From the Nominator

Flight is an ancient human dream. The future of air travel needs to be electric. Beta Technologies is at the vanguard, racing to be the first company to bring mass-production electric airplanes to market. UVM undergrads and graduate students are a driving force within this new company—just a few miles from campus—bringing their academic skills and environmental commitments to the aviation workplace. 

Vermont has a well-deserved reputation as a sustainability leader. UVM adds an intellectual advantage to Beta’s quest by bringing highly trained and innovative students to the effort. At the same time, the university is leaning into classroom-to-workplace connections through powerful internships at Beta. 

Our project—a print cover story in the fall 2022 issue of UVM Magazine, a video of an undergraduate intern, and an integrated social media campaign—brought this complex positioning to life through the story of Bella Reilly. She’s a senior mechanical engineering major, a fan of biomimicry and a transfer student. Reilly loves engineering, she learned to fly an airplane at Beta, and found her career path at UVM. This multi-angled story package reached many important audiences for the university, ranging from prospective students to international thought leaders; alums to in-state economic development champions. In addition to being read in our alumni magazine (readership of roughly 125,000 people), our web version of the story has garnered 4,500 page views within its first month of publication—primarily driven by traffic from a social media campaign and placements on campus digital signage.

From the Judges

We were impressed with the careful thought and planning that went into this submission. Really impressive teamwork and coordination with beautiful visuals. It shows the value of the internship for the student, the corporate partner, and the university. We loved that the focus was on the student to tell the story.