’s workplace. Such complexity involves multiple sources of information, numerous stakeholders, complex challenges (economic, social, or political), increasing competition, etc.  To achieve success in whatever organizations do (development or implementation of products, programs, services, projects or policies, etc.) in such complex environments, employers need analytical and critical thinkers who can grasp individual components and their relationships, as well as probe deeper to figure out what is important and what is not.
Second, many organizations have concluded that the decentralized structure of decision-making help them work more efficiently. This means that junior staff get more responsibilities to make decisions, come up with solutions, and recommend innovations. All these tasks call for good analytical reasoning and critical thinking skills.
Finally, the employer prefers new hires who will be able to become effective in their job as fast as possible. This requires figuring out how the organization operates, your tasks and expectations, where to get mentorship, communication channels, etc. To master all this information fast, the new hire should use analytical reasoning to understand these important components and their relations at the new workplace.
Obviously, different fields and industries would require their own analytical approaches and modes of critical thinking. Research assistants in the science fields would use different inquiry methods than research assistants in policy organizations. Business professionals of various specializations would employ different analytical tools to meet their goals. Educators, media and communications specialists, program coordinators or event planners — all would use different analytical approaches, strategies and techniques in their day to day job. However, the principles of analytical reasoning and critical thinking are universal, which makes them essential transferrable skills.
Now, while I am working on my second part of this blog, I would like to suggest that you get busy as well.
First,  put on your analytical reasoning cap and analyze your academic, internship, leadership, work and other experiences to find suitable examples of utilizing analytical reasoning and critical thinking skills.  Think of specific projects and tasks that you have accomplished where you had to figure out components (factors, aspects, steps), research, and evaluate them separately and together. Think of any examples where you identified information gaps, flaws, or thought through and/or suggested possible alternatives.
Next, put on your critical thinking cap and try to assess your performance on these tasks and think of specific ways you can continue further developing these skills.
 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Food Hub Certificate Helps Organizations Find Their Place in the Food System

Ben Earle is all about using innovative approaches to solve organizational and community problems.
The executive director of Feed the Need in Durham, Ontario, enrolled in UVM’s Food Hub Management Certificate Program in 2018 to help gain a deeper knowledge and hands-on training on the role and place of food hubs in the food system.
The UVM food hub certificate, the first of its kind in the North America, launched five years ago. The program offers an innovative blend of hands-on, community-based, online and in-person learning designed to prepare students for managing food hubs.

Getting Answers in the UVM Food Hub Certificate Program

Earle, whose background is in community development and applied research, joined Feed the Need in Durham in 2015 as the organization’s executive director.
Ben Earle

Ben Earle
Feed the Need collects and distributes food to nonprofit organizations in Durham that have programs to address food security in the community. Currently, the organization distributes food to 62 nonprofit organizations in Durham, providing them with the equivalent of 456,000 meals for those who face hunger in the community.
Earle’s role as executive director includes strategic leadership to the organization and overseeing all day-to-day operations, including logistics and warehousing, inventory management, and revenue development.
“The UVM Food Hub program helped me understand where Feed the Need fits in the food system, and what our role is as part of supply chain,” he says. “I learned how to enhance the organization’s role in the community and solve problems. We’re moving away from operating as a charity to being an organization that is part the food system.”
Earle says the program also helped him understand the challenges he saw within the organization and clarify his role.
“I had questions, I had problems,” he says. “The UVM program shined a light on the answers.”
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UVM’s Food Hub Professional Certificate Program is heading to Michigan in 2019 as part of a new partnership between the University, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, and the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems.
Residential session dates for the 2019 UVM Food Hub Professional Certificate will take place in Kalamazoo, Michigan on March 4-8 and Nov. 4-8.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Upcoming Meetup! Social Impact Careers and Internships

Are you interested in making a positive impact on the world? Are you interested in an internship or professional career in social justice? The Meet Up for Social Impact might be the perfect place for you to jump-start your search for internships and jobs! This will be an excellent opportunity for you to connect with employers and promote yourself for positions in their organizations.
Here are a few tips to consider ahead of the Meet Up…
  • Be prepared. Login to Pioneer Careers and view the Meet Up for Social Impact in the Events section. Not only can you register for the event here (registration is open until the 24th of October), but you can also view a list of employers that will be there. It will be important for you to conduct research on employers you are interested in speaking with. Spend time on their websites, read more about the work they are doing in news articles and press releases, do research on the specific industry that they are in. The more you know about a company when you speak with their representatives on campus, the more impressive and polished you will look! There will be more employers added as we get closer to the event, so keep checking back to make sure you stay updated on who will be there. Here’s some helpful information on how to prepare and “work” an event like this one!
  • Practice your Elevator Pitch: Engaging with employers at this meet up will not be a formal interview. Rather you will need to be prepared for a quick conversation about you and why you’re interested in their company. This conversation often starts with a statement like, “Tell me about yourself.” The answer to this question is what we call the elevator pitch. You’ll want to give them a brief overview of your academic and internship experience, perhaps what your short and long-term goals are, and why you’re interested in working for their company. An elevator pitch is not easy, and creating an effective one will take practice. Please make an appointment with a Career Advisor to work on your elevator pitch, by using our online appointment scheduling feature in Pioneer Careers or by calling 303-871-2150.
  • Be yourself. Certainly connecting with employers can be intimidating, but remember that they are people just like you and I. They are here because they want to engage with students and alumni and they have an interest in working with DU students. While it’s normal to be nervous, remember that you are here for a reason and that these organizations want to hear more about you.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

The Digital Native Problem

By Lauren Parren
In a recent Twitter chat (#vted), we were discussing digital citizenship and the confounded label “digital native” came up. Labels typically get in the way of fully understanding people, and these terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant” smack of ageism and false assumptions.
Coined by Marc Prensky over 14 years ago, it was meant to prompt educators to think differently about teaching and learning. The digital tools now available to learners allow us to go far beyond the walls of the classroom; one of my history teachers is blogging with students in Bhutan this week, for example, mutually solving problems through the lenses of their own culture. When I was in ninth grade, we had a dusty old textbook that managed to make even Ancient Rome boring. The world has indeed changed and teaching and learning need to change with the times.
So, what’s my problem with using the term digital native?
The terms have taken on new meaning over the year, and often are used as a short-hand way of saying that people born before 1980 just don’t ‘get it’ when it comes to using technology well. Some assume that because students today grew up with computers and cell phones they have some innate ability to use the tools well.
Not so.
They may be highly skilled at texting or Snapchatting, but unless someone teaches them to use the power of the machines well, the interactions are typically fairly shallow. The digital immigrants’ understanding of skills in communication, collaboration, problem solving, numeracy, digital citizenship, etc. are vital to encourage deeper thinking and learning.
The broad terms also suggest that all learners have the same opportunities. Consider these data from www.broadbandvt.org:
chart
Although access has improved in the last four years, children who live in poverty are less likely to have access to devices and to Internet access. This is yet another example of a digital divide, a term we should be more concerned with today.
It also seems to suggest that because all students have technology skills, teachers don’t need to bother too much with things they don’t intuitively understand. It subtly shifts responsibility to learners.
Actually, the opposite is needed.
All teachers need to be teachers of Internet safety. All teachers need to be helping learners harness the power of technology to engage students in authentic tasks, solving real-world problems. Digital Natives and Immigrants can become Digital Partners.
Lauren Parren is a technology support specialist at Addison Northeast Supervisory Union and a Rowland Fellow.

Alum Researches Effects of Climate Change on Public Health

UVM alumnus Ander Wilson is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Ander received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Vermont, and a master’s and doctoral degree in statistics from North Carolina State University.
We talked to Ander about his work with the Environmental Protection Agency, his research on climate change, and why he’s optimistic about the future of environmental public health.
While a student at North Carolina State University, one of your research projects with the EPA was “Modeling the Effect of Temperature on Ozone-Related Mortality” to explore the combined effects of temperature and ozone on public health. What were some of your findings?
Our hypothesis was that the ozone – ground ozone, not stratospheric ozone – has a greater effect on people’s health when temperatures are higher. Ground-level ozone has become an important global air quality issue. As opposed to stratospheric ozone, which is the “good” protective layer, the concern at ground level is high ozone levels.
High ozone levels and extreme temperatures, especially heat waves, have shown adverse associations with respiratory and cardiovascular health. As a photo-chemical air pollutant, ozone formulation requires solar radiation and, as a result, is highly correlated with temperature.
We decided to pursue this research because many studies have focused on the effect of short-term ozone exposures on mortality and illness, but less is known about the joint effects of ozone and temperature. Their joint effects are extremely important because the two exposures are so highly correlated and are often observed together. Our analysis found that ozone does have a greater effect on mortality when temperatures are high as well.
Excessive heat events, or abrupt and dramatic temperature increases, are particularly dangerous and can result in above-average rates of mortality. CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, examining death certificates from coroners or medical examiners, computed approximately 2,000 people died from weather-related causes each year. Of those 2,000 deaths, 31 percent were heat-related. (The report says 63 percent were cold-related, and just 6 percent due to floods, storms, or lightning.)
What parts of the United States are seeing both high temperatures and high ozone levels that are affecting public health and how is this expected to change in the future?
Ozone levels vary a lot between different cities. The highest levels tend to be in Southern California, as well as in other major urban areas throughout the country. Temperature acts a little differently. People perceive temperature differently depending on what they are used to so it is more relative. Our research finds that the ozone mortality burden will increase on average in the United States over 20 years, but this depends on a lot of things. For one, it depends on where you are. Ground-level ozone is projected to increase in some parts of the U.S. and decrease or stay constant in others. This relates to both local conditions, such as emissions of ozone procurers, and global climate conditions that dictate large-scale climate trends. Because ozone occurs from reactions between primary pollutants in sunlight, much of what we will see depends on emissions of primary pollutants that form ozone.
Has the ozone study led to other areas of climate/environmental public health research?
This study exposed me to a new area of environmental public health, and I am pursuing several extensions of the work. I’m currently investigating the effects of ozone with other outcomes and projecting the future health burden of ozone exposures in the context of climate change. Another area of ongoing research is work with the Public Health Foundation of India to look at the effects of air pollutants on birth outcomes, such as low birth weight. I traveled to India last winter and will return this summer to work more on the project.
As a math major at UVM, when did you first become interested in public health?
During my senior year, I interned at UVM Medical Center in Education and Organizational Development. Back then, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my career. During my internship, I worked on health policy, analyzed employee survey data, and created a database to record required certifications for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHCO). It helped me get my first job out of college where I did health policy and nutation research.
I’ve been interested in health and public policy for many years. I wasn’t really interested in environmental public health until graduate school, which is when I had an opportunity to work with the EPA as a volunteer researcher.
With all that we now know about climate change and its devastating effects, what do you find most rewarding about your work?
Environmental public health is a very important issue, and it’s not going away anytime soon. There’s a lot of energy around these topics that I’m researching. So many people are working on studying climate change and its effect on public health. We’re trying to improve the environment and people’s health, and it’s really encouraging.

Getting a Second Chance at College through UVM GAP

Getting into college was much harder than Deniz Sehovic ever anticipated.
The child of Bosnian refugees, Deniz always assumed she would get into college without much trouble. She liked her teachers and enjoyed high school, but struggled a bit with her grades early on and found it difficult to concentrate in class. Ultimately, she preferred hanging out with her friends over homework.
Later on in her high school career, she became more focused on improving her grades and getting more involved in extracurricular activities. But as far as college admissions were concerned, it was too little too late.
During her senior year at Burlington High School, Deniz – along with her twin sister, Zerrin — applied to UVM. While Zerrin was accepted, Deniz was waitlisted and later denied admission. She appealed the decision twice, but to no avail.
College, it seemed, was out of reach.
But Deniz was fiercely determined and refused to give up. Her perseverance and optimism – traits she learned from her parents – paid off.
“To get in to UVM was the biggest struggle of my life,” says Deniz, who graduated from UVM last month in the top 10 percent of her class.

Lessons Learned

Deniz, 22, was born in Turkey and lived in Germany before moving to Burlington when she was four years old. Before she was born, her parents fled war-torn Bosnia in the early 1990s. Eventually, the family settled in Burlington in a home built by Habitat for Humanity.
While in high school, Deniz says she didn’t think she had to work as hard as a freshman or sophomore, and figured colleges would only pay attention to her grades during her junior and senior years.
“I never worried that I wouldn’t be able to get into school, and I didn’t realize I had to prove myself so early on,” she says.

How to Get Into College with GAP

After being denied admission to UVM, Deniz learned about the UVM Guaranteed Admission Program from her high school counselor. Managed by UVM Continuing and Distance Education, the Guaranteed Admission Program provides students who were not admitted to UVM a second chance. Students can enroll in the full-time program and live on campus, receiving intensive academic advising and study skill support. Upon fulfilling their program requirements through GAP with UVM – maintaining a 3.0 grade-point average and abiding by student policies – students gain admittance to the university within a year.

“The GAP program was very inclusive, and other students had no idea I was part of the program,” she says. “I didn’t necessarily receive any extra academic help for being a GAP student, but I was given the same access as all other undergraduates to campus resources. It gave me an opportunity to go to UVM and experience my first year at college just like any other student.”
Deniz excelled during her time at UVM, where she earned a degree in Public Communications. She will move to New York in July to work in social media for Aloha, a health and wellness start up.
What made her time at UVM so successful? Volunteering and community building were a priority while earning her degree. She also worked as resident advisor, an orientation leader for new students, and career peer mentor. For the past year, she interned at Skillet Design, a marketing firm in Burlington.
Her hard work paid off. Last month, she was honored with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences highest student accolade: the Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award.
“School is such a privilege. I have a deep sense of gratitude, and my family’s history (in Bosnia) makes me appreciate so much,” she says. “I’m grateful for everything I have and all the opportunities I’ve been given.”

Advice to Students

What would Deniz tell someone who did not get admitted to UVM and is considering the GAP program?
“First, I would tell them to have a little mercy on themselves. We’re our own worst critic. Instead, change your outlook and become your own biggest cheerleader. You deserve the best in every way, and you need to have the confidence to pursue your dreams. A path will always open up for you. You can’t always see it, but life has a way of working out.”
Deniz says the groundwork for her success was built by regularly communicating with her professors and advisors, and creating a network of support.
“As a GAP student, the first thing you need to do is ask for help because people are surprisingly willing to lend a hand,” she says. “Take advantage of all the resources here. Pull out all stops, and put yourself out there. “

Dual Enrollment Offers Free College Courses for High School Students

By Cynthia Belliveau, EdD
Dean, UVM Continuing and Distance Education
Governor Peter Shumlin has said that one of the top challenges Vermont faces is producing graduates that have the skills to participate in the 21st-century workforce. Vermont’s Dual Enrollment program, which the state Legislature agreed last month to fund for the next two years, can help bridge the gap.
It’s been well reported in the media that despite having one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country — 86 percent — only 41 percent of Vermont high school graduates go straight from high school to college. We clearly have some work to do.

What is the Dual Enrollment program?

Dual Enrollment – and precollege programs offered at many Vermont colleges, including the University of Vermont and Community College of Vermont – can help open the door for Vermont high school students who might not otherwise consider college as an option.
Under the $1.2 million Dual Enrollment program, high school students can enroll in classes at Vermont colleges. Students can take up to two, 4-credit courses free as a junior or senior, usually at night or over the summer, and they receive credit from their high school and the college.
Student participation in the Dual Enrollment program has been going up since the Legislature established the program as part of the Flexible Pathways Bill in 2013, and nearly 1,300 Vermont students participated in 2014.
Overseen by the Vermont Agency of Education, Vermont’s Dual Enrollment Program introduces college-level work to high school students and gives them a head start on college. The Dual Enrollment program is open to Vermont high school students who attend public schools.

Dual Enrollment at The University of Vermont

For the past 11 years, UVM Continuing and Distance Education has offered an outstanding precollege program to high school juniors and seniors who can explore career fields with professors who are leading experts, enroll in classes with other high school college students, experience the challenge of a college-level course, and earn transferable college credit.
Since 2004, 2,586 students have enrolled in UVM’s precollege program, of which 558 have matriculated to UVM. Of the 558 students, more than 85 have graduated. The number of students who have matriculated has been slowly but steadily climbing – from seven in 2005, to 38 in 2009, to 149 in 2014.
UVM’s precollege offerings include entry-level courses, a four-week Summer Academy residential program, and study abroad opportunities in Dublin and Costa Rica.
Without a post-secondary education, one’s future earning potential is lower, which we all know Vermont’s economy can’t afford. With the renewal of Vermont’s Dual Enrollment, I hope more high school students will be taking advantage of precollege courses at UVM and investing in their future. At no cost to the student, the payback is well worth the effort.

When Queer = Diversity = Complicated

By Dot Brauer
When I presented on issues facing LGBTQ college students at UVM’s Mental Health Matters conference this spring, I knew I had my work cut out for me. When the feedback was mixed, I wasn’t overly surprised.
My job as director of UVM’s LGBTQA Center requires me to know a lot about this topic, but bridging gaps between different levels of awareness that people bring to these topics is much more difficult than it used to be. I started providing education on how to be an ‘ally’ to LGB people before T and Q were in the vernacular. It was more than 25 years ago and terms like genderqueer, fluidity, and intersectionality hadn’t been invented yet.

The Complexities of Gender Identity

High school and college students today are reading, writing, talking, and living gender and sexuality in ways that go beyond concepts previously only hinted at by philosophers like Foucault and Butler, and scientists like Kinsey. Increasingly, these young people understand better than their elders that ‘identity’ is best understood through a lens of intersectionality. For example, if you are trying to understand someone’s gender, you need to also take into account their age, race, ethnicity, health status, religion, etc.
If this sounds impossibly hard, find a comfortable chair and plan to spend a good deal of time learning about what is becoming a new way to understand the complex diversity of human existence.
Gender is just one facet of this complexity, and gender itself is complex. Young people today are exploring their genders in ways that explode my generation’s understanding of gender as: binary (either man or woman), universal (people everywhere are the same) and fixed (stays the same throughout your lifetime). What is crucial to understand about this trend though is that large numbers of their peers fully support their explorations and that support makes this more than just a passing fashion.

A New Attitude on Gender Issues

Increasingly, the younger generation believes that many (if not all) previously established notions about humans and society should be open to question and critique. Ideas about science, government, war, economics, race, religion — that my generation took for granted — are being questioned not only by academics but by the public at large, especially the younger public. Young people are completely rejecting the premise that traditional notions of gender reflect human nature in some essential immutable way. Students I encounter are more than open to the idea of gender as a lived experience that can’t be bounded by the limitations of a universal, fixed, binary concept.
Some young people choose to educate themselves at length about how gender was reified by the scientific revolution and institutionalized by 19th century industrialization, but most simply find the idea of gender being more flexible and complex intuitively reasonable. But what they find intuitive, many older adults find confusing, and even frightening.
Some older adults actively resist change using whatever access they might have to personal or institutional resources, while increasing numbers of young people are moving on by tackling an array of projects: establishing nouns and pronouns to describe more genders; providing education about the differences between gender expression, gender identity, sex, and sexuality, and asserting the rights of themselves and others to choose whether and how to align their self-identified gender and their gender expression on any given day.

Breaking Tradition

People who assume all of this is a fad will ultimately find they were mistaken. These ideas are working their way into and through human societies all over the world. Readers for whom these ideas are new, might be confused when they realize that once the idea of fixed, binary gender is off the table, traditional notions of sexuality must be abandoned as well. If gender (mine and my life partner’s, e.g.) exist beyond a binary and are not fixed for our lifetimes, what language would we use to describe our relationship?
Like the lack of nouns and pronouns for gender, our language also lacks words for describing relationships beyond heterosexual (a relationship consisting of two different sexes) and homosexual (a relationship consisting of only one sex). And this last sentence highlights another point of confusion: sex and gender should not be confused to mean the same thing, but the two ideas are commonly assumed to always be aligned and therefore interchangeable.
What we are living today is nothing short of a social revolution that has come quietly into our towns, schools, and homes. The Internet has provided an unprecedented forum for people to communicate with each other across the miles and over time. Today, people exchange ideas that may have been confined throughout centuries to the isolated imagination of one person here or there. Blogs, discussion boards, and social media provide places where people share feelings of not fitting into accepted norms; feelings people in previous generations hid in shameful secrecy.
Before the Internet, people who are now being referred to as ‘gender non-conforming’ were worse off than the Whos of Whoville. At least the Whos had each other and when they combined their voices, they were heard and even the monkeys realized they existed. What if the Whos were isolated from each other, all on separate dust specks on separate flowers? Internet communication created a virtual Whoville where people who previously felt isolated by their differences to find each other, and then to join their voices, and ultimately to ‘prove’ their existence.

Gaining a Voice

Today, gender non-conforming people have a greater chance than ever to learn of the existence of other people like them and now that they have heard each other and we have heard them, their existence among us is unlocking gender constrictions that have bound humans in problematic assumptions, frictions, and fictions for centuries. I predict that similar social revolutions are coming soon, in the way humans see race, ethnicity, ability, and so many other categories of human experience.
It is true that it feels more challenging than ever to bridge the differences in understanding that exist between generations. Explaining even a portion of such complex ideas doesn’t fit neatly into the 50 minute power point presentation that have become the go-to tool of today’s professional development. But the Internet has given voice to a vast chorus of insight.
As we surf this wave of change together, we all need to stay open to new ideas and models for how we can best teach ourselves and each other about this revolution we are living.
DotBrauerDot Brauer has served as the Director of the LGBTQA Center at the University of Vermont since 2001. She holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology from Antioch New England and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Program at the University of Vermont.

Inspirations for Black Faces, White Spaces

A Bit of Background

Despite the fact I wrote a book about the relationship between African Americans and the environment—and have studied the subject in depth—I don’t refer to myself an “environmentalist.” Most of my years have been dedicated to the arts since I dropped out of school when I first attended college. I always loved school, but I wanted to do something else at the time. I embraced acting and the chance to perform. And so, I am an “actor.” Since the age of 9 or 10, I’ve loved maps. As a kid I even subscribed to one of those programs that sent monthly boxes filled with maps, stamps, crafts, etc. from one country of the world. When I left the performance world, I went on a series of backpacking trips, spending a significant amount of time in Africa and Nepal, and opened my eyes as to how other people were living in the world. At the same time I embraced the opportunity for identity expansion, changing the way I showed up in the world around me. And so, I am an “explorer.” Following the five-year period of my travels, I went back to school. My experiences ignited a great interest in women’s issues and their role in international development. I wanted whatever I studied to have a practical purpose that could be put to use immediately in the world around me. I earned my B.A., worked at a homeless shelter in Seattle, then went back for an M.A. where I had the opportunity to study women and forest management in Nepal. I chose geography as the subject of my Ph.D. because I loved the idea of looking at the relationship between people and the land upon which they stand. And so, I am a “cultural geographer.” In short, what I call myself depends on the what day it is. The point here is that you don’t need to be an “environmentalist” to study humans’ relationship with the world around us. And you don’t have to be an “academic” to absorb the facts. The experience of writing Black Faces, White Spaces was really the culmination of all the roles with which I have identified. So much of academia is about the presentation of numbers, but my artistic side really wanted to tell stories. I wanted many different types of people to have access to the academic material. And so, the book was born, and I am a “writer.”

Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors

Considering the Past: Slavery and Segregation

As stated in the introduction, this book argues from the assumption that environmentalism and the meanings we attribute to the environment are grounded in history, race, gender and culture. While I’m careful not to characterize an entire group of people, there are some historical aspects of American culture that play a common role in this relationship. For example, the entire country was shaped by slavery—not just the slaves themselves. The idea that we can enslave a group of people to work the land is always lurking in the background in terms of who we are and how we think of the environment in this country, whether we want to own it or not. It mirrors the way we think about the environment as well, that land is property—something we can own. We separate ourselves as humans vs. nature, in the same way slaves were separated from those who could make their own decisions. And the notion of making free choices permeates through Jim Crow segregation in the middle of the 20th century as well. It limited the ability of African Americans to make the best choices for themselves. Their experience was defined by social and cultural mores, as there were places where they simply were not allowed to go. With the Great Migration to northern cities, the main focus was on civilized opportunities, and for many this meant working in the industrial field, away from rural areas. My parents were part of this movement as well, though they worked as caretakers of a 12-acre property outside New York City after my father came back from the Korean War. They didn’t own the land they worked on, but they understood it far better than the owners. In instances such as this, whose knowledge counts?

Considering the Present: Hurricane Katrina

In short, to think that these aspects of our culture don’t still shape the relationship between African Americans and the environment today is misguided. Look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and what it revealed about us as a nation and our relationship to a place and the land. We have a history in this country with the idea of Manifest Destiny and conquest—that it’s our God-given right to engage with the the land. And so people came to New Orleans, which has strategic value as it’s located at the mouth of the Mississippi River. But at the same time, this land is a swamp. What Hurricane Katrina revealed was how flawed it was that we tried to control the swap, and beyond that our relationship to land and nature. It showed our entitlement in thinking we can control everything using technology and brute force. It revealed how questions of poverty and economic privilege are tied to issues of access and being able to get out when you need to, and how owning one’s own car is simply not everyone’s reality. And not only did it reveal how African Americans were portrayed negatively in the media (think white “survival” vs. black “looting”), but it also showed how quickly it became a black-and-white conversation, when there were many other groups of people who suffered as well—particularly within the Vietnamese and Native communities. What does the way we deal with a “natural” disaster mean in terms of where we place our cities and which places and people get overlooked?

Write Your Environmental Autobiography

For those considering reading the book or studying environmentalism and your relationship with the world around you, I urge you to start by writing your own environmental autobiography. Be clear about your own standpoint. Where do you come from? What is your perspective? How are you subjective? This will tell you something about yourself and bring clarity to what you can bring to the conversation. I believe all knowledge is subjective, and you view everything you study through your lens of experience. But this isn’t something to shy away from. Rather, it’s something to own. It changes the way knowledge is produced and understood. As a black woman, I’ve also considered who, historically, has not been able to participate in academic study or the privileged spaces of knowledge production. I consider my parents, who have high-school educations, and how any intimidation they feel about their intelligence comes from a world that says academic degrees make you smart. Knowledge comes from everywhere. Let’s throw out some of the rules and come up with new ways of learning, new ways of sharing knowledge, new ways of engaging different ideas and new ways of moving forward. What are we so afraid of?