Current News

by Suresh Garimella As I begin my tenure as president, I am excited and optimistic about the future of the University of Vermont. Thanks to my predecessor, Tom Sullivan, I inherit a thriving university. UVM is financially sound, its physical campus has grown strategically to meet student needs and, most important, we are on an upward trajectory. Our incoming classes regularly exceed our enrollment targets and have set records for academic quality eight years running; four-year graduation rates are at an all-time high; and 92 percent of our students are employed or continuing their education within six months of graduating.

Vermont Business Magazine The state of Vermont has won two national awards for the newly redesigned state government portal. The Davey Awards named the state of Vermont a gold winner in the Government for Websites category and a silver winner in the Best User Experience for Websites category for the new Vermont.gov that launched in May this year. The Davey Awards annually recognize outstanding creative works in digital and print media. The awards are presented by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA).

Vermont Research News In this new book, Stephen Terry details Aiken’s life and rise to prominence in the US Senate – examining how his approach to politics stems from his early life as a farmer and horticulturist in Putney, Vermont. Terry draws from historical records including original recordings of Aiken and then President Lyndon B Johnson to weave a tale that takes us through Aiken’s early life, his rapid ascendance in Vermont politics, his career as a US Senator and his evolving views of the Vietnam war. 

Vermont Business Magazine The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) and M&S Development unveiled plans today for a $30 million community and economic development project that will harness charitable gifts, private investment, and public funds to expand the museum's cultural and educational offerings, draw more visitors to southern Vermont, and fill a need for new housing in downtown Brattleboro.

Suggests Congress Examine MLB’s Lucrative Antitrust Exemption

Vermont Business Magazine Representative Peter Welch (D-Vermont) today joined a bipartisan group of 105 House colleagues in sending a letter to the commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB) demanding that he abandon a proposal that could lead to the elimination of 42 minor league baseball teams, including the Vermont Lake Monsters.  The proposal surfaced in negotiations between MLB and Minor League Baseball over renewal of their contract that expires September 15, 2020. 

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Labor released October 2019 unemployment rate today. According to household data, the seasonally-adjusted statewide unemployment rate for October was 2.2 percent. This reflects no change from the revised September rate. However, all the major data points were negative, with the Labor Force and Employed falling and the number of Unemployed increasing.

The Labor Force is also down year-to-year, while the Employed and Unemployed data showed improvement year-to-year. The Labor Force is the denominator in the calculations, so when it goes down it evens out the rate, in this case, despite the labor situation worsening for the month.

Vermont Business Magazine Do you have a great idea that can benefit Vermonters? Give your idea a boost with a Great Idea Vermont Grant! ShareYouself (SYS) and VSECU have partnered to offer two $750 grants, which are available exclusively to credit union members. VSECU members with great ideas can apply for the grant, develop their ideas, and organize their projects on the SYS platform. The ideal projects for this grant will take about six to nine months to complete. 

What is SYS?

by John McClaughry A popular commitment among candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for President is a declaration of the year in which the United States must be made to achieve “net -zero carbon dioxide emissions”. Joe Biden vowed to get us there by 2050. Andrew Yang bid 2049, and Corey Booker offered 2045. Bernie Sanders’ entry is 71% net-zero by 2030. 

It’s generally harmless when politicians make extravagant promises about things they say they can make happen 30 years from now, when most of them (at least Biden and Sanders) will be dead. But let’s overlook that, and examine just what steps the nations of the world would have to take to achieve that global 2050 net-zero target.

Vermont Business Magazine Spineology Inc, an innovator in anatomy-conserving spine surgery, has announced that John Chi, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Neurosurgical Spinal Oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, presented 24-month outcomes data from Spineology’s SCOUT clinical trial at last week’s Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (SMISS) Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada. Study sites included the University of Vermont.

The SCOUT study (Spineology Clinical Outcomes Trial), conducted under an FDA-approved IDE protocol, is a prospective, multi-center, non-randomized performance goal investigation designed to evaluate safety and effectiveness outcomes in instrumented lumbar interbody fusion procedures for the treatment of degenerative disc disease (DDD).

Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General TJ Donovan today met with the fifth-grade class at JFK Elementary in Winooski to discuss the legacy of Susan B. Anthony, the history of women’s voting rights, and civil disobedience. Today’s discussion is in partnership with the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission’s nationwide campaign to teach kids about the 19^th Amendment, which was added to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power (GMP) is empowering Vermont businesses with an app that lets them name their price for renewable power, generated by Vermonters. Now, companies who join this new pilot program can power their business with 100 percent renewable energy by buying it using GMP’s Vermont Green app. 

Vermont Business Magazine Putting their money where their faith is, the Society of Saint Edmund in late July announced a $500,000 gift to Saint Michael’s College, challenging alumni and friends of the Colchester college to match those funds for a total gift of $1 million to secure the dedication of an existing-yet-unnamed campus residence hall in honor of the beloved late campus minister, Father Michael P Cronogue, SSE, who died in October 2016.