UVM Alumni Association

06/01/2026

📚✨ June is here, and so is our Summer of Scholarships campaign!

Throughout the month, we’ll be sharing stories that highlight the life-changing impact of scholarship support on UVM students—and the donors who help make those opportunities possible.

Scholarships are more important than ever. This month, your gift can go even further through two special matching opportunities:

💚 Gifts to the UVM Fund, which supports scholarships for students across the university, will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000.

🩺 Gifts to the Medical Alumni Association Scholarship will be matched 2-to-1 up to $20,000—meaning every $1 donated provides $3 in scholarship support for Larner College of Medicine students.

When you give, you’re doing more than funding a scholarship. You’re investing in students, expanding access to education, and helping open doors to brighter futures.

Give today through the link in our comments or visit go.uvm.edu/summerofscholarships

05/27/2026

Lydia Kern '15 has always been a gatherer. As a child, she collected objects and found materials, not to house but to transform.

When she arrived at UVM, she was intent on social work. The joy of gathering resources and relationships into strong community felt natural.

The semester before graduation, she experienced a profound loss. It redirected her path and reoriented her life towards art, a passion she had by then developed for years.

Kern felt so held by her Burlington community as she navigated grief and artmaking that she stayed for a decade after graduation.

Now she is a career artist with a freshly unfurling life in NYC and a studio in Queens.

Read more of her story here, and the full profile via our link in comments.

05/21/2026

UVM alumnus Andrew Lieberman ’13 — now a leader at German tech firm Celonis — is helping UVM students bridge the gap between classroom learning and the rapidly changing workforce.

A lifelong Catamount, Lieberman believes the true value of a liberal arts education lies in critical thinking, ethical leadership, and problem-solving skills that outlast any single technology.

That philosophy came to life through the 2026 Celonis x UVM “Decoding the Carbon Challenge,” where students from across disciplines analyzed real company travel data to uncover ways to reduce both carbon emissions and business costs. Using process-mining software employed by major organizations worldwide, teams explored how data can reveal what’s actually happening inside systems — not just what people assume is happening.

For many students, it was their first experience working with sophisticated analytics tools and live business data. Environmental studies, psychology, economics, engineering, and social science majors collaborated to turn information into actionable sustainability strategies. Their findings? Small operational changes — like reducing first-class travel — could dramatically lower emissions while maintaining productivity.

But the challenge became about more than sustainability. Students discovered how data-driven thinking can reshape systems, improve decision-making, and create measurable change.

Lieberman emphasized that experiences like this are essential for today’s students. Specific software may evolve quickly, but the ability to analyze information, adapt, communicate ideas, and solve complex problems will always matter.

Faculty and advisors agreed: this kind of collaboration represents the future of liberal arts education — where broad-based thinking meets practical application in ways that prepare students for countless career paths.

Read the full story to see how UVM students are combining technology, sustainability, and liberal arts thinking to shape the future — and why partnerships like this may redefine career readiness for the next generation.

05/19/2026

With deep gratitude for Dean Sharma and Professor Sharma.

As we close out an inspiring Commencement season, the Grossman School of Business is taking a moment to celebrate a legacy that has shaped generations.

We are deeply grateful to recognize the extraordinary contributions of Dean Sanjay Sharma and Professor Pramodita (Dita) Sharma as they prepare to retire after years of transformative leadership, scholarship, and community building.

Together, the Sharmas have elevated University of Vermont to global prominence—while strengthening what matters most: people, purpose, and impact.

Under Sanjay’s leadership, the school achieved historic milestones—raising more than $100 million, securing the largest gift in University of Vermont history, expanding experiential learning opportunities, and positioning Grossman among the top institutions globally for positive impact and sustainable business education. His vision helped launch the The Sustainable Innovation MBA at the University of Vermont (SI-MBA), now consistently ranked among the very best in the world.

Dita’s global leadership in family enterprise research has shaped an entire field while creating meaningful, lasting opportunities for students. From co-founding the Schlesinger Global Family Enterprise Case Competition (SG-FECC)—now known as the “World Cup” of business competitions—to building platforms like the Leadership and Legacy Series, her work has bridged scholarship and real-world impact across generations.

That legacy continues.

The Sharma Legacy Fund, launched with extraordinary generosity and momentum, has already raised more than $5 million to support scholarships for future Grossman students—ensuring that their commitment to access, excellence, and leadership lives on.

To Dean Sharma and Professor Sharma: thank you for your vision, your integrity, and your unwavering belief in what the Grossman School of Business at UVM can be.

Your impact will be felt for generations to come.

Full Article: https://www.uvm.edu/business/news/celebrating-sharma-legacy
Sharma Legacy Fund: https://www.givecampus.com/schools/UniversityofVermont/carrying-forward-the-sharma-legacy

05/16/2026

💚 Congratulations, Class of 2026! 🎓 Welcome to the UVM Alumni Association! 💛

05/13/2026

When Rick Howard '68 arrived in Burlington in 1964 as a first-generation university student, he experienced a massive cultural change from small-town Vermont.

“I was overwhelmed at first," he says. "The jump from high school to college knocks many people off the rails and almost got me. It took me two to three years to sort myself out.”

Despite the shock, track coach Archie Post instilled discipline and gave Rick structure. He also possessed an innate competitive drive that pushed him forward, despite the challenges.

Before stepping on campus though, it was the Wilbur Fund that made it possible for him to enroll at the University of Vermont. That scholarship did more than help him cover tuition. It changed the course of his life, and the lives that followed.

“Without the Wilbur Fund I would have been unable to attend UVM, and probably no college at all,” Rick says. “As it was, my UVM education started me on the road that led to a PhD in chemistry and massively changed my life.”

Rick knows Wilbur’s greatest legacy is the quiet, steady support for students who need it.

He remembers the lift he felt as a student-athlete who needed help to stay enrolled and stay focused.

This informed Rick's decision to create the W.F. (Rick) Howard Scholarship, which supports students from Vermont who participate on the Track and Field & Cross-Country program.

“I wanted to give athletes the nudge that keeps them moving forward,” he says. The scholarship signals to students that their Catamount community believes in them. Students who need the opportunity to do great things.

Read the full article at the link in our comments. 💚 💛

05/06/2026

For Frances Kidder Stiles ’55, the University of Vermont wasn’t just a college — it was home. Through childhood games behind Redstone, campus events with her parents, and her own years as a student, UVM shaped three generations of the Kidder family.

For her full story, check out the link in our comments.

05/04/2026

Exciting news! 🌟 Thanks to a $2 million gift, the Argosy Foundation will help advance stroke and heart attack prevention research at the Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health (VCCBH) at the University of Vermont’s (UVM) Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine.

The gift honors the memory of former Vermont resident Mary Abele and will advance a major research initiative aimed at improving the prevention of stroke and heart attack in people living with atrial fibrillation (AFib).

The project will be led by Mary Cushman, M.D.’89, co-director of the VCCBH, a collaborative research hub at UVM focused on some of the most urgent health challenges facing society, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cognitive impairment.

Dr. Cushman’s team will analyze blood samples from thousands of participants in the REGARDS study, a large ongoing national health study, to identify biological markers linked to stroke and heart attack risk in people with Afib. By measuring circulating proteins involved in inflammation, heart function, metabolism, and brain health, Cushman’s team will search for patterns that signal elevated risk of stroke or heart attack. Those findings will then be combined with clinical data and analyzed to develop new tools for predicting risk.

“The ultimate goal is to create ‘personalized risk profiles’ that allow physicians and patients to move beyond the current one-size-fits-all model of prevention,” explained Cushman.

The research could also reveal entirely new biological pathways that contribute to stroke and heart attack in people with AFib, opening the door to future drug development or new therapeutic strategies. The project will begin in March 2026 and will run for two years.

“We are incredibly grateful to the Argosy Foundation for making this considerable philanthropic investment in the work of Dr. Cushman,” said Kathleen Kelleher, interim president and CEO of the UVM Foundation.

Read more at the link in our comments.

04/29/2026

⭐ Thanks to the commitment of a passionate UVM alum, all of the historical editions of the Vermont Cynic -- dating as far back as 1883 -- are digitized, fully searchable and have an online home.

Through all of those years, life at UVM was reflected in its pages, the times we relish telling the stories of as well as those we don’t. The stories shed lights on student lives, through all their time on campus.

We are grateful and excited by what this gift will mean in providing access to UVM student news and voices, going back nearly 150 years. The Silver Special Collections Library is truly a gem in preserving UVM legacy and archives.

📰 See our link in comments to check out the digitized collections.

04/22/2026

Dr. Jay Keller '40, alumnus of The Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at The University of Vermont, sat down with us one February morning — alongside his son David Keller '64, MD '68 and daughter-in-law Natalie Houghton Keller '66 — to share gleanings from more than a century’s worth of memories and experiences as a son, a brother, a husband, father, grandfather (great-, even great-great-grandfather), doctor, and neighbor.

Jay's is a story of care, of family, of unrelenting resilience, guidance, generosity and faith amidst changing times.

Loving marriages, and life during wartime make important appearances too.

Read more via the link in comments ⭐