1

Fall 2011The Service Learning Issue

FRO

M T

HE

CHA

IR

“A tradition of active, hands-on learning” says the UVM website. CDAE contributes tremendously to that mission. Whether housing a then developing and now thriving office of Community/University Partnerships (CUPS), helping to fund service learning staff, or continuing to lead in the number of service learning offerings each semester, one of CDAE’s motto’s has always been “putting the tools in your toolbox to help solve real world problems.” Our service learning offerings do just that! I hope you enjoy reading about some of our student successes and service learning opportunities as they relate to the academic package of teaching, research and outreach.

-Jane Kolodinsky, Chair, CDAE, November 16, 2011

CDAE Students and Faculty Lend Many Hands through Service Learning in Wake of IreneService learning has long been paramount to the work by both students and faculty in CDAE, and the response demanded by Tropical Storm Irene was yet another way for CDAE classes and students to serve the greater Vermont community.

Irene ravaged communities and farms—and even caused the first day of classes at UVM to be canceled—on the weekend of August 27th. And although the

threads of service learning are tied tightly into the fabric of the CDAE department, no courses had been designed to respond to such an event before the semester; no one knew what would result from the storm. Within two weeks of the academic year’s beginning, though, there was a new offering for the the fall semester. Kelly Hamshaw (CDAE MS ’10), Adjunct Lecturer and Research Specialist, and Carrie Williams-Howe, of the Community-University Partnerships & Service Learning Office, had a syllabus ready, the course proposed and approved, and more demand than spots in the course for perhaps the fastest course ever designed and implemented at UVM: Rebuilding Vermont: Community Engagement in Disaster Preparation and Relief.

Hamshaw’s research outside of the classroom, working on a grant secured by CDAE Assistant Professor Dan Baker, is on disaster preparedness for mobile home communities in Vermont. Her research and teaching, in this case, complement each other in a way that a researcher and instructor might find ideal, all things considered.

“Being able to engage with homeowners through student field work in these communities has further underscored the importance of this research for this vulnerable population.”

The course’s structure embodies the traditional—a few hours in the classroom every week—as well as the non-traditional—three hours of community-based service outside the classroom every week. It’s a way to balance credits not unlike a student pursuing an internship for credit.

CEnt major Caleb Brabant from Calais, VT and PCom major Hillary Laggis from Hardwick, VT pictured here working in Weston’s Mobile Home Park in Berlin with the Rebuilding VT Class. Weston’s was severely affected by Irene flooding.

Phot

o:

Kelly

Ham

shaw

The Community Development and Applied Economics Department of the University of Vermont

uvm.edu/cdae 802.656.2001 cdae@uvm.edu

Continued on Page 5

2

CDAE by the Numbers

Thinking about joining the Peace Corps?CDAE hosts the Vermont Regional Office of the Peace Corps in 207 Morrill Hall. For more information about Peace Corps and to find open office hours, go to http://www.uvm.edu/~pcorps/.

Bobrow Launches Ethics-Driven Fashion Clothing CompanyIn the beginning of this final semester at UVM, Jake Bobrow ’11 wasn’t sure that he’d really ever use the skills he gained as a Community Entrepreneurship major after he graduated. In March of his senior year, however, he helped out his friends Matt Brightman and Martin Weise at McGill University—as any good friend would—with a business plan outlining a for-profit company that helped people and communities starting at the roots of poverty through art. Their target community was artists in post-earthquake Haiti, and as the only undergraduate finalists in a McGill-hosted business plan competition, the group won $15,000 to put toward the business concept.

“Basically the day I graduated from UVM I decided I wanted to go full-time with it,” reflects Bobrow. The company is Moral Fibers, and while it is not a nonprofit, Bobrow and his cofounders feel that a business type distinction doesn’t affect the amount of good that a business can do.

Moral Fibers keeps a staff of six, including Bobrow and partners Brightman and Weise, as well as Sam Mcguire, their photographer and marketing assistant, a designer in New York City, and a Haitian manager, who started out as Moral Fibers’ translator. Eric finds artists whose work suit the style that Moral Fibers is looking for. “Every time we go [to Haiti] he’s our guide and connects us with artists. His name is Eric, but he calls himself the ‘Haiti boss man.’ We pay him as an employee of the company and he’s signed on eleven artists to produce art for Moral Fibers.”

The agreement that Moral Fibers has with its artists is kind of like a company-driven artists CSA share (CSA, or community supported agriculture, is an arrangement between a consumer and a farmer in which the consumer pays the farmer a lump sum at the beginning of a growing season, and in return for their payment, the consumers receive produce each week from the farm for the duration of the growing season). Moral Fibers buys

ten pieces of art from each artist each month, so that the artists have a stable and steady source of income, and can focus on creating art.

Right now the company creates high-end shirts showcasing artists’ pieces in a variety of ways. Collaborating with their creative directors, Dougan Khim and Bernard James, in New York City, the company is moving into designing and producing jackets, leggings, dresses, “the whole nine yards,” says Bobrow.

Their financial structure is one that could easily be written into the textbook of a community-oriented entrepreneur class. “Our

Jake Bobrow, CEnt ‘11, wearing one of Moral Fibers’ shirts on a recent visit to Haiti

continued on page 3

Alumni Profile: Jake Bobrow, CEnt 2011

Phot

o cr

edit:

Jake

Bob

row

Phot

o cr

edit:

mor

alfib

ers.c

o

8 Number of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers in the MS and MPA program in 2010-2011 school year

354 Number of CDAE majors in the Fall 2011 semester

11 Number of CDAE Service Learning course offerings for Fall 2011

3

CDAE Welcomes New Assistant Professor

Dr. Sarah Heiss is navigating her way from her Midwestern roots to the Vermont way of life. “We just bought cross country skis for this winter, but we still haven’t bought real snow boots.”

Dr. Heiss grew up in Garrettsville Ohion, and did her undergraduate work at Hiram College, just three miles from her hometown, where she was an athlete (cross country and long distance track) running as much as she could, “the lon-ger the better,” she remembers.

At Hiram, Dr. Heiss’s advisor wanted her to study as if she were “fire, she wanted me to just burn up one subject at a time,” but described Sarah’s academic pursuits as “water.” “I was spreading myself across all of my interests,” Dr. Heiss remembers. “ I was a communications student but I was into nutrition, too. Since Hiram didn’t have a nutrition minor, I would enroll in higher-level science courses in biology and chemistry to get the background I needed.”

And because of her pursuit of that scientific background, Sarah was accepted into a MA/PhD program at Ohio Uni-versity to study Health Communication—a perfect marriage of her communication major and additional science background.

Dr. Heiss’s work now is at the intersection of commercial promotion (e.g. advertising by an organization to make a profit) and health promotion (e.g. a nonprofit or governmental organization promoting heart health). “I’m inter-ested in intersection between commercial promotion and health promotion. Like when the American Red Cross teams up with Coca Cola to promote heart health: who stands to benefit from these partnerships, and are they desirable? Should they be allowed to partner to promote these messages in the first place? And, if successful, what are the best practices for when these partnerships do occur,” partnerships which Sarah thinks are possible, but difficult.

As a CDAE faculty member, Dr. Heiss will be teaching CDAE 024: Fundamentals of Public Communication, CDAE 295: Public Communication Capstone, and CDAE 195/295, Food, Health and the Media

Sarah Heiss brings expertise in communications and food systems to CDAE and UVM

Sarah Heiss’s work on commercial and health communications brings more food systems expertise to CDAE department

Phot

o pr

ovid

ed b

y Sa

rah

Hei

ss

from page 2: current model is that 15% of revenue goes to the artist” which is about 25 hours of minimum-wage labor in Haiti, says Bobrow. “We then give another 10% per shirt to a development project in the artist’s community. Right now the project receiving these funds is an afterschool program that teaches the arts and dance.”

Bobrow’s projections are big, “we are somewhere between a designer/fashion brand, a TOMS shoes, and American Apparel. That’s our vision for it.” His time in CDAE was valuable after all, “I’m using everything I learned in CDAE to some degree. From the marketing classes to the international development classes to the business plan classes and the strategic planning classes.”

Moral Fibers recently incorporated in Vermont in order to take on investors in their company and in their vision. “We want to keep our offices here. Vermont is a great place, especially because of the ethical side of our business; it’s great to be associated with Vermont. It strengthens our brand image. We also have to balance that out with the fashion side of things with our designers in New York City. We’re trying to find that balance.”

“Really we believe that the for-profit model is the best way to be a sustainable business and help the greatest amount of people.” Listing off Moral Fibers’ priorities, Bobrow reflects, “it’s people, planet, profit. That’s kind of the bottom line we’re going after.”

Bobrow ‘11 launches Moral Fibers clothing company

4

-Growing Vermont works with over 80 vendors from across the state. We feature a wide range of products that includes chocolates, art, jewelry, knitted hats, and maple products while offering applied technical assistance to help our vendors succeed.

-This month’s featured item: wood block prints by Jess Graham, a visual artist from Morrisville, VT. Her experiences with mountains, forests and lakes inform her paintings, which used to create wood block prints. Her bright, bold colors and universal themes resonate with any kind of art lover.

-Our store is always seeking new products and local businesses to support. We hold Product Advisory Committee meetings twice a month through each semester. PAC meetings give vendors the opportunity to present their product to the students who then decide whether the new items will be a good fit for Growing Vermont. To find out more about PAC meetings or to sign up to attend, please email gvtproducts@gmail.com.

-Growing Vermont’s staff is made up of 16 work-study students who are split into committees focusing on Products, Marketing, Operations, and Financials. We also have a Music Intern who works as a liaison between Growing Vermont and Higher Ground, and who has organized a Local Artists Showcase starting this fall in which local bands perform a noontime concert at Brennan’s in the Davis Center. A third way to be involved is by conducting an independent study relating to the store.

-If you shop at Growing Vermont, make sure to mention that you’re CDAE! All CDAE affiliates receive 10% off any purchase!

For Hillary Laggis, PCOM ‘14, the urge to help the Irene response effort was almost a given. A native of Hardwick, Vermont (“The Town That Food Saved”), a town with great community development efforts, she was one of the lucky students to enroll in CDAE 295: Rebuilding Vermont. Her volunteering efforts with the class are focused in Water-bury at the disaster relief center where her group answers calls and tracks community needs in a town with post-Irene clean up estimates in the dozens of millions of dollars.

Working at the disaster relief center, Laggis caught wind of a community tradition that looked anything but likely in the Waterbury neighborhood where up to 1,000 trick-or-treaters fill the streets and doorsteps each October 31st. In true community develop-ment fashion, Laggis took to this self-initiated project immediately. She connected with resident Jessica Burrill, who laid out what was needed to Laggis, “what we need is money for decorations, someone to put them up, and someone to talk to people on the street to know what to block off,” since so much of the street is a construction zone.

“I began thinking about my Intro to Community Entrepreneurship class [CDAE 166], and how our Dollar Enter-prise group hadn’t decided to whom we should donate our profits. I thought it would be a tough sell to my group to say ‘hey, let’s buy Halloween candy and decorations for this one street in Waterbury’ but the group got behind the idea almost immediately.” Their Dollar Enterprise group, Vermont Vintage, raised over $400 selling gently used clothing on campus.

With some funding secured, on the Saturday before Halloween, Laggis and her Rebuilding Vermont classmates, along with some students from a sociology class, talked to homeonwers, sited dangerous areas, and surveyed to see which residents were looking for help on Halloween night from the UVM students. “At first some residents thought it was a bad idea due to construction hazards. It was a bit of task to get these residents on board,” Lag-gis recalls. Even on Halloween morning things were looking like an uphill battle. “ To be honest, I didn’t think it could be pulled off. One week before Halloween, Randall Street was barren, and on Halloween morning there were some decorations, but not many. The UVM students really catalyzed the decorating effort,” she said, high-lighting the efforts of fellow students Caleb Brabant (CEnt major), Maya Curtis (CEnt Major), Maggie Druschell (CID minor), Brennan Snyder (CID major), and Matt Lasser (sociology).

Sociology professor Alice Fothergill added her own Entrepreneurial effect to the evening. She arranged with the Williston Haunted forest to divert the 200 jack-o-lanterns that were going to be composted and had them brought to Randall Street. “One resident remarked that there was a ‘phantom pumpkin delivery’ throughout the neighborhood. She was so excited,” says Laggis.

Laggis, who is involved in other volunteer efforts with the Dewey House for Civic Engagement thinks “this is the best experience I’ve ever had. Trick or treaters were both thanking their neihbors for candy and thanking neigh-bors for all of their support during the rebuilding efforts. Waterbury is a pretty incredible place. I think they’ve been able to rebuild faster and stronger than other places in Vermont. It really shows what a small community is capable of if they work together.”

Hillary Laggis (PCOM ‘14), left, with Jessica Burrill, a Randall Street Resident on Halloween night

Current Student Highlight: Hillary Laggis PCOM ‘14

Phot

o: K

elly

Ham

shaw

5

continued from page 1:The course has garnered attention throughout Vermont, and was noticed by Governor Peter Shumlin’s Office, “The Governor’s Office understands the importance of Vermonters getting involved, whether they have lived here for their whole life or are first-year college students. This course is a great opportunity to learn about the history of Vermont, while contributing to its rebuild. Vermont will come back stronger than before, we’re proud to know that UVM students are taking part,” wrote the Governor’s blog.

Rebuilding Vermont has also strengthened ties between the Department and its alums. Shaun Gilpin (CID ’09) was part of mobile home projects in Dan Baker’s CDAE 273 (Project Development and Planning) and CDAE 251 (Contemporary Policy Issues in Community Development) courses, in which he spent time surveying mobile home park residents and worked with the Brookside Residents Association in Starksboro to establish their community plan. His service learning work as an undergraduate led him to be hired by the Mobile Home Project at CVOEO as a Resident Organizer and was later promoted to his current position as the Program Director for the Project.

“My work in CDAE as an undergraduate really laid the groundwork and connections that I needed to be a successful contributor to my job after graduation. It feels good to know that my university coursework helped me to get a job, but that it also was making a difference while in class and that it enabled me to continue making a difference through my career.”

Hamshaw chalks up the course’s enrollment success (it filled up overnight) to how many students felt about what happened, especially living on the hill in Burlington, “students were drawn to the course because they felt so removed from the devastation—being in Burlington away from the bulk of the destruction—and this course gave them a meaningful way to both engage in service learning and contribute to the recovery effort.”

Chair of CDAE, Jane Kolodinsky, echoes the praises that have been given to this course. “The Rebuilding Vermont course shows what applied service learning can provide for the Vermont community. The fact that we have people in this department and on this campus who are willing to put a course like this together so quickly, and carry the course through the semester is a paragon of the relationship that the University can keep with the Vermont community.”

Phosphorous—one of the three main nutrients of healthy plant growth, and therefore farming—has become one of Lake Champlain’s greatest nuisances. A state so defined by its agrarian landscape, Vermont (and New York, whose borders share the other half of Lake Champlain) is battling high phosphorous levels in Lake Champlain—a problem that leads to unsafe algal blooms and changes in native fish and marine plant populations.

CDAE Associate Professor Chris Koliba and Assistant Professor Asim Zia are part of a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation that seeks to address the growing problem of Phosphorous in Lake Champlain. Dr. Koliba is one of the three “science leaders” of the project. “It is unique for social scientists to be integrated early on in a project of this nature, rather than as a later- or as an afterthought. It’s a truly transdisciplinary approach to a problem that requires a transdisciplinary solution.”

The study will be working with the Vermont EPSCoR Streams project and will likely involve service-learning op-portunities for students and faculty with local high schools for students studying the phosphorous problem in Lake Champlain.

The current approach to the issue is to educate and incentivize farmers to reduce the phosphorous runoff from their soils. Still, over half of the phosphorous running into the lake is from farms. The “educate and incentivize” approach really isn’t working.

So, Zia and Koliba are developing agent-based models (models that incorporate the actions and interactions of autonomous agents like individuals or organizations) for watershed governance networks (from the national to the local and individual) and then feeding the models’ findings into the land use and hydrological models.

Their model will be able to incorporate political will, which allows the model to predict—with a certain level of confidence—what the future might hold for different kinds of mitigation efforts. Koliba says, “no one has the political will to tell [farmers] what to do on their land, and hopefully this project can identify ways to mitigate the problem with the right governance design considerations.”

Koliba and Zia part of $20 million National Science Foundation Grant that aims to mitigate phosphorous runoff problem in Lake Champlain Basin

6

MS and MPA Programs Welcome New Peace Corps Fellows

Photos: CDAE Students and Alumni Help Mobile Home Owners throughout Vermont

Kelly Dolan served as a Peace Corps volun-teer with a focus on food security in a Mayan community located in the western highlands of Guatemala. Soon after returning, Kelly left for Panama where she worked for Peace Corps Response. She partnered with a governmental organization and helped design and carry out trainings focused on sustainable agriculture while providing technical and managerial sup-port at a didactical farm.

Erin Flynn

Erin served as an English Education Volunteer with Peace Corps Moldova where in addition

to teaching English, she worked on educa-tional reform, small business development,

and Roma rights initiatives to name a few. She is TEFL certified and also spent one year teaching English in a primary school outside

of Bangkok, Thailand.

Amelia Norris (center) and Rachel Van Cleve (CVOEO, left), and Lindsay Fuller (right) from CDAE 273 surveying mobile home park residents at Westbury Manor Mobile Home Park.

MPA Student Erin Flynn mucking out a home in Weston’s Mobile Home Park.

Group photo at Weston’s with homeowner Phyllis Durbin. Among the group are Dylan Estabrooks (CID), Anna Kaufman (PCOM), Meghan Pharris (CDAE Graduate Student), and Kelly Hamshaw.

Shaun Gilpin (Class of 2009) working with a homeowner awaitingdeconstruction of his flooded mobile home at Weston’s Mobile Home Park.

Pho

to:K

elly

Ham

shaw

CDAE UpdatesPeople, Publications, Awards, Classes, Research

7

CDAE UpdatesPeople, Publications, Awards, Classes, Research

Awards & Honors

Berlin, Linda, Jane Kolodinsky, and Kim Norris (forth-coming). Farm-to-School: Implications for Child Nutri-tion. Journal of School Health.

Conner, D., Nowak, A., Berkenkamp, J., Feenstra, G., Van Soelen Kim, J. Liquori, T. and Hamm, M. (2011). Value chains and sustainable procurement in large school districts: Scholar and practitioner efforts to foster partnerships. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development 1 (4).http://www.agdevjournal.com/attachments/article/172/JAFSCD_Value_Chains_and_Large_School_Districts_June-2011.pdf Josh Farley and his father, Eugene, were interviewed for a CCTV feature on Health Care: We’re All in This Together: The Country Watches Vermont Health Care. http://www.cctv.org/watch-tv/programs/were-all-together-country-watches-vermont-health-care

Haan, M., Conner, D. and Taylor, P. (2011). Pasture-based Dairying in Michigan: Farmer Practices and Needs. Journal of Extension 49 (3). http://www.joe.org/joe/2011june/rb3.php

King, Benjamin, David Conner, Christopher Koliba, Amy Trubek and Jane Kolodinsky (2011). Mapping Farm to School Networks Implications for Research and Practice. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. 6(2): 133 – 152.

Kolodinsky, Jane (forthcoming, 2012). Food Labeling, Marketing Ethics and Regulatory Failure: Historical Perspectives and 21st Century Problems. Journal of Macromarketing.

Kolodinsky, Jane, and Amanda Goldstein (2011). Time-Use and Food Pattern Influences on Obesity. Obesity. Advanced on-line publication: May 26, 2011; doi:10.1038/oby.2011.130

Pollak, N., L. Chase, C. Ginger and J. Kolodinsky (2011). The Northern Forest Canoe Trail: Economic impacts and implications for community development. Journal of Community Development. 1–14, iFirst article (advance on line publication). Available: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15575330.2011.583354

Q. Wang, E. Thompson, R. Parsons, G. Rogers, and D. Dunn. Economic feasibility of converting cow manure to electricity: A case study of the CVPS Cow Power pro-gram. Vermont Journal of Dairy Science, Vol. 94, Issue 10 (October 2011), DOI 10:3168/jds.2010-4124. Published by Elsevier.

Roche, Erin, and J. Kolodinsky (2011). Overcoming barriers to provide local produce in school lunches in Vermont. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development . Volume 1, Issue 3 /Winter 2010–2011. Available: http://www.agdevjournal.com/attachments/article/166/JAFSCD_School_Lunches_in_Vermont_June-2011.pdf

Schmidt, M., J. Kolodinsky, T. DeSisto, and F. Conte (2011). Supporting a Local Food System: Evaluating a Model that Connects Farmers to Markets to Increase Farm Profitability and Local Food Access. Journal of Agricultural Food Systems and Community Develop-ment. 1(4): 1-19. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2011.014.017

Zia, A., P. Hirsch, A. Songorwa, D. R. Mutekanga, S. O’Connor, T. McShane, P. Brosius and B. Norton. 2011. Cross-Scale Value Trade-Offs in Managing Social-Ecolog-ical Systems: The Politics of Scale in Ruaha National Park,Tanzania . Ecology and Society 16 (4): 7. [online] URL:http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss4/art7/

Matt Tucker (MS ‘11) successfully defended his thesis: Intergovernmental Dynamics and Equity Consider-ations in Transportation Planning and the Allocation of Funding Thomas DeSisto (MS ‘11) successfully defended his thesis: Conceptualizing Human Body Weight in a Health Production Framework

Gwen Pokalo (MS ‘11) successfully defended her thesis: The Needs of Microentrepreneurs and Preparing Future Entrepreneurs: The Microbusiness Retail Incubator as a Mechanism for Community Development

Kristin DeVoe-Talluto (MS ‘11) successfully defended her thesis: Practicing Philanthropy: Exploring Philan-thropy and Practice through the Voices of Women

Erin Buckwalter (MS ‘11) successfully defended her thesis: Psychosocial Influences on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Among Elementary School Students in a Farm-to-School Population

Patrick Wood (MS ‘11) successfully defended his thesis: Economic Viability of Carbon Offsets to Finance Dairy Anaerobic Digestion Projects

Brian Hamel traveled to Honduras with Dan Baker’s CDAE 171 class to teach a Women’s Self Defense class. Pictured, below, is Brian (right, front row) with one of the graduating classes:

Natalie DiBlasio (PCOM ‘11) accepted the Newspaper Pacemaker award - college journalism’s top prize - as the Cnyic’s editor in chief. CDAE instructor Chris Evans is the faculty moderator for the Cynic.

David Conner been elected to the Council of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and is now a member of the Graduate College.

Asim Zia has published twice with UVM bi-ologist Stuart Kauffman on NPR’s 13.7 blog on Cosmos and Culture. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/09/19/140599268/minds-and-ma-chines-the-limits-of-turing-complete-machines

and http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/09/06/140212789/why-we-need-adaptive-decentralized-and-democrati-cally-anchored-governance 2

Josh Farley was part of a Scientific Committee on Valu-ation and tradeoff analysis of ecosystem services at a conference in Wageningen, the Netherlands with Felix Mueller (Kiel University, Germany) and Giovanni Zurlini (University of Salento, Italy). He also was an invited presenter at the “Green Growth: Challenge, Strategy, and Cooperation,” conference in Seoul, Korea. Josh also sat on a panel with Wendell Berry at a conference in Montana: “How can we influence ag and medicine in achieving the necessary transition to a dynamic - resilient - sustainable future?”

MS Student Brian Kelly successfully submitted an application for the Northeastern States Research Cooperative (NSRC) Graduate Research Grants. Through the Managing Vermont’s Groundwater project, he will conduct a case study analysis of groundwater gover-nance in Vermont’s Northern Forest Region. Under the guidance of Chris Koliba (PI) and Josh Farley, he will use a network governance framework to analyze network selection of potential policy instruments.

Spring 2012 CDAE Service Learning Courses

CDAE 124 SL: Public Communication MediaInstructor: Thomas Patterson, Jr.

CDAE 159 SL: Consumer Assistance Program Instructor: Sandi Everitt

CDAE 171: Community and International Economic TransformationInstructor: Dan Baker

CDAE 195: Applications of Sustainable Devel-opment (Belize students only)Instructor: Jay Ashman

CDAE 295: Cabot Marketing Challenge II Instructor: David Conner

CDAE 295: Public Communication CapstoneInstructor: Sarah Heiss

CDAE 295: Advanced Applications of Sustain-able Development (Belize students only)Instructor: Meg Ashman

CDAE 295: Food, Health, and the MediaInstructor: Sarah Heiss

CDAE 295: Marketing Social Change: Food and HealthInstructor: Andrea Grayson

CDAE 295: Rebuilding VermontInstructor: Kelly Hamshaw, Carrie Williams-Howe

CDAE 295: Community Participatory ResearchInstructor: Ernesto Mendez, Katherine E. Westdijk

Publications

Theses

Undergraduate Updates

8

About CDAEThe Community Development and Applied Economics Department (CDAE) is part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Vermont. CDAE supports sustainable local, regional, and international communities through transdisciplinary research, education, and outreach that serve the public interest.

The department offers undergraduate students the following majors and minors: Community and International Development, Community Entrepreneurship, and Public Communication. Additional minors are also offered in Applied Design, Consumer Affairs, Consumer and Advertising, and Green Building and Community Design.

Two graduate opportunities are available within the department: Master of Science in Community Development and Applied Economics (more at: www.uvm.edu/cdae) and Master of Public Administration (more at: www.uvm.edu/mpa). Both graduate programs participate in the Peace Corps Fellows Program (more at: www.uvm.edu/~cdaepcf ).

205 Morrill Hall, Burlington, VT 05405 802.656.2001

This CDAE Compass was written by Dan Kirk and edited by Dan Kirk and Jane Kolodinsky. To suggest a story or feature for the next newsletter, send an email to cdae@uvm.edu. Special thanks to those interviewees for this edition including Jake Bobrow, Jeff Frank, Shaun Gilpin, Kelly Hamshaw, Sarah Heiss, Chris Koliba, Hillary Laggis,

Jeff Frank, CDAE MS ‘10 takes job as Press Secretary for US Senator Bernie Sanders: a view from Capitol Hill.

It wasn’t long after Jeff Frank MS ‘10 defended his thesis on the economics of well-being that he found himself sitting as the Press Secretary for Vermont’s US Senator Bernie Sanders.

As with so many opportunities in a Vermont-based community, Jeff’s opportunity to apply for the position came after a chance meeting with the outgoing Press Secretary Will Wiquist. Wiquist was leaving the position not to embark on his own political journey, but to return to Vermont as the Executive Director of the Green Mountain Club.

After meeting Wiquist, Frank sent a follow up email, “I basically sent him an email saying ‘I’m looking for a job’ and he encouraged me to apply for his position.” After three rounds of interviews--the final interview with Bernie himself--Jeff received the offer.

It had never occurred to Frank that he might be working in political communications, but he finds it “to be a way to contribute to a Senator I wholly support while

getting experience working on the Hill” in Washington.

As to how his days in CDAE influenced where he is today, Jeff reflects that “the coursework, people, and culture of CDAE influence my day-to-day work in understanding and communicating the needs of Vermonters. Working, being in class, and doing research in CDAE, you spend a lot of time talking about and thinking about the needs of Vermonters and their communities.“

“You have the opportunity to really become a part of the networks and communities in Vermont in CDAE. It is definitely one of the strong points of the department--the connections and relationships within the state,” he says.

Before working for Senator Sanders, Frank was a Senior Research Assistant at the Brookings Institute conducting research for their foreign policy work on the Latin America Initiative and the Africa Growth Initiative.

Photos by Jeff Frank

CDAE UpdatesPeople, Publications, Awards, Classes, Research