New Beer School Courses Created to Help Existing Breweries Succeed

Brewery operation requires knowledge of everything from regulatory requirements and intellectual property to financing and accounting. Three years after launching the online Business of Craft Beer Certificate Program, UVM is introducing a series of short courses to meet the growing demand for professional development opportunities for staff in existing breweries.

UVM Continuing and Distance Education is offering in 2019 a variety of four-week, online courses that will be taught by seasoned professionals in the craft beer industry.

Courses include:

Legal and Regulatory Compliance
Intellectual Property Protection in Craft Beer
Financing Your Start-Up Brewery
Business Models for New Brewery Start-ups
Brewpub/Taproom and Restaurant Planning
Maximizing Taproom Sales and Profits

“Trial and error can be costly for a small brewery owner and our goal is to provide professional development opportunities in an easy-to-access, affordable and online format,” says UVM Business of Craft Beer program director Greg Dunkling.

“The short courses—what we’re calling Beer School—serve as continuing education for existing breweries. While there will be some courses offered for brewery start-ups, most of our focus in the short courses will be offering professional development for staff in operating breweries.”

Tackling Real Life Challenges Facing Breweries Today

The UVM beer program is also establishing a national advisory board that will include brewery owners. Dunkling says the goal of the advisory board is for UVM to gain advice regarding the business challenges breweries face and to generate ideas for courses to help build knowledge and skills. Once the advisory board is up and running, it will help UVM identify new topics for additional Beer School short courses.

“Brewery staff often wear many hats but aren’t necessarily proficient in all areas,” Dunkling says. “Our Beer School provides relevant and in-depth education to help build their knowledge of social media, brewery finance, taproom management, and other topics.”

Professional Development for Brewery Staff

David Nyhan, an experienced taproom and operations manager who is teaching the Brewpub/Taproom and Restaurant Planning course, says professional development opportunities for breweries is essential in today’s competitive market. “The more education and knowledge you can offer, the better,” he says. “It can help with your brewery’s long-term growth and sustainability in the industry.”

Marketing and sales are becoming a greater focus for most breweries as well, Dunkling says. While marketing and sales are often secondary to buying equipment, building a facility, and hiring staff when a brewery is in the start-up phase, they are critical to a brewery’s success.

“While the craft beer industry continues to grow—there were 980 new breweries last year alone—there is growing competition. There is limited shelf space in any store and on tap handles in bars and restaurants. Breweries must be firing on all cylinders to remain competitive today,” Dunkling says.

“Conferences and guild sponsored-workshops are helpful, yet these tend to focus on the technical side of brewing or are typically only an hour or two in length. There is only so much one can cover or take away from such a format. In discussions with brewery staff, we felt there was a need for more in-depth professional development programming.”

Listen to Our Podcast About Maximizing Brewery Taproom Success

Listen to Kary Shumway, instructor of upcoming Maximizing Taproom Sales and David Nhyan on UVM’s Business of Craft Beer podcast

Preparing for Dental School in UVM’s Post-Baccalaureate Premed Program

Wearing braces in middle school inspired Saloni Mehta’s career path.

The Boston University alumna spent her childhood in Framingham, Massachusetts, before her family moved to nearby Sudbury when she started high school.

“The one piece of solace I had during that time was the smile my orthodontist gave me,” she says. “Having a nice smile helped me feel confident.”

While she ended up majoring in environmental science in college, Saloni eventually enrolled in UVM’s Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program’s dental track. Now she’s applying to dental schools throughout the northeast.

Taking courses in chemistry, biochemistry and physics at UVM helped Saloni fulfill the undergraduate science courses required for application to dental school. Coming to UVM also gave her a sense of belonging and community.

“The students here are motivated and competitive but they’re not cutthroat,” she says. “We helped each other and stayed in touch since completing the program. The sense of community was amazing.”

Pre Dental Programs and Applying to Dental School

While studying at Boston University, Saloni took calculus and biology, but soon realized how difficult the pre-dental requirements would be during her undergraduate years. She focused on environmental science and worked for an energy company after graduating.

But her dreams of becoming a dentist were never far away.

After completing the UVM Post-Baccalaureate Premedical program, she applied to several dental schools, including SUNY Buffalo, Boston University, University of Maryland, University of New England, and Temple University. She has chosen to attend Boston University School of Dental Medicine in the fall of 2019. But she is also interested in possibly returning to Vermont to practice dentistry.

Ultimately, Saloni’s goal is to be an oral surgeon, which not only requires dental school, but also licensing, residency and board certification. She’s confident UVM has set her on the right path.

“The way my UVM professors taught me was integrated and hands on,” she says. “The program gave me such a good foundation.”

Summer Programs for High School Students Draw More Undergraduates to UVM

Nearly 15 years after UVM established its precollege program, more high school students are enrolling in the program to get a head start on their college degree.

UVM’s precollege program is offered to high school juniors and seniors who want to explore areas of study and earn transferable college credit.

Since 2004, 3,709 high school students have enrolled in 4,878 courses at UVM. Of that number, 993 of those students were admitted to UVM, 364 completed their undergraduate degree at UVM, and 47 went on to enroll in UVM graduate programs.

“UVM’s precollege program is not only an effective way for students to get a head start on their college career, but also an opportunity for them to experience everything UVM has to offer,” says Beth Taylor-Nolan, Associate Dean for Continuing and Distance Education, which oversees the UVM precollege program. “As the program has grown more robust over the years, we’re seeing more of our precollege students apply and matriculate to UVM.”

Precollege attracts students to UVM from all over, including Vermont, New England, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, California, as well as Puerto Rico and British Columbia.

The UVM precollege program offers more than 100 online and on-campus courses for high school students in the summer and throughout the academic year. As part of the University’s precollegeofferings, Summer Academy is a four-week program offered on-campus and online.

Dual Enrollment for Vermont Precollege Students

Vermont high school students looking to enroll in a precollege course may apply for a voucher under the Vermont Dual Enrollment program to earn transferable college credit. Students can access up to two college courses with tuition fully reimbursed through a voucher system approved by their high schools.

Ruby LaBrusciano-Carris, who graduated from Twinfield Union High School in Plainfield in 2013, participated in UVM’s precollege program in the fall and spring of her senior year of high school. She decided to take advantage of Vermont’s Dual Enrollment Program.

The financial benefit of Dual Enrollment was a big reason why she decided to eventually enroll in UVM, where she graduated from in 2017. The precollege program also helped her realize that UVM was the right choice.

“It reassured me that there were a variety of classes and (a community of) people that I could see myself being a part of,” she says.

Food System Change Begins with Breakthrough Leaders

The idea of changing our food system to be more sustainable can be daunting. But what if you could learn how to intervene at one point and make a small change that could build towards a greater impact? Identifying those leverage points to impact change in our food system is just one of the goals of the an innovative online and on-campus Breakthrough Leaders for Sustainable Food Systems program at the University of Vermont.

A recognized leader in the food system movement, UVM walks students through every step of the interconnected food system. “Our goal is to build leaders’ understanding of the overall food system dynamics to gain a better sense of the whole picture not just their own perspective,” said Dr. Cynthia Belliveau, Dean of UVM’s Continuing and Distance Education.

Ben & Jerry’s Social Mission Strategy and Policy Manager, Simone Washington, M.S., J.D., who leads discussions about social equity in our food system during the program, says that good leaders need to go into situations listening, observing and identifying who or what those leverage points may be. “Leverage points are the opportunities where you can break through tension and begin to see change,” said Washington. “It could be a person, a group of people, policy, or a shift that can create momentum towards change.”

Former Breakthrough Leaders student, Sylvia Grove, PhD, says that as a result of the program, she has changed her perspective on leadership, the food system and activism. “As a French teacher and a daughter of a dairy farmer, I’ve been thinking a lot about the intersection of humanities and sustainable practices in my work in the classroom,” said Grove. “The teachings at Breakthrough Leaders has helped me to better understand where leverage points may be in my work and from what point I am capable of approaching and providing solutions to a problem.”

Gaining that broader viewpoint on systems theory is what organizers hope students will take away from this unique cross-disciplinary program. The focus on our food system allows participants to see examples in Vermont some of the behaviors and practices the can be modeled elsewhere. Washington says that food is a great equalizer. However, people come to discussions about food and food systems from very difference perspectives. “We need to be aware of what is happening across the country as it relates to food,” said Washington. “In many places, there aren’t grocery stores, access to fruits and vegetables, no one picking up the trade of gardening or farming; areas where people aren’t thinking about if they are eating healthy, but rather are thinking about if they able to eat at all.”

Through UVM’s Breakthrough Leaders program, Washington encourages participants to not shy away from the tough topics and to create a space to discuss social equity in our food system by considering how we can help all of us have access to good food. Developing leaders that can recognize the need to bring stakeholders from different levels and perspectives to the table is key to identifying those leverage points and developing potential solutions.

UVM’s Breakthrough Leaders for Sustainable Food Systems begins with two weeks of online classroom work engaging with peer activists and initiating discussions around food system challenges. In the third week, participants come together with their peers in Burlington, Vermont to deepen their engagement in the food movement by interacting with food system leaders through site visits and hands-on experiences. Registration is open now for leaders looking to create positive and forward-looking solutions for our broken food system

College Prep Class for High School Students Shares the Power of Journalism

To be a person is to have a story to tell. — Isak Dinesen

For thousands of years, storytelling has been a way for humans to engage, share feelings, and convey personal experiences.

Sharing stories with words and images helps us connect with the world around us and better understand one another.

This summer, high school students will have the opportunity to enhance their storytelling skills in Journalism through Words and Photographs, a college prep class offered in UVM’s Summer Academy program.

Taught by photographer Andrew Frost and writer Jenny Grosvenor, the course is part of UVM’s Summer Academy, a four-week residential and online program offered to high school juniors and seniors who want to explore areas of study and earn transferable college credit.

The course’s photography component is new this year, Frost says, adding that students will work on a variety of projects, from writing assignments to research to telling stories using words and photographs.

The goal of the course is for students to understand “real visual literacy coupled with the tools to tell a powerful story,” Frost says. Students will learn to appreciate the ability of words and pictures and to illuminate universal human experiences. Students will also learn to capture an audience and build a visual narrative that communicates without written language.

In an era when smart phone cameras are ubiquitous and everyone is posting online, Frost says students will better understand how to make an impact.

“This is nothing new—photographs have been staged since the inception of the medium, and from a fundamental starting point photographs are not true representations of reality,” he says. “We’ll delve into this in class and work on strategies to use photographs in interesting and compelling ways through both practice and an examination of historical photographic examples.”

Frost, who has been a photographer for 15 years, says he generally creates photographs of whatever he finds interesting—a pile of keys in the afternoon sunlight, icicles in a cave, a ski lodge perched on top of a mountain, and his dog running in the snow.

“Storytelling is all around us. We spin the events of our lives into a story we tell people when we meet them,” he says. “Understanding both how storytelling works and how to tell more engaging stories is almost like a superpower.”

How Web Analytics Can Help You Understand Your Customers

Bounce rates. Page views. Acquisition. New vs. returning visitors. When it comes to web analytics, which metrics are the most important?

When used collectively and strategically, all of them matter, say experts Krista Park and Ryan Andricks, who will separately teach UVM’s online Web Analytics and Data-Driven Decision Making course.

“It’s about understanding analytics as a whole,” says Park, director of analytics at Greenlane Marketing in Philadelphia. “Analytics are only one piece of the larger puzzle. You use web analytics to inform. But just because your web numbers are going up doesn’t mean things are going the way you want for your company. You need to think about the data strategically.”

The five-week course offers a deep dive into Google Analytics and interpreting web traffic data. It’s designed for digital marketers, analysts, and professionals looking to deepen their understanding of how to identify and use data to support their campaign planning and performance. It will also show how to leverage data as a way to better understand how a company’s website is being used—by whom and in what ways—for better reporting.

“We’ll look into how the process of selecting key data works, evaluating data, presenting it effectively, and communicating findings and recommended actions—based on the data—to achieve a business’s objectives,” Park says. “The course will help participants more efficiently and effectively evaluate their business’s performance and create actionable insights.”

Those actionable insights will then be used to achieve their business objectives, whether it’s growth in a particular area, stemming a loss, or working to achieve parity with their competitors, Park says.

In the course, Park and Andricks will also demonstrate how to create connections between offline and online data so digital marketers and analysts can understand and communicate a whole-world view of their business.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with looking at a top surface piece of Google Analytics information, but segmentation is key,” Park says. “Otherwise it’s likely you’re missing some really important things that are happening.”

Andricks, a senior analytics manager at Seer Interactive in Philadelphia, agrees. He adds that if a digital marketer or analyst is working for a new employer or is hired by a web client that already uses Google Analytics, it’s important to educate them. “A lot of people are using Google Analytics and assuming that it’s been set up properly,” he says. “If goal tracking isn’t being used, it needs to be. And they need to be sure to focus on the users, don’t think about sessions.”

When measuring analytics and communicating results, Park and Andricks say it’s critical to pay attention to and communicate patterns and standard fluctuations.

“One of the most basic patterns is seasonality. It’s a standard catch-all such as back-to-school or Christmas,” Park says. “But fluctuations don’t have a primary driver and might be less obvious. Maybe there’s a marketing campaign happening or selection of channels being promoted. You need to ask yourself, what is the context behind this data? What else is happening?”

UVM’s Digital Marketing Course on Web Analytics

The UVM course will help prepare participants for the Google Analytics certification exam. Participants will also learn:

How to identify key performance indicators within the data and contextual supports
Mapping data to key performance indicators, strategies, and objectives
Identification of ancillary factors impacting a data set
How to work with trends to identify patterns versus standard fluctuations
Data combinations for more robust outputs (e.g. segments, filters, dimensions, custom views)
Presenting data in digestible formats
Data presentation structures—report types (sheets, docs, slides), frequency, update methods (manual, automated)
Creating actionable insights
Developing baselines and projection

Cabot Creamery Co-operative Manager Nick Managan Strives to Keep Learning

What makes a good manager?

For UVM alumnus Nick Managan ’05, it’s all about accountability and hard work.

Managan has been employed full-time at Cabot Creamery Cooperative for ten years, working his way up through the ranks and being mentored by his supervisors along the way. In 2017, he was promoted to Northeast marketing manager and had years of experience under his belt in customer service, marketing, communications, and event planning.

But one area he needed more training in was managing staff. His new role was the first time he would be in a supervisory role with full-time employees reporting to him. Managan enrolled in UVM’s Leadership and Management Program, which offers eight, one-day seminars in Burlington. The program addresses everything from emotional intelligence to conflict and negotiation to accounting.

“I thought the program did a great job giving a broad perspective of the things you need to focus on as a manager,” he says. “I really loved the emotional intelligence and conflict and negotiation seminars. It was nice to learn more about those areas and gain a little more self-awareness.”

A Priority to Never Stop Learning

Managan joined Cabot in 2005, first as a part-time staffer sampling cheese at events in New York City. He returned to his native Vermont in 2009 as Cabot’s special events coordinator. He later became the co-op’s Northeast marketing and communications integrator before being promoted to his current role.

Even though Managan has worked for Cabot for more than a decade, he says he strives to continue to learn and grow.

“It’s important to improve all the time,” he says. “Education is one of the seven co-operative principles and a priority for Cabot. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn.”

Another principle at the heart of Cabot is concern for community. In February, Managan and 100 Cabot staff and farmers participated in the Special Olympics Vermont Penguin Plunge in Lake Champlain fundraiser. The co-op’s Department of Gratitude also promotes and supports a variety of volunteer opportunities with its Reward Volunteers program.

A Sense of Community

Meanwhile, outside of work, Managan and his wife are raising a therapy dog—a golden retriever named Lou—who visits schools and nursing homes through Therapy Dogs of Vermont. Managan also coached for the first time this winter, volunteering for first and second grade basketball in Waterbury.

“Volunteerism is part of the fabric of Vermont and at the heart of our farmers,” he says. “You can change the trajectory of someone’s day by helping someone. It comes down to caring and trying to make the world a better place, starting with the community you’re in.”

That sense of community and caring carries over to the workplace, he says. Being engaged, accountable and hardworking are just a few of the things that make a leader and manager effective.

“It’s about making sure you’re supporting your team, making sure they know what the expectations are and making sure you’re providing the resources they need,” he says. “A good manager is checking in with staff, making sure things are running smoothly and putting in their own work.

Using a Public Health Approach in Physical Therapy

The best part of Mariana Wingood’s job has always been helping patients return to their everyday lives.

She has spent most of her career being a full-time physical therapist at UVM Medical Center’s Fanny Allen campus in Colchester, providing care to patients who have suffered a fall or illness and helps them get them back on their feet and stay healthy.

However, in the fall she decided to take the next step and start her PhD in Human Functioning and Rehabilitation at the UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

“Many older adults stop exercising as they age. My interest is figuring out how can we change that,” she says. “One avenue may be through increasing physical activity discussions in healthcare. The thought is that older adults value the advice they get from healthcare providers, and by having them discuss physical activity with their patients, it may impact an individual’s level of physical activity. My question is, how can we increase healthcare providers promotion of physical activity? What tools can be developed, validated and implemented to increase this ease? Do those tools make a difference in the level of physical activity?”

She hopes that these two important parts of her life—hands-on clinical care and research—could one day coalesce into a job teaching at a university with a pro bono clinic offering physical therapy and preventative care.

Epidemiology Certificate Program at UVM

To help her prepare for her career plans and the doctorate program, Wingood enrolled in the UVM Certificate of Graduate Study in Epidemiology in 2017. The 18-credit program is a one-year, online certificate that is a collaboration of the Larner College of Medicine, Continuing and Distance Education, and the UVM Graduate College.

“What I enjoyed most about the program was the application of research, statistics and analyses,” she says. “It really deepened my understanding of public health and prepared me well for the PhD program. Public health and epidemiologists have a different view of healthcare, I really enjoy their promotion of health and prevention of disease. As a healthcare provider it’s important to be aware of their view and efforts. By understanding them, we can improve collaborations and become better clinicians and better researchers.”

The program’s core courses include epidemiology, applied research in public health and public health biostatistics. Program electives range from public health law and ethics to investigating disease outbreaks.

“The program did a good job making the assignments based on real-life scenarios and making it applicable,” she says. “We would also apply any recent news of an outbreak—such as flu or salmonella—into our work as well.”

Wingood studied biology at SUNY Oswego and received a doctor of physical therapy from SUNY Update Medical University. Raised in Austria by her parents and grandmother, she moved to the United States in 1999. She says that she always knew she wanted to work with older adults.

“I love exercise and how it makes me feel. It’s really beneficial to be able to enjoy physical activity and exercise later on in life and seeing how it can help people get better was a huge motivator for me wanting to become a physical therapist,” she says. “I always knew I wanted to go into geriatrics. My grandmother helped raise me and I always wanted to thank older adults for everything they have done. This is a great way for me to do that.”

Helping patients get better and helping them enjoy the life they lived prior to going to the hospital or getting injured is her favorite part of the job. More than anything, the human connection is what makes Wingood’s work in physical therapy so rewarding.

“I learn as much from my patients as I hope I teach them, especially the older adults as they have so much life experience,” she says. “Patients tell me that I have a great outlook on life and I inform them it is thanks to them, I have learned it all from my patients.’ It’s a great connection to have

Medical Mentorship Program Helps Medical Students Prepare for Revised MCAT

Originally published on March 17, 2016. Updated March 27, 2019

The University of Vermont offers a four-week Medical School Mentorship and Enrichment Summer Program to help prepare students for the new Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).

The revised MCAT is designed to place greater emphasis on critical thinking and cover additional content. In addition to being broader and more difficult, the new MCAT is twice as long as the old edition and has a heavier section on biochemistry.

“On the new MCAT, students need to know even more,” says UVM College of Medicine Biochemistry Professor Paula Tracy, who is leading the Medical School Mentorship and Enrichment Summer Program. “Our goal is not to reteach students everything they’ve already learned over four weeks. We want to identify concepts students struggle with and offer an active, hands-on learning experience.”

The revised MCAT also added a fourth section dedicated to behavioral tactics, psychology, and sociology. The Association of American Medical Colleges conducted five years of research to revamp the test in April 2015, which had not been updated since 1991.

In addition to preparing for the MCAT, the Medical School Mentorship and Enrichment Summer Program will also help students build clinical experience with formal shadowing and medical-simulation-center activities and give them the opportunity to practice essential interviewing skills.

An MCAT Prep Course and the Benefits of Mentoring

The program is not just about testing. Tracy points out that mentoring is a key component to help students prepare for medical school. Students are assigned to a current UVM medical student who will serve as a personal mentor and provide students with firsthand knowledge about applying to and succeeding in medical school today.

“What I like about mentoring is finding the best in people,” says Tracy, a champion of mentoring and a member of the UVM faculty for more than 30 years. “It helps students realize their own potential.”

During the Program, Students Will:

Perform virtual medical procedures in UVM’s state-of-the-art medical simulation center and have an opportunity to watch a live surgery
Practice for medical school interviews through mock multiple mini interviews (MMIs) with feedback to improve interview skills
Receive a detailed, personalized assessment

Is a MCAT Prep Course Right for You?

The program is for premed students who are getting ready to take the MCAT and apply to medical school. Tracy expects participants will have completed their first three years of undergraduate premedical coursework before starting the program. Recent graduates are welcome to participate as long as they have completed the standard premed course requirements.

Tracy has worked with undergraduate, graduate, and medical students at all training levels, as both their teacher and mentor. She previously served as the director of Preclinical Assessment in the College of Medicine Vermont Integrated Curriculum (VIC) and prior to that served as the director of a VIC first-year course for 13 years.

“As a result of those experiences and my membership on the College of Medicine Admissions Committee, I have an in-depth understanding of what it takes to get into medical school and how to be successful as a medical student,” she says. “I’m confident we’ve pulled together the right team of teachers and mentors in order to create the right learning experiences to help students confidently progress through their premed pathway into medical school.”

Personalized Career Coaching Guides Master of Public Health Students Toward Success

Imagine having an advocate in your corner to help you polish up your resume, prepare for a job interview, refine an outstanding cover letter, connect to career mentors, and build an attention-getting LinkedIn profile as you advance along your career path. That’s exactly what currently enrolled students and Alumni of UVM’s Certificates of Graduate Study and Master of Public Health degree programs through the Larner College of Medicine have in Career Development Coach, Heather Palow, M.Ed, ACC.

“What I really enjoy the most is helping our MPH students and Alumni be able to better explain and showcase their strengths, transferable skills and their own unique story in ways that helps them to see their future in health careers,” said Palow.

Career Services Integrated into Master of Public Health Program

Master of Public Health degree students first meet Palow during the orientation to the online masters’ program. As part of the virtual tour of UVM and the College of Medicine, Palow helps students to think about the importance of building a professional portfolio right from the beginning. She meets with students one-on-one at the start of the course, throughout the program, and at the end of the program as part of their Applied Practice Experience (APE) learning the unique paths that many students have taken when deciding to pursue a career in Public Health.

“So often, I experience what I think of as ‘lightbulb moments’ with students; hearing the reasons why they are making changes in their education and career paths and discussing how their decisions can be communicated in a positive way to prospective employers in the future,” said Palow.

May 2018 MPH Graduate, Liz Scoles took advantage of all of the services provided by Palow, from resume and cover letter writing, to interview prep and even guidance on interview follow-up emails and calls. She credits the work that she and Palow did together as one of the reasons that she is in her new position at a health information exchange company.

“It doesn’t take long to get rusty,” said Scoles. “I had been out of work for four years after completing my Master of Public Health, and a lot had changed in that time. Heather helped me translate my skills into quick takeaways that employers were looking for. She was incredibly helpful.”

Palow not only keeps tabs on current MPH students and connects them with internships and fellowship resources, but also works with students as they start to navigate the change process from Alumni to career professional. She monitors and shares job opportunities in Public Health, as well as guides important conversations as to when might be the best time to make a career change.

“Some students are naturals when it comes to transitions, but others are anxious or have unique goals and challenges advancing in their career, I work with people to get past their roadblocks to help them communicate their unique story, appeal to a prospective employer and really make the change in their professional lives that they are hoping for.

Top 10 Reasons to Attend Summer School

Remember when Alice Cooper’s song School’s Out was blasted from car radios just as the final school bells rang in early June? Times have changed when it comes to how we approach academics in the warm summer months. Whether it’s the opportunity for a student to get ahead on core requirements, boost a GPA or just stay engaged in learning while also enjoying all that summer has to offer; today, summer school is definitely – in.

The University of Vermont’s Summer University offers over 500 courses, of which more than 200 are online, making the courses accessible from just about anywhere. But taking summer courses at UVM is about more than the unique course selection; it’s also an amazing opportunity to experience Burlington, which is one of the most popular vacation destinations in the country.

And just in case you need more convincing, we’ve pulled together our Top 10 Reasons to Attend Summer School at UVM.

UVM Campus in the Summer

Flexibility of courses: students can choose online or on-campus courses. And Summer University at UVM has three start dates, allowing students to take courses in May, June or July.
Diversity of course selection: with over 500 courses—and more than 200 online—students can choose from core requirements such as Race and Ethnicity in American Literature and Culture, Archaeology of the Americas, World Regional Geography or Fundamentals of Linguistics. Or try something new such as Contemporary US Theater or Cybersecurity Principles.
Small class sizes: the general student population is reduced in the summer months, which means courses taken at Summer University are small; providing more access to instructors.
Build your global network: your classmates during the summer could be from just about anywhere in the world. Summer University is open to visiting undergrads, UVM undergrads, local professionals, high school students, and students from around the globe, therefore your potential network will grow.
Reduced price: summer courses at UVM are 30% off standard tuition rates. Scholarships and housing options are also available making summer school at UVM affordable.
Transferable credits: UVM opens its doors to visiting undergrad students each summer and offers visiting students personal advising to help determine which credits will transfer back to their undergraduate university.
Short courses: studies have shown that the shorter the course, the more likely a student is to retain the information.
Focused subjects: taking one course or even two means that a student can focus their attention on specific topics such as Elements of Statistics or Fundamentals of Calculus. For some students, the more intensive, short course in the summer allows them to maintain a focus that may have been difficult in a full semester.
Summer in Vermont: there really isn’t a better place to be than on the shores of Lake Champlain in the summer months. By choosing courses at are on-campus, students can enjoy all that Vermont has to offer including hiking, biking, paddle boarding, boating, award-winning restaurants, outdoor music festivals, and so much more.
Homework on the beach: choose from three gorgeous sandy beaches on the shores of Lake Champlain, all within a short walk or a bike ride from the UVM campus to read, work on a paper or study for an exam.

Kayaking on Lake Champlain in the Summer

Swapping traffic congestion for kayaking on Lake Champlain and substituting Facebook for actual facetime with new friends from around the globe just might be the recipe for a perfect summer school experience.

And for undergrads, high school students, and professionals, there’s so much to learn at UVM’s Summer University. Class seats are limited and registration is open now.

Ibotta hosts Women and Innovation night at Denver headquarters

DU Women’s Professional Alliance Presents: Women and Innovation

The DU Women’s Professional Alliance is a collaboration between the Colorado Women’s College and Alumni Career & Professional Development. We invite you to join us for our monthly series exploring unique career issues facing women.

Join us Tuesday, March 7 from 6:00 – 7:30 pm as we partner with Ibotta’s* Women in Tech and Women in Leadership groups. This program features staff from the National Center for Women in Information Technology and a panel of ground-breaking women, including:

Makayla Cappel, (BSBA, BA ’14) Founder & Designer at Kastlfel
Rachel Heimstra, VP of Student Operations at Guild
Jacquie Ros, founder of Revolar
Bijal Shah, VP of Data Products & Analytics at Ibotta
Diane Simard, Senior VP at Bye Aerospace

You will learn:

Why women are underrepresented in technology and innovation
How to overcome the imbalance
How to leverage relationships to succeed

Cost: $15 includes appetizers; $10 for alums who graduated in 2013 or after and current students.

Location: This event will take place at Ibotta’s downtown Denver office. Space is limited, we ask that you register by March 3rd.

REGISTER HERE

*Ibotta is the largest consumer technology company headquartered in Denver, CO. Ibotta (“I bought a…”) is transforming the shopping experience by making it easy for consumers to earn cash back on everyday purchases through a single smartphone app.

7 Ways a Hobby Can Advance Your Career

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.” Pastime pursuits can educate and enlighten us while boosting important skills that can ultimately advance our chosen career paths. Depending on your targeted self-improvement and performance goals, several hobbies are worth a try – and may just land you that dream position.

Benefit #1: Networking

One of the best ways to build your professional circles is through hobbies. Attending aerobics classes, taking a ceramics class or joining book clubs can allow you to meet other professionals who share your interests, and you can talk with them on a level that’s more personable. Even if you don’t meet them in the actual setting, many times potential employers will relate to your hobbies in the job interview setting.

Hobbies to try: Golf, exercise classes and community theater

Benefit #2: Confidence

In the workforce, you need confidence to move forward, and many hobbies can help boost your self-esteem. Tackling a challenging hobby like completing a grueling marathon is a guaranteed way to impress yourself with talents and capabilities you never knew you had, and it shows through in how you present yourself in the workplace. In addition, learning new skills required to face the challenge takes patience and dedication.

Hobbies to try: Horseback riding, martial arts and skiing

Benefit #3: Creativity

No matter what field you’re in, creativity is an asset, and hobbies that foster artistic pursuits are wonderful ways of stimulating creative thought in your brain. Whether you join a class, scour Pinterest ideas or paint plates in the privacy of your home, you’re bound to open up channels of inspiration that will positively affect your brainstorming abilities at work.

Hobbies to try: Painting, photography and writing

Benefit #4: Organization Skills

Organizational habits not only improve your work performance overall, but they also make your life easier in general. Many hobbies can boost your ability to organize, and they’re especially helpful for those who struggle with messy desks and sloppy calendars. Collecting stamps, coins or any other rare items is a great place to start.

Hobbies to try: Collecting antiques, sewing, and knitting

Benefit #5: Multitasking

Multitasking is a skill people long to master, and certain hobbies truly give you an experiencein juggling responsibilities. If you want to speed up your performance across different work areas, seeking a hobby that keeps you on your toes can produce results.

Hobbies to try: Cooking, rock climbing and geocaching

Benefit #6: Critical Thinking

Education doesn’t just happen in the classroom. Learning any kind of new hobby is going to broaden your mind, and certain activities demand problem-solving skills and intense focus. Whether you’re looking to improve your performance at work, educate yourself on certain subject matters or simply increase your sharpness or memory, hobbies like Sudoku and puzzles can have a major impact on your smarts.

Hobbies to try: Chess, watch repairing and poker

Benefit #7: Passion

You have to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. Hobbies often show who we are inside, and nothing is more inspiring than passion for what you’re doing. From volunteering at the animal shelter, raising funds for a nonprofit organization or offering tutoring services after hours, passionate pursuits boost your self-fulfillment and provide great outlets for meeting others with similar interests. If you’re very lucky, you may even be able to turn your passion into your main occupation.

Hobbies to try: Volunteerism, teaching classes, and social activism

No matter if you’re looking to get a promotion, adopt a more intense schedule, take on more responsibilities, demonstrate leadership skills or delve into an entirely new field altogether, hobbies can enhance what you bring to the table as an employee. Having a passion that you pursue outside of work shows drive, time-management skills, and initiative – all of which are appealing to hiring managers worldwide.

Celebrate Earth Month!

Earth Month is right around the corner in April, with Earth Day itself taking place on April 22. What is Earth Month, and how might you both celebrate the occasion and engage in your career development this April?

What is Earth Day & Month, and why does it matter?

From Earth Day Network:

“Close to 48 years ago, on 22 April 1970, 20 million people took to the streets to protest the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development. In the US and around the world, smog was becoming deadly and evidence was growing that pollution led to developmental delays in children. Biodiversity was in decline as a result of the heavy use of pesticides and other pollutants. The global ecological awareness was growing, and the US Congress and President Nixon responded quickly. In July of the same year, they created the Environmental Protection Agency, and robust environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, among many. Earth Day is now a global event each year, and we believe that more than 1 billion people in 192 countries now take part in what is the largest civic-focused day of action in the world.”

Earth Day has grown so much since then, and many choose to advocate for our environment throughout the month of April.

Here are some ideas to celebrate!

Spend some time volunteering outdoors! Whether you choose to give your time for a day, or for the entire month, volunteering is an excellent way to celebrate Earth Month while gaining valuable professional skills. Relevant experience doesn’t have to come from a professional job or internship; you can sharpen your communication skills and content knowledge anywhere. It’s also an excellent networking opportunity. What better way to spend a sunny Saturday than cleaning up Red Rocks with a bunch of new friends who also care about issues that resonate with you?
Jumpstart your internship search by looking for opportunities in conservation, field research, sustainable transit, urban farming, water treatment and analysis, education and advocacy…the list goes on. Take some time this month to reflect on your career goals and come up with 5-10 organizations that you might want to target for a summer volunteer experience, internship, or job!
Tune in to Sustainable DU. How might you support the Center’s upcoming events and initiatives this quarter?
Reflect on your values and habits. In what ways could you be more sustainable this month? Are you open to educating others on sustainable practices? What about writing your representatives about issues related to sustainability?
Explore careers in sustainability! Mark your calendars for our upcoming Dine & Dialogue on Careers in Sustainability on April 18 from 12-1pm! Register via Pioneer Careers.

B.Ed. I year – General English – Centrality of language in learning.

Role and importance of language in the curriculum

The language is always believed to play a central role in learning. No matter what the subject area, students assimilate new concepts when they listen, talk, read and write about what they are learning. Speaking and writing reflects the thinking process that is taking place. Students learn in language, therefore if their language is weak, so is their learning. Most importantly, we need to have an Learning Across Curriculum (LAC) approach because by focusing on the teaching and learning of language within a subject, the teacher will improve the students’ results in that subject, for example, by explicitly teaching students how to write History essays, or how best to write ‘for and against’ arguments in Liberal Studies. Experienced teachers know that it is essential to teach their students how to ‘answer’ the types of questions they are likely to find in their exams. After understanding and working with the LAC concept, teachers across disciplines will thus be improving students learning within their own subject while also supporting the efforts of the whole school to improve English proficiency. In the context of teaching foreign and second languages we are used to consider language as a medium for everyday and often fairly trivial communicative activities. We are also well aware of its function for retrieving information from all sorts of verbal sources. However, in the context of teaching and learning content in subject areas such as Mathematics, History, Social Sciences, Physics and even Art and Music there are more reasons why language matters:

· Language as a constituent component of higher-order thinking skills and a necessary precondition for successful content learning:

There is little doubt that successful learning in most school subjects strongly depends on the availability of higher-order thinking skills.

· Language as a tool for making meaning:

Many of the approaches to the language dimension of content teaching are based on social-constructivist concepts of learning and the original ideas of the developmental psychologists Vygotsky and Bruner. Vygotsky claimed that young children develop higher order thinking skills through cultural mediation and interpersonal communication with more knowledgeable adults or peers, which means that the development of mental concepts and the appropriation of procedural knowledge depend on social interaction and verbal exchange. Thus, without adequate language means and strategies which are geared to formal education learners cannot be expected to take advantage of opportunities schools normally offer.

· Language as a filter for assessing learning outcomes:

Formal assessment procedures in school subjects heavily rely on open- or half-open-formatted tasks and on oral or written presentations by the student how s/he has solved the task. What makes matters even more complicated is the fact that in high stake assessment the academic register determines the characteristics of the verbal filter. In plain words: If students do not have an age-adequate command of subject literacy they have no chance to meet the (very often) implicit expectations by the teacher as a subject specialist who claims to be primarily concerned with content. If one would choose to reduce the language load of assessment tasks by resorting to closed-formatted items such as multiple-choice, matching or fill-in formats, one would seriously delay the development of subject literacy.

So, language really does matter – not only in the language classroom, but across the whole curriculum. In order to understand the importance of language in school education, for all subjects and across the whole curriculum, we have to identify and summarise the basic tenets on which LAC rests. These are (cf. Corson 1990, 74):

i. Language develops mainly through its purposeful use (domains to be broadened)

ii. Learning (often) involves talking, writing, shaping and moving (normally in reaction to perceptions).

iii. Learning often occurs through speaking or writing as much as through shaping and moving

iv. Language use contributes to /is a pre‐requisite for cognitive development v. Language is the medium for reflecting on learning, for improving it, for becoming (more or less) autonomous as learners Therefore the goals of LAC are – in simple terms ‐ to support language development in each and every child, in all domains of language use, in each learning activity in school, and to give children feedback about their progress (through appropriate assessment and evaluation). LAC is no longer narrowly seen as the exclusive domain of L1/LS education nor is it confined solely to the conventional four modes of language: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking; all non‐ verbal means of representation and expression are rightly seen as part of the overall semiotic systems that we have at hand and that we use when communicating. The whole scope of semiotics comes into focus including images or graphs, movements and, generally speaking, all visual forms of representation and expression (cf. Corson 1990: 72).

Thus, we can distinguish eight modes of human activities involving language, namely:

• Listening: comprehending oral input/intake

• Speaking: constructing meaningful utterances

• Reading: understanding written texts

• Writing: producing written texts/coherent discourse

• Viewing: attending to visual signs/information

• Shaping: using visual means of expression

• Watching: attending to physical movements

• Moving: using the whole body, the whole person for self‐expression.

Consequently, all teachers are encouraged to participate in developing language skills and competences within their fields of responsibility and thus contribute to a school learning policy as a whole.

In summary one can state the following beliefs:

• Language is more than communication skills

• Language is also linked to the thinking process

• Language is a tool for conceptualising, for thinking, for networking

• Language supports mental activity and cognitive precision

• Language for academic purposes helps to express thoughts more clearly (this is especially true for writing)

• Language helps to structure discourse and practise discourse functions

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