Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Wild Food Harvesting And Biodiversity In The Black Hills: Key Issues And Areas For Future Research, Margaret J. Torness

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

As we grapple with the complex and interrelated issues of widespread species extinction and global climate change, both largely driven by industrial agriculture, there is a need to investigate the relationship between food systems and conservation approaches to find solutions. Wild foods lie at the intersection of ecological and socio-cultural systems, bridge the wild and the domestic, and challenge the false dichotomy between production agriculture and conservation. Given the importance of biodiversity to the resilience of our food systems, both wild and domestic, this research serves as a scoping study to investigate key issues and areas in need of future …

U.S. Dairy Farmer Perceptions And Actions Around Climate Change, Meredith T. Niles, Zachary Goldstein, Lauren Hunt, Rebecca C. Mitchell, Sarah Tabor

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

In the spring of 2023, a national survey of United States dairy farmers was conducted to understand how producers are thinking about and approaching changing climate and weather, with a focus on animal, manure management, and land use strategies that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.. A total of 920 dairy farmers, approximately 1 in every 29, responded to this survey. This report summarizes the findings of this survey.

Ensuring Efficacy In Local Food Shelf Programming, Sophie Hartry Springer

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The Farmstand at the Food Shelf is a program created by South Burlington non-profit Common Roots and the South Burlington Food Shelf, where organic, local food grown at the Common Roots farm is distributed to food shelf customers. Along with fresh produce, Food Shelf customers are also able to take prepared meals, recipe samples, local animal protein, plant starts, and other offerings. This research explores the wants and needs of customers at the South Burlington Food Shelf through quantitative and qualitative research in order to understand the limits and strengths of the current programming offered by Common Roots. Results suggest …

Seed Value Chain Analysis: Enhancing Culturally Meaningful Seed Access By Harmonizing Seed Companies, Seed Growers, And Farmers/Gardeners In The Northeastern United States, Claire Fischer

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Seeds are often valued solely as agricultural inputs, which diminishes the other benefits they provide such as cultural connections between people and the food they consume. Because seeds are primarily valued for their ability to enhance productivity and profit, a limited supply of culturally meaningful (CM) seeds exist in the US, creating barriers for individuals and communities - and particularly ones of color - seeking to connect to their traditional foodways. The Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance (UCFA), a collective of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) seed growers and distributors, is working to construct a seed value chains (SVC) …

“Expecting To Read A Patent Like A Paper? It’S Fatal.” Exploring The Readability Of Patents And Strategies For Comprehension., Graham Sherriff

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

An Overview Of Information Instruction In Hospital Libraries In Spain, Alice Stokes, Maria Sobrido-Prieto, Uxia Gutierrez-Couto, Antonia Maria Fernandez-Luque

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Introduction: Information instruction is essential to providing support for clinical care, teaching and research in hospitals. In the international literature, little has been published about this function of hospital libraries in Spain. This study examines the education activities of Spanish hospitals. Methods: A questionnaire about staff, education activities and institutional recognition was distributed via email to Spanish hospital libraries. The data was analysed in February 2023. Results: 84% of libraries provide education activities. The average number education staff is 1.3. Common instruction topics are database searching, citations, researcher identity and scientific journals (quality, impact and publication standards). 83% of libraries …

Anxiety And Kinesiophobia In Patients With Cardiovascular Disease: Characterization Of The Population And Symptom Trajectories, William A. Middleton

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Background:Psychological difficulties are common surrounding cardiac events and may remain elevated for some time during patient recovery. Evidence suggests that depression, anxiety, and kinesiophobia, or the fear of body movement, may negatively impact patients’ recovery. A comprehensive grasp of these factors and their progression in cardiac patients is currently lacking, despite their significant health implications. Methods: Patients hospitalized for an acute cardiac event were eligible for the study. Participants completed a demographic and psychological questionnaire in hospital. The psychological battery included the 8 item Patient Health Questionnaire-8, the 7 item General Anxiety Disorder-7, and the 17 item Tampa Scale for …

Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce And Distribute Food That's Not For Sale, Sam Bliss

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing …

Community Science And Coyote Stories: Capturing And Communicating Nature's Non-Material Values For Use In Decision-Making, Joshua Wright Morse

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The reasons and ways that nature matters underlie every part of environmental decision-making. Yet, there are disparities in how different kinds of benefits from and values about nature are represented in policy and practice. This dissertation explores how decision-makers and community members value nature broadly and also in the context of a specific human-wildlife interaction in Vermont, United States.

In my first chapter, I conduct semi-structured interviews with environmental sector practitioners in Vermont to learn about their awareness of non-material values from nature. I find that practitioners talk readily about both material and non-material ecosystem services as well as multiple …

Unraveling Public Evacuation Likelihood: Structural Equation Models And The Extended Parallel Process Model In Focus, Molly Margaret Myers

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the intricate relationships between risk perception, efficacy appraisal, and evacuation likelihood in the context of flooding among the United States public. The Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) developed by Witte (1992) serves as the theoretical framework for this study, emphasizing the two-pronged appraisal process of threat and efficacy, influencing individual responses to risk messaging. Analysis of the data delves into the relationships between risk perception and evacuation likelihood, offering insights into the public's understanding of flood risk and readiness for impending flood events. This study used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to discern the impact of threat and …

Policy Brief: Evaluation Of The Safety Of Pedestrian Crossing Treatments In Small And Rural Communities, Parsa Pezeshknejad, Dana Rowangould, James Sullivan

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

TRC Policy Brief: Rural areas often lack adequate pedestrian infrastructure, resulting in elevated safety risks for pedestrians. The combination of higher speed limits and reduced driver awareness amplifies the potential for pedestrian collisions when crossing the roadway.

This study addresses uncertainty about the effectiveness of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs) and LED-embedded signs (LESs) as potential safety interventions. RRFBs and LESs are both pedestrian crossing treatments that allow pedestrians to activate lights to alert drivers of their intent to cross. RRFBs include horizontal LED lights mounted to the sign pole, while LESs include LEDs embedded in the edge of the …

Ai Tools For Summarizing Research Articles: Transforming Information Access, Gary S. Atwood

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Can Gpt-3 Tools Accurately Find And Analyze Articles For Systematic Reviews? A (Very) Preliminary Assessment, Gary S. Atwood

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Introduction: GPT-3 is a large language model that uses artificial intelligence to generate textual responses to prompts and questions. GPT-3 technology has been used to create several interesting tools including the widely reported chatbot ChatGPT-3, which was released in November 2022. Inspired by the initial success of GPT-3, several organizations have started to build tools designed to assist with tasks associated with the systematic review research process. This project will analyze how successful these tools are in completing two specific tasks: searching for research articles and analyzing individual articles.

Methods/Description: This project consists of two parts. In part one, …

Moving Towards An Anti-Colonial Definition For Regenerative Agriculture, Bryony Sands, Mario Machado, Alissa White, Eglee Zent, Rachelle K. Gould

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Regenerative agriculture refers to a suite of principles, practices, or outcomes which seek to improve soil health, biodiversity, climate, ecosystem function, and socioeconomic outcomes. However, recent reviews highlight wide heterogeneity in how it is defined. This impedes our ability to understand what regenerative agriculture is and has left the movement open to strategic repurposing by diverse stakeholders. Furthermore, the conceptual franchising of the regenerative agriculture debate by Western culture has omitted discussions surrounding social justice, relational values, and the contribution of Indigenous and local knowledge that does not align with Western-centric producer-consumer frameworks. This is a continuation of injustice by …

Advancing Agroecological Agroforestry: A Vermont Participatory Storytelling And Story Mapping Project, Sydney Blume

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees into agricultural landscapes. Advancing agroforestry has the potential to support just food system transition, but it must take direction from traditional approaches (culturally-embedded, millennia-old agroforestry practices in forest ecosystems) and agroecology (the movement, science, and practice for just and sustainable food and agricultural systems). An agroecological approach to agroforestry is essential to avoid agroforestry replicating the logics and harms of industrial agriculture and to encourage learning from traditional agroforestry practices, and likewise, traditional approaches to agroforestry can support a transformative agroecological transition through redesign of agroecosystems and shifting perspectives and ethics. This paper …

Traffic Safety Toolbox - Addressing Speeds: Final Report, James Sullivan, Dana Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Reducing speeding and aggressive driving is one of seven critical emphasis areas identified in the Vermont Highway Safety Plan, which targets reductions in major crashes on Vermont highways. Vermont towns recognize the need to discourage speeding and implement countermeasures that will bring speeds down to posted speed limits, especially in transition zones from high-speed rural highways to low-speed village streets. Vermont’s villages and towns often lack the resources and capacity needed to select and implement speeding countermeasures that will be effective and appropriate for a particular context. There is a need for targeted, digestible guidance to assist these municipalities. This …

Seed & Story Conservation: A Rooted Historical Documentation And Analysis Of Living Seed Stories In The Us Northeast, Celia Luanna Nesbitt

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Often a neglected item in our current industrialized food system, seed is now typically seen as a commodity. Agrobiodiversity is in decline with diverse crop varieties being lost from cultivation and memory, further threatening levels of biodiversity. Research indicates that seed systems are crucial for the conservation of crop diversity and local adaption of cultivars. Globally, people are working to grow and share seeds that support seed production based around the premises of community-based production and (agro)biodiversity. This project and paper draw attention to the regional seed work in the US Northeast. Through a participatory approach, and an active participation …

The Gardens Nearby: A Narrative Podcast Exploring Soil Contamination And Community Gardening In Burlington, Vt, April Mcilwaine

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The city of Burlington, Vermont (Burlington) is home to the Burlington Area Community Gardens (BACG), a program of the Burlington Parks and Recreation Department. This program has a 50-year legacy in the Burlington community and today comprises 14 garden sites that serve over 1,400 people. Within the framework of food sovereignty, community gardens are valuable, multi-functional spaces that positively benefit residents and neighborhoods alike. However, planting gardens in reclaimed urban spaces may come with food safety concerns. Like other cities that have an industrial heritage, some of Burlington’s urban areas may have soils with high levels of toxic heavy metals …

Humanizing Hunger: Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Food And Healthcare Access In Northern New England, Malarie B. Mcgalliard

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Rural communities have historically faced higher levels of food insecurity and lower healthcare access than their urban counterparts. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the challenges of accessing adequate and equitable food and healthcare resources, especially in rural pockets of poverty. Maine and Vermont are the most rural states in the US with over 61% of both populations living in rural areas. Drawing from recent 2022 survey data collected by the National Food Access COVID Research Team (NFACT), this project will seek to contextualize the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and healthcare accessibility in Northern New England. The …

Consider The Lunch Lady: Examining Assumptions To Create A Paradigm Shift Within School Lunch, Molly E. Duff

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Changing the school food system requires that we critically examine our existing assumptions about how this system works. Currently, school food mirrors our larger food system as it is both highly processed and highly consolidated (Gaddis, 2019). Further, school food reflects larger societal assumptions around issues of social welfare and racial equity as a system that leaves many undernourished and wanting (Levine, 2008). Engaging critically with these assumptions is an essential step to dissecting the paradigms that shape our systems. Ultimately, dismantling these paradigms is what creates deep change (Meadows, 1999). To challenge my own assumptions around how school food …

Reclaiming Our Time: We Do It For The Culture, Angela E. Fillingim, Nini Hayes

The Vermont Connection

Using narrative methodology with a lens of critical race feminism, in self-reflexive ways we draw on our experiences as a Latina and Black-Pinay tenure-track faculty who have dealt with spirit murdering and labored in community to resist. We used feminist theories to understand the roots of our friendship and commitment to resistance. Our persistent encounters with spirit murdering were tied to, what we call, “time-theft.” Time-theft describes an embodied consequence of spirit murdering which deeply affects our emotional, mental, and physical well-being. We offer insights into how we resisted “time-theft conquistadors” and other means the institution tried to steal from …

Going To A Psychiatric Hospital Saved My Life And My Student Affairs Career, Jo Wilson

The Vermont Connection

The ongoing mental health crisis for college students has been a notable topic in recent years and while a necessary conversation, this often overlooks an underlying mental health crisis for higher education staff and the connection between both crises. As a former mentally ill graduate student and now (still) mentally ill student affairs practitioner, the connection is clear and a conversation now is critical. Using my personal narrative as a current practitioner, self authorship, and disability theory intersections, I am using this piece as a counternarrative and interruption to traditional student and staff development. Lastly, I seek to encourage a …

Home Food Production Before, During And Since Start Of The Covid-19 Pandemic In Northern New England, Ashleigh Angle, Ashley C. Mccarthy, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This brief details the results from three separate surveys of Northern New Englanders in Maine and Vermont in summer 2020, spring 2021, and spring 2022. A survey was conducted in summer of 2020 to understand the initial and continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, diet, and health outcomes. Two additional surveys were conducted using the same methods in spring 2021 and 2022 to continue to assess changes during the pandemic. All surveys were representative of the state populations on race and ethnicity and the data presented in this brief were weighted to be representative of income in …

Effectiveness Of Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (Rrfbs) In Small And Rural Communities, Dana Rowangould, James Sullivan, Parsa Pezeshknejad

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Ensuring the safety of pedestrians and cyclists in rural and small communities is becoming increasingly important as planners seek to encourage active travel and eliminate traffic-related injuries and fatalities, consistent with Vision Zero. One area of focus is the protection of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, who face a significant risk of injury or death in a traffic collision. The risks to pedestrians are particularly high when crossing roadways in high-risk areas such as high-speed and low pedestrian-volume rural roads and between intersections where drivers may not expect them. One concern in rural communities is that pedestrians may face …

Caja De Herramientas: Desarrollando Resiliencia En El Sistema Alimentario, Neishaly Serrano-Cortés, Claire Whitehouse, David Conner, Robinson Rodríguez-Pérez Phd, Naomi Cunningham, Travis Reynolds Ph.D., Kerry Daigle, Valery Desravins, Jane Kolodinsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

En esta caja de herramientas encontrarán guías y estudios sobre evaluación y desarrollo de la resiliencia de los sistemas agroalimentarios. La meta de este trabajo es que personas de la comunidad, líderes y profesionales puedan utilizar este material para que a través de la colaboración se pueda catalizar un cambio positivo en los sistemas agroalimentarios de sus regiones. Además, con el fin de lograr que este material educativo sea accesible se ha desarrollado tanto en manuscrito como videos, en los idiomas del inglés y español.

En el Capítulo 1, se explora el concepto de resiliencia, el marco de los capitales …

Food Resilience Toolkit, Neishaly Serrano-Cortés, Claire Whitehouse, David Conner, Robinson Rodríguez-Pérez Phd, Naomi M. Cunningham, Travis Reynolds Ph.D., Kerry Daigle, Valery Desravins, Jane Kolodinsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This toolkit is intended to help community leaders and technical support professionals assess and build food system resilience in their regions. The toolkit is available in English and Spanish and in written and video format. In the introduction, we explore the concept of resilience and the Community Capitals framework and suggest possible indicators of food system resilience. In Chapter 2, we outline four tools for assessing community advantages and challenges and developing plans to address them. These tools are: asset mapping, focus groups, nominal groups, and strategic planning. While many research techniques can be deployed for resilience building, we have …

Impact Of Vermont's Single-Use Plastics Ban On Consumers And Food Businesses, Emily H. Belarmino, Claire Ryan, Qingbin Wang, Meredith T. Niles, Margaret Torness

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

To mitigate the harmful effects of single-use plastic products and lessen the burden of plastics on Vermont's landfill, in 2019, Vermont’s State Government passed a single-use products law (Act 69 of 2019). The law, which went into effect on July 1, 2020, prohibits stores and food service establishments from providing single-use plastic carryout bags at the point of sale, expanded polystyrene (commonly called Styrofoam) food and beverage containers, plastic straws (except upon customer request), and plastic stirrers. Additionally, the law permits stores to provide single-use paper bags at the point of sale if the customer is charged at least 10 …

Impact Of Vermont's Food Waste Ban On Residents And Food Businesses, Emily H. Belarmino, Claire Ryan, Qingbin Wang, Meredith T. Niles, Margaret Torness

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

In the United States, an estimated 30-40% of food produced each year is wasted, with most of this waste coming from households, food retailers, and food service businesses. To reduce the burden on Vermont’s only municipal landfill, the Vermont Legislature unanimously passed Act 148, a universal recycling and composting law, in 2012. Among other features, the law included a phased-in food waste ban that went into full effect on July 1, 2020. This ban requires everyone in Vermont – from residents to businesses and institutions – to keep their food waste out of the trash. To study the impact of …

Partnership Between Iraqi Families With Refugee Backgrounds And School Professionals, Ashraf Alamatouri

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Research shows that partnerships between families and school professionals can be an important factor in student educational outcomes and that such partnerships exist less for families with refugee backgrounds than for native-born Americans. There are gaps in the literature around linguistic factors and advocacy styles that could influence the relationship between families with refugee backgrounds and school professionals, especially for Arabic speakers. The purpose of this study was to deeply analyze one Iraqi family’s interactions with school professionals in the U.S. to answer the following research question: What linguistic factors and advocacy behaviors facilitate and impede the formation of a …

Examining Gendered Aspects Of Land Tenure Security And Smallholder Food Security During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Uganda, Michelle B. Saunders

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Smallholder agriculture is an integral part of the global food system – indeed, over 80% of the world’s farms operate on less than two hectares of land. In Uganda, these smallholder farmers grow the majority (~85%) of food produced, and thus are critical to domestic food security. However, due to external threats such as economic hardship and climate change, smallholders are also vulnerable to food insecurity themselves. As we work towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger, it is crucial that we pay particular attention to this vital population. This thesis explores two key explanatory factors that …