CHEERS TO 150 YEARS: UNH and Hampton-based Smuttynose Brewing Company recently teamed up on a limited-edition beer to commemorate UNH’s 150th anniversary. Named 1866 in honor of the university’s founding year, the session ale is available at locations throughout the Seacoast. Smuttynose brewer Hannah Johnson ’12 helped develop the celebratory ale, one dimension of the university’s foray into the rapidly expanding brewing industry. In the fall, UNH will launch a new minor in brewing science as well as open a pilot brewery and testing lab and offer professional development courses for the public. Cheryl Parker ’00 joined the university as brewery manager and instructor March 31. Photo Gallery
CORPS VALUES: For the 10th year in a row, UNH has been named a top producer of Peace Corps volunteers, coming in 21st among medium-sized schools in the organization’s most recent survey. The university currently has 15 alumni in the Peace Corps’ ranks, including Cori Rees ’14, who is serving as a health volunteer in Zambia. “I am training community health volunteers to teach about HIV/AIDS, malaria, and maternal and child health in their villages and to implement programs that will hopefully increase the quality of health of our larger community,” Rees says. Since President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961, more than 225,000 Americans of all ages have served in 141 countries worldwide. Article
GREAT AT THE OUTDOORS: UNH’s location between the Atlantic Ocean and the White Mountains has long been a lure for nature-loving students, as have university-owned features like College Woods, The Browne Center on Durham Point and Barrington’s Mendum’s Pond. Now, the university’s long-standing commitment to getting into the great outdoors is getting some national attention; UNH was recently ranked 7th on Money magazine’s “10 Best Colleges for People Who Love the Great Outdoors.” The honor reflects not only the university’s resources but the vitality of its Outing Club—the oldest club on campus—and the strength of its experientially focused outdoor education program. Article
PHYSICS PATHBREAKER: Elena Long, a postdoctoral researcher in UNH’s physics department, made news twice in the final months of 2016. First, the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility awarded her its Postdoctoral Research Prize. Then, Nature magazine named her to its Nature 10 list of people who mattered for her pathbreaking efforts to make the field of physics more inclusive of people from sexual and gender minorities. Long says her activism arose from a personal need. “As a young graduate student struggling as a queer/trans person working at a national lab, I was looking for resources for LGBT physicists and couldn't find any,” she says. Since then, Long has launched a website, lgbtphysicists.org, that spawned a range of initiatives that support LGBT scientists. Article
MBA PROGRAMS CRACK TOP 100: Both UNH’s online and part-time MBA programs have been ranked among the top 100 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The Paul College-based programs are both the only MBAs of their kind in northern New England to make the top 100 on their respective lists, with the online degree coming in at number 78 and the part-time degree claiming the 95th spot. Paul associate dean Peter Lane attributes the programs’ success to recent innovations in the curriculum, program flexibility and academic standards that mirror the university’s full-time MBA program. UNH offers the only part-time and online MBA programs in New Hampshire that carry the prestigious Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation. Article
Thanks to an $824,000 grant over three years from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, UNH and the Community College System of New Hampshire is set to establish the New Hampshire Humanities Collaborative to promote study of the humanities, support the transfer to the university of community college students studying the humanities and develop a humanities curriculum focused on grand challenges.
“This collaborative will illuminate the value of the humanities for civic well-being and career advancement by communicating to students the role of the humanities in providing a well-rounded educational experience,” says UNH President Mark Huddleston. “It will also allow us to expand our partnership with the state’s community colleges.”
Roughly 700 students transfer from community colleges in New Hampshire to University System of New Hampshire institutions each year. Of those, only 3 percent enroll in humanities majors, compared to the more than 20 percent who enroll in STEM majors.
Heidi Bostic, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, says the value of a humanities education may not be immediately evident to students, whether they are enrolled at community colleges or four-year universities. This initiative will help. “The humanities are vital to our democracy and for addressing the grand challenges of our age, such as healthcare, urbanization, food sovereignty and the role of technology in human relations and discourse,” she says. “Although these challenges are sometimes seen as the purview of STEM fields alone, the humanities are crucial for articulating relevant responses and enabling respectful civic discourse.”
—Susan Dumais ’88
“UNH, like all flagship public research universities, benefits immeasurably from the scholarly, cultural and other contributions made by members of our community who come from outside the U.S. We have been heartened to see the Wildcat community come together over recent weeks to support one another.”
— President Mark W. Huddleston on the Trump administration’s March 6 Immigration Executive Order
A CLASSIC AMONG CLASSICS: Student actors presented the Greek tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus” at UNH’s Johnson Theatre on Feb. 22. The opening-night performance was the first in a three-campus collaboration of Oedipus cycle plays that included performances of “Oedipus the King” at Plymouth State University and “Antigone” at Keene State College. The production marked 10 years since the USNH institutions’ last dramatic collaboration, a 2007 staging of “Electra,” “Women of Troy” and “Agamemnon.”
STILL SETTING RECORDS: She’s going to need a bigger trophy case. In March, Elinor Purrier ’18 added to her long list of accomplishments with a second-place finish in the mile at the 2017 NCAA indoor track and field national championships. Purrier’s 4:31.88 performance represented her third consecutive top-three finish in an NCAA championship track contest, following a third-place performance in last spring’s 3,000 meter steeplechase and a third-place finish in the 2016 mile. It’s also the best-ever finish for a UNH runner in any event. “Elle keeps getting better,” says coach Robert Hoppler. “She has four more seasons left, and we’re excited about what can happen in the future.”
CAREER ON ICE: Men’s head ice hockey coach Dick Umile ’72 has announced that he will retire at the end of the 2017-18 season, his 28th at the helm of the program. Umile, who will be succeeded by associate head coach Mike Souza, says he is excited about setting the stage for the future of the program in his final year. “With a strong nucleus returning and exciting newcomers on the way, we are determined to get UNH hockey back to the level of annually competing in the NCAA tournament,” he says. Umile is ranked 9th all-time and 4th among active Division I head coaches in victories (586), and his .611 winning percentage ranks 11th among active D-I coaches. Under his leadership, the Wildcats have reached the NCAA tournament 18 times and appeared in the NCAA Frozen Four on four occasions, including national championship game appearances in 1999 and 2003.
Originally published in UNH Magazine Spring 2017 Issue
