UNITED ACADEMICS STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS

Each year, United Academics (UA), the faculty union of the University of Vermont, awards several scholarships to students who demonstrate an active commitment to community service (paid or unpaid), especially in pursuit of social, economic or environmental justice. All application materials must be submitted through the online application form by April 30, 2024. Following this deadline, the UA Scholarship Committee conducted its review process, and scholarship recipients were announced in mid-May.

2024 scholarship application form

The application deadline for 2024: April 30, 2024. Applications accepted until midnight.

Scholarships Descriptions Flyer

Scholarship Poster with QR Code

JEFFREY BRACE SCHOLARSHIP

United Academics awards three $500 Jeffrey Brace Scholarships to students with an active commitment to community service, especially in pursuit of social or economic justice. The scholarship is named in honor of Jeffrey Brace, an early 19th-century Black Vermonter, previously enslaved person and activist. Scholarship recipients will be selected based on demonstrated involvement in community service, especially activities related to social and/or economic justice, in keeping with United Academics’ values.

All currently enrolled UVM students are eligible to apply for the Jeffrey Brace Scholarship.

To apply for a Brace Scholarship, applicant must submit:

  •  an essay (no more than 750 words) that outlines one’s interest and involvement in community service (paid or unpaid) and social and/or economic justice, and

  • recommendation letter from a faculty or community member who's familiar with applicant's involvement with social and/or economic justice activities.

  •  copy of transcript (If you are a UVM student, your "Official Transcript" can be obtained through your MyUVM account under the "Registrar" tab. Please send it to yourself and submit with your application).

Note: All UVM students who apply for the Backus or Shiman scholarships will automatically be considered for a Brace scholarship.

About JEFFREY BRACE

Born in West Africa, Jeffrey Brace was captured in 1758 by slave traders and eventually sold in Connecticut. Brace enlisted in the Revolutionary Army in 1777 and fought for American liberty for five years before being honorably discharged and, only then, freed from slavery. Following the war, like many veterans, Brace and his wife moved to the new State of Vermont to take up farming. Virulent racism drove him and his family from their first homestead in Poultney to St. Albans where Brace established a new farm. Brace's struggles for personal and social justice are detailed in one of the earliest biographies of a Black American still in existence. The Special Collections of the University of Vermont contains one of the few copies of this important and rare book, The Blind African Slave.

Jeffrey Brace did not seek out struggles for social justice but neither did he fear them. Although stolen from Africa, he fought for national independence. Although a veteran, a farmer, and a Vermonter, Brace had to continually fight for his rights as a citizen in the country he had helped create. He fought this fight in words, using the courts and the press.

LINDA BACKUS MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP

The Linda Backus Memorial Scholarship of $1,000 is presented to an undergraduate student for outstanding community service, especially in pursuit of social or economic justice. The scholarship is named in honor of Linda Backus, former UVM professor of education, committed union organizer, and second president of United Academics.

To be eligible, applicant must have:

  • completed two years at a higher education institution (not necessarily in Vermont), and

  • an immediate family member—parent, step-parent, guardian, sibling, stepsibling—who is a member of any union in   Vermont.

To apply for the Backus Scholarship, applicant must submit:

  • an essay (no more than 750 words) that describes involvement in community service, especially as related to social and/or economic justice causes;

  • documentation of immediate family member's union affiliation in Vermont (such as a photocopy or scan of a union card);

  • a recommendation letter from a faculty or community member who's familiar with applicant's involvement with social and/or economic justice activities. 

  •  copy of transcript (If you are a UVM student, your "Official Transcript" can be obtained through your MyUVM account under the "Registrar" tab. Please send it to yourself and submit with your application).

Note: All UVM students who apply for the Backus Scholarship will automatically be considered for a Jeffrey Brace Scholarship.

About LINDA BACKUS: SPECIAL EDUCATOR, ADVOCATE, ORGANIZER

Linda Backus had a distinguished career as a special education teacher, administrator, consultant, and scholar. She began her teaching career at the Spring Grove (PA) Area High School, continuing her pedagogic journey at the Pathway School for children with behavior disorders in Norristown where she found her true calling in the field of special education. She moved to Herkimer County, New York where she created treatment programs for individuals with developmental disabilities and helped to establish the New York State Association of Community Residence Directors. Following graduate studies in special education, she became a professor in the Community and Preventative Medicine Department at New York Medical College.

In 1994, she joined the faculty of the University of Vermont and served as a project associate at the UVM Center on Disability. She was a primary organizer of the UVM faculty union, serving as its first vice president, then president, and was instrumental in the drafting of a constitution and the negotiations leading to its first contract. In 2004, the American Association of University Professors awarded her the Georgina Smith Award. She was active in the Ward V Neighborhood Planning Assembly and served on the boards of both United Professions of Vermont and the Champlain Valley Labor Council (AFL-CIO). At the First Congregational Church in Burlington she taught Sunday school and had chaired the church’s mission committee. Her death, at the age of 54, ended the life of an individual who was deeply committed through her educational, labor, political, and religious activities to improving individual lives and the community at large.

DAVID SHIMAN SCHOLARSHIP

The David Shiman Scholarship of $1,500 will be presented to a UVM senior or graduate student with an outstanding and sustained record of community service, especially in pursuit of social or economic justice. The scholarship is named in honor of David Shiman, longtime professor of education at UVM and past president of United Academics.

To be eligible, the applicant needs to be a senior undergraduate or graduate student at the University of Vermont with a minimum CGPA of 3.0.

To apply for the Shiman Scholarship, applicant must submit:

  • an essay (no more than 1000 words) that describes involvement in community service, especially as related to social and/or economic justice causes;

  • documentation of applicant’s CGPA (such as a screenshot or scan of transcript);

  • a recommendation letter from a faculty or community member who's familiar with applicant's involvement with social and/or economic justice activities. 

  • copy of transcript (If you are a UVM student, your "Official Transcript" can be obtained through your MyUVM account under the "Registrar" tab. Please send it to yourself and submit with your application).

Note: All students who apply for the Shiman Scholarship will automatically be considered for a Jeffrey Brace Scholarship.

About DAVID SHIMAN, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION

David Shiman began at UVM in 1971 as an Assistant Professor in Education where he committed himself to working for social justice through his professional work. However, his social justice activism began well before then. His consciousness about race received an awakening in the 1950s with the arrival of Jackie Robinson on the roster of his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. It was nurtured by his early experiences teaching in post-colonial Tanzania in the early 1960s. While pursuing doctoral study on African education at UCLA in the mid-1960s, he was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, campaigned for fair housing legislation, and taught in an adult vocational training center in Watts after the 1966 riots.

Over the years, David has taught courses and conducted workshops on prejudice reduction and human rights education with Palestinian activists on the West Bank, former Solidarity unionists in Poland, teachers and lawyers in South Africa, human rights activists and teachers in Guyana, and with many groups across the United States. He established (with David Conrad) the Center for World Education within the College of Education and Social Services in 1974 and for nearly forty years has offered courses focusing on global perspectives education, peace and justice, and multicultural education.

David has spent over five years advancing social justice goals through his work in South Africa, China, Costa Rica, Tanzania, and Ghana. He served on Amnesty International USA's National Board of Directors in the mid-1980s and helped launch its national human rights education program. He has written extensively on cultural diversity and human rights, publishing books entitled The Prejudice Book, Teaching Human Rights, Economic and Social Justice: A Human Rights Perspective, and Human Rights: Here and Now (co-author).

He served as president of United Academics, UVM’s faculty union, from 2004 to 2013, during which time he was chief negotiator for four contracts and a bargaining team member for two additional contracts. In 2013, he was appointed chair of the Board of Directors for the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington. He retired from UVM after 43 years in 2014. He has two daughters, Kathleen and Sarah, and lives with his wife, Elise Guyette, in South Burlington, VT.

2024 United Academics Student Scholarship Committee Members

Prudence Doherty, Libraries, Chairperson, pdoherty@uvm.edu

Eric Lindstrom, English

Cheryl Morse, Geography

Will Miller United Academics Internship

Will Miller, union organizer, activist, teacher, and scholar began his 35-year career in the UVM Philosophy department in 1969. In the mid 1970’s, he started the first of many union drives on campus that led to an eventual victory. As a crucial part of this process, he successfully lobbied the Vermont legislature to declare the university a public instrumentality for the purpose of labor relations; without this, unionization would have been impossible.

To honor Will Miller, the Executive Council of United Academics has established an internship to provide a student each year with the opportunity to learn about labor and the political economy from the point of view of UVM's union work. Our first intern joined us in 2022-23: Matthew Breunig, a UVM social work graduate student in social work from Madison, WI who has been full of good energy and ideas.

Read more about Will Miller here and see our Internship description here.