 Good afternoon. Welcome to the 2023 graduation ceremony of the University of Vermont Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. This is the 50th graduation of our school. Just a couple of notes. Those of you with cell phones, just silence them. And if there is the unusual event of a fire alarm, there are exits around the room here. So at this moment I'd invite you to be seated graduates. And I invite Interim Dean Alan Strong to the podium to offer words of welcome and to introduce our commencement speaker. Alan? So I am just honored and delighted to welcome you to the 2023 graduation celebration of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. It's a joy to see all of you, students, family members, friends, to celebrate your students' academic and personal accomplishments. Let me first just start by giving some well-deserved and hard-earned thank yous. First and foremost, I want to thank the families and friends of our graduates for helping getting our students to the finish line. The class has really endured some extraordinary circumstances here over the last couple of years during the pandemic. We all went through two really challenging years and I am so grateful that you got to celebrate your senior year with some degree of normalcy. Your students, our students would not be here if it were not for your love and support. Thank you all for all that you have done to encourage and inspire your students to reach this point. They have worked incredibly hard for this milestone and could not have done it without each of you. Students, I would like to have you stand and thank your family for their belief in you over the last four years. Thank you very much. Next I'd like to extend a huge thank you to our dedicated and talented faculty. You have been such an important part of our students' education in the Rubenstein School and a huge support to me during my rookie year as interim dean. Our faculty have given enormously in so many ways to provide a transformative, there's that word again, experience for all of you from NR1 or NR9 to NR206 in your senior year, from internships, research, semester abroad, service learning. Our amazing faculty have inspired and enlightened and helped you discover your own talents and passion over these four years. Students, please join me in thanking your faculty for their engagement, their mentorship, and their dedication to your success. And lastly, I'd love to thank our dedicated staff who support the school and students on an hourly basis, literally 24-7. Please join me in thanking our administrative staff, student services team, professional advisors, research staff for their year-round support of all of you. I can't think of a more caring or committed team. We should stand up staff if you're around or come out from behind the curtains. But today is really about you, students, and an opportunity to celebrate your success. Students, look to your left and look to your other left. So your friends and peers sitting next to you today will become part of a lifelong Rubenstein School community and will form from this day forward your professional network. You all share the common experience of being a graduate of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. You are now one of 6,000 students who have graduated from our school. You are the Class of 2023. Congratulations. It is now time to receive your charge before you receive your diplomas. So today I am honored to introduce my colleague and friend Natalie Augusto Filion. Natalie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resources and a Bachelor of Music in 2005 from the University of Vermont. During this time we were honored to have her beautiful singing voice grace many UVM events. She returned to the Rubenstein School a few years later and earned her Master of Science in Natural Resources where she investigated climate change and climate preparedness in rural communities in the Dominican Republic. We are so excited to have Natalie back on campus to speak at our graduation celebration. So Natalie serves as the Deputy Chief Climate Resilience Officer for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and in this capacity she works with the Chief Climate Resilience Officer and the Office of Climate Resilience team to accelerate the implementation of statewide resilience policy and programs. Prior to her stint with the DEP Natalie served as the Sustainability Officer for the City of Newark, New Jersey. Resilience Manager with Sustainable Jersey and was the Program Officer with the Institute for Sustainable Communities. Throughout her career Natalie has helped to develop design and deliver national and regional capacity building programs for local governments in community-based climate and sustainability practitioners. Natalie was one of the first of the Rubenstein School's USDA Multicultural Scholars and has frequently joined students in our first year course Race and Culture and NR6 as a guest speaker. Natalie is purpose driven in her efforts to help build healthy, sustainable, resilient communities. She is also an amazing person and an inspiring leader in diversifying the environmental movement and fighting for racial and climate justice. Please join me in welcoming Natalie Augustel Filion. Oh and congratulations Class of 2023 you did it! Congratulations to you. I want to thank Dean Allen Strong and Assistant Dean Marie Vea who of course is in the background making everything run smoothly um for inviting me to be here with you today. It is an absolute pleasure and just the deepest honor and privilege to be able to share this moment. It's profoundly moving simply to be here with you marking this auspicious occasion. Am I, is it loud enough? Okay good just for you. No? Do I need to move it down? He's very tall. Is that better? Rubenstein class I was gonna tell you to like do a little piss-momper away but you've done that already. You made it here today and we all know that it has been one heck of a last few years. Parents, uncles and aunties, abuelitas, pop pups, other caregivers and honored elders in the crowd anyone who is connected with SFIA technology today. Let's take just a few quiet moments to let this moment truly sink in. If you're willing close your eyes this is to the families. Take a few deep breaths and try to bring up the mental image of today's graduates as curious toddlers at that inquisitive age of seven, eight, nine, at 15, 16 just when they were starting their college journey. Now open your eyes and see them today graduates you are truly a sight to behold. I was sitting in your seat about 18 years ago today and I had done the five-year plan as you probably heard because of the double degree so I was done I was so done with school. I was ready to move on I was excited to dive into whatever came next and I had a plan. I had a job unlike some of y'all I'm sure I was able to face that dreaded question of what comes next which I've been trying to train myself not to ask our graduates who've heard it enough. And so at the same time though I was sitting there with a bit of a mental fog I remember that feeling of sort of unease commencement with all the pomp and circumstance that this rite of passage connotes demarcates a moment of transition in our lives. Up until now most of your life has been defined by that rigid schedule of a scholar. Your days have mostly revolved around your coursework perhaps you know time with your friends floormates and internship sports service activities and upon graduation you're leaping into a bit of an unknown a new way of operating that's really disconnected from that central identity of student that you've held up to this point. But the thing about this class is that you've been there already you've been through the unknown and whereas I was perplexed about what was to come you've all found a way to live with uncertainty. In the middle of your first year you were forced to adapt to a setting that no one knew how to navigate and I won't believe for this point because I don't particularly enjoy reliving those pandemic lockdown memories. The fact is that you've already demonstrated an incredible degree of personal and mental toughness to get to where you are today it is truly commendable. I hope that you will hear this many times for the next few days and I'm grateful for a chance to say it I'm very proud of you. Even as I recognize that the general sentiment in the room is one of hope or what's to come I know that it is also tinged with a sense of anxiety about what the future holds both personally and with respect to the future of our planet. I spent a lot of time trying to decide what I wanted to convey to you today and landed on the realization that what felt most urgent what felt most pressing to share was to reflect on ways that I have found to tap into the feeling that we have in the room today of trust and hope and connectedness to each other because if you're anything like me you will certainly find yourself in desperate need of reconnecting to that sense of possibility. On the days when the work of advancing resilience sustainability and environmental justice weighs just a bit too heavy. Let me start I'll just introduce myself briefly um actually Ellen did that already so I don't have to do this again um but um beyond my sort of academic credentials um I was born in the Dominican Republic I was raised in Inwood on the very northern tip of Manhattan and growing up I was lucky enough to do a bunch of sort of nature science excursions and other wilderness programs that really cemented my interest in studying the environment and figuring out a way to be a change agent in this environmental movement and professionally I've had a number of titles um I was an environmental educator program officer resiliency manager in a volunteer capacity I've also led a community organizing campaigns and I was a founding member of two local chapters of 350.org I'm a member of my city's environmental commission and I'm an elective officer in my child's parent teacher association and so I share a little bit of that context to say that I know a thing or two about what it takes for people to come together to make change in their communities and um because of that I also know what it feels like when um you have what seems like an unshakable frustration with how slowly change happens I was around seven um so my daughter is here in the brilliant sequined address um I was about seven which is how she is now when Dr. James Henson testified at the United States Congress about this phenomenon called global warming and we've all been witnessing the shifts in our planetary equilibrium in the relatively short decades of my life we can confidently say that around mid-century when Sophia grows up to be my age and may very well be raising a young child of her own that we will live in a world vastly altered by this phenomenon and while our projections about the impacts of climate change are stark I believe with every fiber of my being that our collective creativity and ingenuity is all we need to face this existential threat and finding the way to come back again and again to that deep sense of hope and trust in ourselves in us here now is what's most urgent for me to share with you today I want to remind you that taking the step into the role of a change agent takes heart it takes courage and it demands a posture of curiosity about developing policies and programs and interventions that are effective but also a posture of curiosity about with regards to self-expiration right about what it takes to be an environmental leader and how your talents your unique access and gifts can be harnessed to wield influence and the levers of power being a sustainable champion requires living working being in community with other like-minded people and it requires that we give ourselves grace to step back take a breath and re-center before diving right back in probably most importantly it requires that we find that path back into that connection to hope and human connection and it requires that we hone our ability to imagine what's possible especially when we inevitably feel that pull of apathy and anxiety it takes real effort it takes work to get back into the mindset of a change agent when you've veered off course I don't pretend to have all the answers but I've been down this road for long enough now that I can share a little bit of a look back and what I'll do now is just share a couple stories both related to my experience here as a scholar at UVM and with the Rubinstein School that cement these aha moments in my life that continue to show up over and over and I hope will be moments of learning for you as well so the first is a moment from undergrad I had you know the college is the place where you learn about difference in a in no other way you know it's really unique opportunity to learn about the difference in people's lives and the way we see the world in our varied perspectives and the parents and family here might not realize that everybody has to go through everybody at the Rubinstein School for environmental natural resources has to go through a core curriculum that's designed to integrate the more sort of technical aspects of the work with the cultural social economic context of how we do environmental change how we affect environmental change and so during my time as undergrad the racing culture course was called NR6 I'm not sure there's been a lot of name changes but at some point in that semester we're asked to partner up and share an example with our you know our fellow student of something unique about our upbringing that could help demonstrate how we might see the world through different lenses and as a city girl I was basically reared to be afraid of the dark and ever vigilant so I shared that one thing that I thought was unique to sort of my experience relative to this person as a woman as a woman of color as an urbanite was that I don't enter an elevator without looking at that top corner mirror to see around the corner and the young man I shared this with was completely and utterly bewildered by this fact he was confused and not only was he unaware that some of us grew up in a fairly near constant low level of anxiety around our safety and well-being I actually think that there just weren't that many tall buildings in a small town that he grew up in so it just like wasn't a perspective that came up often for him and that for me was actually incredibly um awakening as well because it helped me to understand how almost impossible it is for us to see the world the way others see the world so it helps spur a kind of clarity about why it is so very important that we learn about others and their experience and that at the same time that we take the courage to sort of share our stories and the way that we see the world along with others in this community of environmentalists and because I think we all at this point especially with the the course curriculum and and the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and all of the ways in which we're sort of reevaluating the trajectory of this country we understand that this field has for very long been predominantly made up of people who don't look like me right so folks like myself immigrants low income those who have been trained whether explicitly or implicitly to be afraid of dark lonely places where there aren't too many that look like us so read like any environmental program as members of this environmental movement we will continue to keep those folks out of the conversation and we do ourselves a disservice by not creating enough space for black indigenous people of color what I have happily started to turn people of the global majority to bring that creativity and the insights into environmental problem solving without authentic and intentional efforts to set the table in a way that includes folks from communities like mine we will continue to perpetrate the policies of exclusion and othering that made up the early days of the environmental movement so I want to share that we need to open doors and untangle pathways for a diversity of voices to join this movement with the same degree of reverence that we all apply to the tenet of leave no trace when we spend time in well places we need to make room at the table in order for diversity equity and inclusion to be a core operating principle of your professional careers you will need to have the courage to make your values known to others you work with and lead with a commitment to advancing innovative solutions that allow you to bring together those insights that are needed for the solutions of our time when you create a discipline of seeking out those voices who may be underrepresented you open the door for a world of solutions you may never have considered before so as was shared I'm currently serving as New Jersey's deputy chief I helped the deputy chief crow climate resilience officer and basically the bulk of my job is to help facilitate a process with New Jersey's inter agency council on climate resilience the moment we're drafting our first ever resilience action plan which happens to be focused on extreme heat and as you can imagine when it comes to conversations about heat and how it shows up it's forcing conversations and requiring us to have a level of engagement with those most directly impacted so that might include farm workers toll booth operators pregnant mothers youth athletic program directors folks who may be struggle to pay their energy bills and so even if they have an ac they're not turning it on these are not the typical attendees of a webinar hosted by a state environmental agency to talk about climate change right so I come to this conclusion over and over again that we need to be creative and meet people where they're at sometimes you'll find yourself advocating for stuff that feels a little disconnected from the work of climate action or protecting biodiversity or that drive to ignite the passion for environmental stewardship that comes from fishing and hunting and wilderness exercises whatever your path wherever your path leads you we're repeatedly needed needing to be in a place of advocating for making the table for building that table a commitment to the principles of justice diversity equity and inclusion is something you can carry with you anywhere you go and your words have more power than you think if you're ever feeling some degree of discomfort about speaking up it's probably even more important that you find the courage to speak up it really warms my heart that when Paul Hawkin helped to convene an international team of over 200 scientists and researchers thought leaders under the coalition of project drawdown so for folks who aren't familiar with it please definitely go look it up his goal was to prepare a comprehensive list of evidence-based solutions for reversing global warming and it really touched me to learn that one of the most effective strategies identified through that rigorous scientific process was and I kid you not educating girls in doing so we harnessed the ingenuity and the inventiveness of a full half of the world's population who in many countries have been systematically left out of educational opportunities project dot-down has a compilation of drawdown stories that feature individuals taking action in communities all over the u.s. Atlanta minnesota pittsburgh and a few years ago grist actually issued a series of interviews that was called nope and change for folks that like the parks and rec series this is a play on leslie nope's name and the obama's campaign tagline and it similarly featured sustainability champions talking about their work in their own words how it shows up in their homes so what brings me hope is knowing that i'm not alone in this work that now i have you all as colleagues as we are advancing this environmental movement that is so important to all of us if you're listening and learning and working alongside others with a similar commitment to building a bigger more inclusive table you will find yourself in the company of a group of change agents that help to fuel one another seek out these people and their stories it will aid your creativity it will help you see new and different ways to approach this work and remember please you can and should allow yourself the permission to click that unfollow button to reduce the number of folks that are dampening that passion and that dedication so my second anecdote today in the last that i'll share comes from the summer while i was completing my graduate lever research i was with the cohort of the field naturalist from the college of agriculture and life sciences and ecological planners here at the rubenstein school and the master's program places grad students with organizations and agencies that um to complete a project so i uh was lucky enough to be able to leverage my uh professional personal network to secure graduate internship placement with the national council on climate change and the democratic public which is my birth country and as part of that job i was tasked with basically understanding how the localized impacts of two out of season extreme weather events in 2007 uh tropical storm olga which hit on november 30th and a hurricane noel which came about 20 days later but a couple weeks later in early december they hit this agrarian these series of agrarian village but what the impact was around lago and riquillo in the southwestern democratic republic the lago and riquillo is a hyper saline lake just to give you a tiny bit of context it's the lowest point in all the antilles it's about 150 feet below sea level with a really large drainage basin probably 10 uh fairly substantial rivers drain into it and it has no outlet so it floods regularly right um for hundreds of years there's been a routine of fluctuating lake levels with the rainy season and then on a 10 to 15 year cycle there's some kind of extreme weather event that increases the precipitation however the lake's levels uh and extent had not followed the historical patterns as is the story that we hear over and over again and in fact it has not returned to normal ever since uh so it reached considerable impact on the surrounding towns and my research project focused on understanding how those folks in those villages surrounding lago and riquillo were making the connections between those two out of season storms and sort of global climate trends and using that conversation to identify strategies for preparedness and how to better cope so that summer i interviewed about three dozen community leaders farmers ranchers school and hospital directors social service agency heads and what i learned might not surprise some of you but um it appeared to most folks that um and actually this is something that i talked about quite a bit with john who was on my on my committee um in the same way that maybe you might experience these conversations around the holiday table with your families folks will often think of climate change as sort of like an ivory tower issue little too esoteric and what people ultimately wanted was for the dominican federal leadership to do more improvements around quality of life issues supporting local economic development access to quality education and health care etc so i was really struggling because i felt like i had squandered my time and that this research and this opportunity to sort of use my unique skill set right dominican you know ability to sort of relate to folks in a cultural context and also someone very in engage in in climate action work and and i brought that back to the now retired dean wong professor wong um and john and dr azin zia for folks that know him of and the thing that landed was that the aha moment for me came in the realization that if we are not making the connections between climate change and people's everyday lives the everyday lives of people and families then we are way off the mark so i implore you to find that through line find the ways in which your work whatever that is connects to the core values of community building of of families and make sure that as you are working as a change agent you can continually make that connection back for yourself and for others i found that many times when my frustration with my work is particularly high it's because i feel so disconnected from real tangible and meaningful change so i've talked a bit about the importance of finding your source of hope and your source of connection back to the actual needs of families these values keep me grounded but at the same time allow me to imagine a different world so what i want to leave you with is this idea that you have the skills and the knowledge to make meaningful impact in this world you've received a stellar education you've direct access to a network of nationally and internationally recognize thought leaders in this work by virtue of your connections to the rubinstein school give yourself permission to lead give yourself permission to mess up reflect and try again and there's a line from a song called i'll i'll rise up by andre day where she says all we need is hope and for that we have each other thank you thank you to natalie and i'm now pleased to invite our marshal dr claire ginger to continue the presentation of diplomas thank you dean strong i was just going to come up and rest control of the microphone thanks natalie for your words it's so i'm so proud to see you at this place in your life and thanks so much for sharing your stories and now it is time for the presentation of diplomas during this ceremony we will recognize the following academic honors five beta kappa uh five beta kappa inductees summa cum laude the top one percent of the rubinstein school graduating class magna cum laude the next three percent of the graduating class and cum laude the next six percent of the graduating class now to present the diplomas in environmental science professor carol adair graduates with a bachelor of science degree in environmental sciences please rise and come forward page aldenberg leah emmerg emmerine elissa borosso bernard keombo bergenkater julia bolton elizabeth brown megan jessica brown georgia megan brichter samuel august buswell clara servosky loren chasanti jamie thomas cullhost denise dutton anna edgren the cilia eggler magna cum laude rachel elia cum laude five beta kappa harissa pauline finnerty christine phleming magna cum laude isabella jennava lillian grady avigail ellen harbinson ryan kiara hart jake bartley hogan catherine hughes ray and keo liya israel summa cum laude lola jacuzzi jack knight claire langan cum laude christine lawson claire sophia lockwood talia h loyter trevor henry marshall katelyn summer mesaski katerina anna meneese baila rain munich trevor james nasser erin e o mera paila i perry guma cum laude olivia reese qualls claire elizabeth riley batista benjamin timothy rinewald emma shea rosenow haley isabella sanfie jolly scott olivia springer elie stein cum laude jonah tan twan stern tyler d sullivan lillian tuska tusko rachel m tobler elah murie weigel logan charles white uh to present the diplomas in environmental studies program director amy sidle graduates with a bachelor of science degree in environmental studies please rise and come forward kelly and bill hearts david austin brantley sophia caldwell maxwell joseph caracuzzo page lin carpenter roan gray karak andy cornish julia de lesio wilder daniel kiran babakian day savernin loman alexandra lin de ferrante magna cum laude rachel drill eliza hutchinson filler hannah mary lemming mave forbes vivian donelson gilman emily beartris glass lucas goldfluss abigail g gollitz georgia hannock dora hillker ania freeman claus cum laude grace greetler andrew thomas lebowitz noah mendel levin kasey erin mara emilia grace mccabe trisha catherine melton ella miller hodge carlie wisdom morris magna cum laude abigail justice osha nasi emma mcdougal pruce elizabeth hope rackisader sophie grace regina elizabeth roads anna grace suberling kora louise smith cum laude jennifer lillian sogan logon j solomon parley j valco sophia alexis valisillo heather walker bailey grason wine hold liz irine woodhol to present the diplomas in forestry program director toni demotto with a graduates with the bachelors of science in forestry please rise and come forward patrick roy alex andrew james airs danielle hailey burger magna cum laude brya susanne schoenyer magna cum laude andrew miguel kondi ellis davis patrick finnegan colby avery fong cum laude soyer forbes elinor waterhouse fuchs max herz ethan philip laroe madeline jane lords jonathan louis cum laude zachery martinik connor mccourt kai mcgovern david matthew orley cum laude daniel alan perry chase douglas reagan aiden gabriel g rose kathryn rose lucas russo michael celerno jacob stever alexander w voki i will present the diplomas and natural resources graduates with a bachelor of science degree and natural resources please rise and come forward x bernich lucas drogales walter eamon kailey goss baker elinor sage jaffee joseph rance riley tele richards to present the diplomas and parks recreation and tourism program director patricia stokowski thank you graduates with a bachelor of science degree in the fantastic program parks recreation and tourism please rise and come forward kathryn mary conlan emilia sydney curly her degree is presented by her aunt lauren mckillop from the college of education and social services john russell evans mara mcdonald sophie haze moyer oliver ramming willow shawinsky riley shannon sophie thyer cum laude to present the diplomas and wildlife and fisheries biology program director jason stockwell graduates with a bachelor of science degree in wildlife and fisheries biology please rise and come forward jack baker david batty elinor bernier valerie a bissette amen c kaffrey elijah leigh dwell meyer capri ethan anderson car james p clausen clerissa emma crissati mave cronin jess davidson alejandro delos rios kyle h elms john samuel farel samuel d fisk mia harris michael kerry jensen thomas keegan hannah leddie zoey ann lewis malachi lytle spencer mon eric mcglysat susanne moray straighten christina elizabeth mirtha emily rose parabello guido rinehart rare alex raylick jessica ridge rebecca shea ross ali shires benjamin c simons cum laude bethany helena smith jonathan lee solomon camilla maria sucre julietta c tucci jack hillebrant wallace grace m yaris congratulations yay now we will recognize students who have completed requirements to graduate as university of vermont honors college scholars the honors college is a three to four year academic enrichment experience that culminates in the preparation presentation and defense of a senior honors thesis interim associate dean john erickson will present the undergraduate honors college scholar awards john all right here we go honors college could we have our honors students please rise and come up forward starting with jack baker all of you all of you come at once please they'll sort you out i don't need to do that come on up okay up first jack baker thesis title comparison of stocking strategies on lipid resources in age one to age three feral lake trout his advisor was ellen marzden samuel august bouswell thesis title ability of vermont restored wetlands to sequester phosphorus from floodwaters advisor eric roy amen c kafri thesis title effects of substrate type on threats to threatened northern diamondback terrapin nest success and cape cod massachusetts advisor britney moiser loren chrissanti fight thesis title characterization of ldd moth defoliation in vermont comparing uas and satellite data advisor jarlith o'neill dunn cecilia agler thesis title designing and testing a monitoring protocol for river corridor easements in vermont advisor chris steppenock rachel elliott thesis title environmental injustice from the ground up variation of soil health in burlington vermont's community gardens advisor debora nyer ryan chiari heart thesis title early life tradeoffs and golden mantled ground squirrel sociality and growth rate advisor katlyn wells emma shea rosenau thesis title the impact of environmental factors on invasive v major management in the sonoran desert advisor eric roy benjamin c simons thesis title characterizing dietary niche of two exotic ungulates in central new mexico advisor alan strong elie stein thesis title evaluating the success of fishing advisories among angling groups in the greater burlington area vermont advisor ariana keopeli grace m yaros thesis title use of artificial nest nest boxes by american kestrels in western vermont advisor alan strong please congratulate our honors thesis awardees yeah we tried to hold out on one of those gifts but everyone got one so now professors julian gallford and walt polman will recognize one of our graduates who received a university award at this morning's commencement ceremony julian and walt i would like to invite jonah stern to join us on the stage jonah is the recipient of the kitter medal which is awarded to the uvm senior ranking first in leadership scholarship and character it is named of honor in honor of fred t kitter an 1880 graduate who received his md degree in 1883 and later served on the university of vermont board of trustees jonah's nominator wrote jonah shares an extraordinary strength of readily being able to apply his friendly personality great interpersonal skills advocacy to support students from marginalized backgrounds as well as his outstanding curiosity to explore multicultural relations to a predominantly white institution throughout his time at uvm jonah has served as an excellent leadership role in the asian student union and for people of color outdoors jonah it's been an honor being your advisor jonah has also played an exceptionally important role as a leader in nr one and two the rubenstein school's year year long set of courses for all entering students natural history and human ecology in addition to serving as an outstanding teaching assistant jonah also linked the urban ecologies of burlington and new york city by forging an innovative partnership exchange with the high school for environmental studies min hatton and the new york's department of parks and recreation thank you jonah interim dean strong will now recognize masters of science master of professional studies and doctor of philosophy graduates following this he will recognize emeriti faculty and then offer some concluding remarks thank you claire so congratulations to our students graduating with a master of science master of professional studies and doctor of philosophy degrees these students were honored yesterday in a special hooding ceremony that was conducted by the university's graduate college ten of our graduates received master of science degrees six of our graduates received masters of professional studies degrees and two graduates received doctor of philosophy degrees and you can find their names their thesis titles and their advisors in your program so i know that uh all of you were welcomed to the rubenstein school by dean nancy matthews who left for central michigan university and last year she refused to allow us to read a citation of her so um i get to do that now unfortunately she's not here but uh dr nancy ellen matthews you earned your phd from the suni college of environmental science and forestry and from 2014 to 2022 you're so you served as dean and professor of wildlife and fisheries biology in the rubenstein school at uvm your leadership sparked unprecedented growth in the school you hired 24 new faculty during your eight years as dean and doubled our perennial internship program your vision for cutting-edge research led to our new hybrid research vessel and laid the groundwork for a research and stewardship center on mount mansfield you catalyzed the school's work around diversity equity and inclusion you raised funding to support students of color and helped other universities integrate de i into their curricula in 2018 you awarded the uvm mosaic center student of color tim shiner outstanding ally award thank you for your leadership in growing the reach and reputation of the rubenstein school graduates this is my first time being up on stage in front of you and i'm just so honored to have bain able to work with all of you and our faculty and staff throughout this academic year i learned so much from you whether it's in the classroom whether it's in the field or in the hallowed hallways of akon thank you for your support and helping me navigate this first year as interim dean in several courses in the rubenstein school we've talked about the work of dr rachel Naomi reman dr reman founded the reman institute for the study of health and illness at right state university which um and a lot of her work is really focused on the role of personal relationships in healing and one of my favorite essays by dr reman gives three perspectives on viewing life in the world around us helping fixing and serving dr reman writes when we help we see life as weak when we fix we see life as broken but when we serve we see life as whole and i find these perspectives really helpful when i think about how i engage with others am i coming to the class to fix you all am i coming to help you or am i coming to serve you helping and fixing our not relationships among equals um they really amplify the shortcomings of others but when we serve we come from a place of equality which requires us to know that our humanity in our community in fact all of us as part of a learning community are more powerful than our individual expertise and when we serve when we serve we have to ask different types of questions we can't simply ask who do you cook for we also must ask who cooks for you who cooks for you all and serving cans but can be translated into any language even the language of the natural world and i would love to have you all join me in evoking service through the bird world students faculty on three i i think we need service one more time and we all put put our bird service together on three one two three so the next time you hear a barred owl consider the way in which you are engaging with others are you helping are you fixing or are you serving i wish you all the very best please stay in touch and come back to visit us best of luck as you move forward in whatever comes next in your life thank you all all of you for being here today safe journeys and congratulations class of 2023 i saw one or two hats go up but there go there go a few more that looked pretty good in fact more enthusiastic than that barred owl it is my pleasure to declare these proceedings to be adjourned i do ask that the audience please remain in their seats until the faculty and graduates have recessed thank you