HOME COURT: For the second year in a row, the men’s basketball team hosted a first-round America East conference playoff game, delivering a 56-51 win over Binghamton University at Lundholm Gymnasium March 2. The team closed out a 19-12 season with its second-straight trip to the AE playoff semifinals, falling to UVM in Burlington, Vt., on March 8.
TRAILBLAZER: Diane Silva Pimentel, assistant professor of education, is examining how gender plays into female students’ decision to study engineering. Pimentel conducted interviews with 27 women about their experiences as undergraduate engineering majors at UNH. In a recent lecture entitled “Gender Matters: Female Student Perspectives and Experiences Related to the Study of Engineering,” Pimentel discussed her research, which is being presented this spring at the American Educational Research Association Conference.“There are all types of women in engineering,” Pimentel says, adding that if the dialogue around women in the field reflected that reality, “more girls would consider pursuing careers in engineering.”
ROCKET SCIENCE: A thermal vacuum chamber in Morse Hall allows researchers in UNH’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) to test small satellite payloads built at the EOS Space Science Center. UNH-built components have flown on more than 20 satellite missions to date, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-led 2015 Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission and the 2016 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R series project, a joint endeavor between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).
GOING VIRAL: A UNH-produced video that shows clinical associate professor of occupational therapy Therese Willkomm in action, teaching her students how to create simple assistive devices out of recycled campaign signs, has recorded almost 500,000 views on Facebook, including almost 6,000 likes and 1,700 shares. Though Willkomm’s innovative accessories—an iPad holder and a hands-free cellphone device—were front and center, the video’s 800-plus comments make clear the OT professor herself is a major draw, including gems like, “Therese is my Yoda,” and “best professor I’ve had the honor of learning under!”
IN HIS GRANDFATHER’S FOOTSTEPS: Arun Ghandi, grandson of Indian civil rights leader Mahatma Ghandi, visited the Durham campus in early March and spoke to a packed Granite State Room as part of the MUB Current Issues Lecture Series. Ghandi, who travels internationally, sharing his late grandfather’s teachings, offered personal anecdotes and Mahatma Ghandi’s concept of productive anger: “My grandfather said anger is like electricity. It is just as powerful and just as useful, but only if we use it intelligently.”
FROM UNH TO THE UN: Jamie Nolan, UNH associate vice president for community, equity and diversity, spent a week in March at the United Nations headquarters in New York City as a delegate to that organization’s Commission on the Status of Women. Nolan was selected to represent the Earth Child Institute and the program Women, War and What They Fed The Children, which focuses on women who live or have lived in the midst of war and its aftermath.
MEET & GREET: More than 180 potential employers and some 650 students converged on the Whittemore Center March 2 for the 2016 Spring Career and Internship Fair. Dressed to impress, students brought their resumes and elevator pitches and met face-to-face with representatives of companies ranging from Manchester nonprofit Alpha Loft to Verizon Communications.
“The fair was awesome! There were definitely enough companies to provide interest for all types of students. It really depended on the students themselves to make the best use of this terrific resource.”
— COLSA senior
“I thought it was a great opportunity to meet companies from the area. Everyone I talked to was very interesting and I learned a lot. I feel more comfortable if I were to go to an interview.”
— CEPS sophomore
DELICIOUS DISTINCTIONS: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently recognized UNH Dining for its food recovery program. Part of the EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management Program, the Food Recovery Challenge hailed UNH Dining’s composting efforts, which kept almost 212 tons of food waste out of landfills in 2014 alone. UNH was the only campus in the state to receive an achievement certificate for keeping 50 percent or more of its food waste out of landfills. Meanwhile, Holloway Commons and Stillings Hall earned two-star certification from the Green Restaurant Association after undergoing a 51-step assessment on factors including energy use, disposal practices, food procurement, pollution reduction and water conservation.
SOCIAL MEDIA MAVEN: His Durham “Deflategate” course may be over, but UNH Law professor Michael McCann remains a national go-to on a wide range of sports-law-related matters, including Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady’s ongoing appeal. From popular coverage of American Crime Story’s “The People versus OJ Simpson” to the $55 million decision awarded to sportscaster Erin Andrews in her Marriott Hotel stalking case, McCann has been tapped by news outlets from Sports Illustrated to People Magazine to provide his perspective and analysis. Small wonder he was recently named to SportsBusiness Journal/SportsBusiness Daily’s list of “must follows” for social media.
WINTER WONDERLAND: The winter of 2016 may not have delivered much by way of snow, but that didn’t stop bestcollegevalues.org from naming UNH its “most beautiful college in winter.” Beating out classic New England beauties including Harvard University, the University of Vermont and Middlebury College, UNH was hailed for the “2,600 acres of woodlands, forests and fields “ that surround the Durham campus, as well as all three campuses’ proximity to the White Mountains and the Lakes Region.
FIRST FOLIO: A rare volume that holds 36 of William Shakespeare’s 38 plays will be on exhibit at Manchester’s Currier Museum of Art through May 1 as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of the Bards’ death on April 23, 1616. Known as the First Folio, the book on display in Manchester is one of 82 copies held by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. , which owns more than one-third of the 233 known First Folios in existence today. The Folger’s holdings will tour all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico this year. Thanks to a joint sponsorship with UNH, the Currier Museum claims bragging rights as the only site in New Hampshire to display this historic work.
HOLLOWAY OPENING: What has 350 seats and opened in January? The new dining area at Holloway Commons, which provides increased seating, improved traffic flow and enhanced accessibility throughout the building with an expanded footprint toward the MUB. The project began in May 2015 and was completed in time to welcome students returning from the semester break.
FROM DOWNTON TO DURHAM: British actor Jim Carter, best known for his role as the redoubtable butler Mr. Carson on the Masterpiece Theatre series “Downton Abbey,” stopped by the UNH Media Relations broadcast studio Feb. 16. Carter was in the seacoast area for WandAid, an organization he helped form that supports victims of natural disasters and political upheaval with humanitarian aid as well as magic performances that promote psychological recovery.
SELFIE SUPERSTAR: Elizabeth Girard ’16 appeared on a panel of Republican women interviewed by ABC News political commentator Cokie Roberts on Feb. 6. The senior theatre and dance major caught the network’s attention after a photo of her posing for a selfie with candidate Ben Carson went up on the UNH homepage last fall.
SPORTS
Dick Umile ’72 tallied his 1,000th game as men’s ice hockey head coach at the Whittemore Center on Feb. 13. While the Wildcats didn’t mark the occasion with a win, the team did rally from a two-goal deficit to tie Hockey East rival University of Vermont 2-2.
The men’s and women’s ski teams finished 10th at the National Collegiate Men’s and Women’s Skiing Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo., on March 12. It was the team’s 25th top-10 finish in 34 years under ski coordinator and Nordic head coach Cory Schwartz ’82.
STAR TREATMENT: Johnson Theatre was a space transformed when MSNBC descended on the Durham campus to prepare for a nationally televised debate between Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on Feb. 4. Seats to the event were limited, but students across campus gathered for viewing parties—and some got a taste of the action at Holloway Commons’ Piscataqua Room or the Huddleston Hall ballroom, which served as a makeshift press filing room and post-debate broadcast “spin room,” respectively.
Originally published in UNH Magazine Spring 2016 Issue
