ABSTRACT
Kit Anderson, PhD Senior Lecturer (Retired), Environmental Sciences, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
At the age of 40, when her two sons were in college, the author quit her job as a garden magazine editor and director of a nonprofit in Vermont, and headed south to accept a PhD fellowship at Louisiana State University. After enjoying the warmth, food, music, and rich cultures of that region and Central America for five years, she made her way back north. Her dissertation research on live oaks and ceibas was published by University of Texas Press as Nature, Culture and Big Old Trees. Finding work in academia was challenging. Tenure-track positions tend to go to the young (and, until recently, males). But since 1997, as a lecturer and eventually senior lecturer at the University of Vermont, she has taught a wide range of courses in the Environmental Program: among them ethnobotany, traditional ecological knowledge, trees and culture, religion and ecology, and research methods. Publishing any research, unfortunately, has taken a back seat, although she has presented at national and international conferences. On the other hand, working with undergraduates on their senior theses was highly rewarding. Best of all is being able to continue living in Vermont.
