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by Jake Claro, Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund The ability to not only withstand large systemic shocks, but to bounce back from them, is the hallmark of resiliency. But bouncing back does not necessarily mean that everything looks the same as it was before. Among the many things the COVID-19 pandemic has forcefully taught us is that normalcy is a relative condition.

Vermont Business Magazine As students and graduates explore the job market this spring, Vermont’s colleges remind them they don’t have to look far to find life-changing career opportunities. On Thursday, February 23, the Vermont Department of Labor, the University of Vermont and Saint Michael’s College will collaborate with Champlain College, Middlebury College, Norwich University and Bennington College to host the inaugural Vermont Virtual Job Fair to connect job seekers with some of the top employers in the state.

Vermont Business Magazine University of Vermont trustees voted at their winter meeting today to approve the formation of the School of World Languages and Cultures, and the Institute for Agroecology, further enriching the academic offerings at Vermont’s flagship land grant university. The mission of the School of World Languages and Cultures (SWLC) in the College of Arts and Sciences is to prepare students to engage with a diverse, globalizing, and ever-changing world. The new school follows the very successful formation of the School of the Arts in 2022 and brings together four departments — Asian Languages and Literatures, Classics, German and Russian, and Romance Languages and Cultures — under the same roof, providing increased opportunities for students and faculty to learn and understand not just the languages themselves but also the cultural context — through literature, film, politics, and social history — in which they exist

Vermont State Police Emergency crews received a report at about 7:10 a.m. that an enclosed side-by-side UTV was operating on Keeler Bay when the vehicle broke through the ice. First responders learned that two people were in the UTV at the time. One individual, a 71-year-old man from Williamstown, was pulled from the water, brought to shore by the South Hero Fire Department, received emergency medical care and was taken by ambulance to UVMMC. The second individual, an 88-year-old man from East Montpelier, was subsequently located inside the UTV by a diver from Colchester Technical Rescue and was pronounced deceased on scene. The second victim in this incident, a 71-year-old resident of Williamstown, has died at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Racial Justice Housing Jam will host its final public speaker series event on Thursday, February 16 from 4:30 – 6:00 p.m Eastern Time. The speaker series is designed to explore the roots of racial discrimination in housing policy and practices; how current systems continue to reinforce oppressive practices; the real impacts of racial inequity on daily life and economic well-being; and new efforts and ideas that can help change the tide. Addressing systemic racial injustice can spur action on policy and programmatic changes to expand access to affordable housing for all Vermonters.

Vermont Business Magazine Blodgett Oven Company and the Vermont National Guard will announce a new partnership through the Partnered Recruiting Initiative for Military and Employers at a signing ceremony on Wednesday, February 15, at 12:30 p.m. at the Blodgett facility in Essex. The objective of this program is to increase employment opportunities, expand training, and improve full-time employment prospects for military members while also assisting companies in filling critical vacancies with quality employees.

Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund The 2022 Farm to Plate Annual Report is here! On January 26, 2023, the Farm to Plate team presented the 2022 Farm to Plate Annual Report to the Vermont Senate Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry. This year’s 2022 Farm to Plate Annual Report provides a picture for how the transition to a new “normal” is playing out in Vermont’s food system and the Farm to Plate Network, and in doing so, points to the ways in which the food system has bounced back but also the ways it is still vulnerable and needs support.

Leonine Public Affairs The Vermont legislature shifted into high gear this week, as committees increasingly focused on priority legislation with the Town Meeting break quickly approaching. Solid waste, data privacy, protections for health care workers and climate legislation had a lot of air time across various policy committees. The Senate began to work on legislation to expand childcare and the House continued to work through legislation to create a paid family and medical leave program. The money committees in the House dug into the FY2024 spending proposals, with the House Appropriations committee taking testimony from departments and agencies across state government regarding their budget requests. The House Transportation committee and House Institutions and Corrections committee continued to work through their respective spending bills that fund the state’s transportation and capital infrastructure. In the Senate, the Appropriations committee worked to finalize its version of the FY2023 Budget Adjustment Act (BAA). Senate Appropriations expects to finalize FY2023 BAA next week.

Saint Michael's College Saint Michael's President Lorraine Sterritt announced Tuesday that she will be retiring from the college at the end of this semester. Also, Professor Crystal L’Hote of the Saint Michael’s philosophy faculty did an interview this week with reporter Melissa Conney from WCAX Channel 3, the Burlington-area CBS affiliate, airing Tuesday of this week. They talked about ChatGPT, a popular new Artificial Intellegence (AI) “chatbot” some educators fear might be used by college students to cheat on work they submit.