��̽̽ - Community Development and Applied Economics

CALS Lecturer Dr. Ben Dangl Publishes New Interview Series

saa — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:21:31 +0000

In a new interview series, Dr. Benjamin Dangl, a ��̽̽ Lecturer of Public Communication in the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, speaks with a vibrant collection of Indigenous and feminist media makers and community organizers in Bolivia. Dangl has covered social movements and politics in Latin America for over two decades. As he explains, "Across my career, I've done a lot of ethnographic research in Bolivia on the role of oral history, and I've done a lot of work understanding the global economy in the journalism that I've done and for the different books I've written. I'm a writer, and a journalist, and a communicator, so I draw from a bunch of different skills, and knowledge, and disciplines. I've always been drawn to how we can apply our work outside of academia."

In these thoughtful interviews, he expands his impact far beyond the academe. His grassroots journalism centers Indigenous liberation, people's movements, and feminist social change. These human-centered spotlights give the reader a multitude of possibilities for understanding cultural identity, enhancing community, and engendering positive social change.

This is part of a larger research and book project by Dr. Dangl focusing on Indigenous, Feminist, and Social Movement media and community journalism across Latin America. Access the complete series of interviews here.

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Highlighting Feminist and Indigenous Media in the Andes

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2024 Graduate & Alumni Gathering and Awards Ceremony Recognizing Outstanding Graduates

saa — Thu, 30 May 2024 12:39:43 +0000

On May 15th the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics recognized the academic excellence and outstanding work of Graduate Students.

Dimock Student And Alumni Awards

This award is given to a graduate student and alumnus/a that embodies Outstanding Academic and Scholarly Activities, Commitment and Vision, Professional Achievement, and Advancement of Ethical Principles within Public Administration.

Co-winner - Walter Logan (MPA ’24)
Co-winner - Liz Amler (MPA ’24)
Alex Zipparo (MPA ’15)

The Frank Smallwood Award (MPA)

Frank Smallwood, former ��̽̽-MPA Visiting Professor and Dartmouth College Professor Emeritus, was a person of academic stature in the area of public policy and an active participant in the governance of Vermont as a legislator. Well known for his caring demeanor, concern for those around him, positive outlook, and insightfulness, Professor Smallwood truly epitomizes this award. This award is peer-nominated and given to a classmate who is the most collegial, helpful, and supportive person in the class. It is given to a person whose commitment to colleagues and positive energy makes the complex and challenging aspects of a graduate program a cooperative and uplifting experience.

Winner - Sarah Plaut (MPA ’24)

The Community Building Award (CDAEM MS)

This peer-nominated award is given to a classmate who is the most collegial, helpful, and supportive person in the class. It is given to a person whose commitment to colleagues and positive energy makes the complex and challenging aspects of a graduate program a cooperative and uplifting experience.

Winner - Dimagi Pitawala (CDAE MS ’24)

The Outstanding Graduate TA Award

This award recognizes a graduate student who has proven to be diligent, resourceful, and professional in their duties as a teaching assistant. This award is presented in recognition of the outstanding spirit of commitment and helpfulness that they have shown to both faculty and students.

Winner - Chris Donovan (CDAE MS ’24) for his graduate TA position in World Food, Pop, & Development for the last 2 years.

Congratulations to all the students.

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Top row, from left to right: CDAE MS Community Building Award winner Dimagi Pitawala (CDAE MS ’24) - pictured with Dr. Conner and Chris Donovan (her nominator), Frank Smallwood Award winner- Sarah Plaut (MPA ’24) with her nominator/fellow student Molly Epstein (in the floral jacket), and the Marshall E. Dimock Student Award winner Liz Amler (MPA ’24) with Professor Reynolds. Bottom row, left to right: guests at event, the MPA and MS of Professional Studies graduation lineup, and the Outstanding Graduate TA Award winner Chris Donovan (CDAE MS ’24) - pictured with Dr. Conner, nominated by Dr. Tobin and Dr. Reynolds for his graduate TA position in World Food, Pop, & Development for the last 2 years.

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SDPEG Student Recognized with Emergent Leader Award

saa — Thu, 30 May 2024 12:22:19 +0000

Naomi Parekh was honored with the Emerging Leader Award at the Southern Vermont Economy Summit last week. This award recognizes Parekh’s contributions as a community leader and her commitment to serving the southern Vermont region. Parekh is a student in the Sustainable Development Policy, Economics and Governance (SDPEG) Ph.D. program within the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics.

Each year, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (representing the Windham region) and Shires Young Professionals (representing Bennington County) partner to recognize the contributions of young people across Southern Vermont. The awards honor those who’ve gone above and beyond as community leaders and volunteers, and for their professional accomplishments and commitment to serving the region.

In her role as a Volunteer Board Member in Bennington County, Parekh notes the following: "One of the major challenges facing Vermont is available and affordable houding. I leaned of someone who turned down a job offer in Bennington becuse they couldn't find a place to live. One of tyhe major opportunities is the power of the Vermont community. Vermont is a beautiful state...what makes Vermont beautiful is not only the landscape, but the people who live here. It's a place where communities are willing to come together for one another without hesitation."

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SDPEG Ph.D. Student Naomi Parekh has been recognized byi Southern Vermont Young Professionals and Shires Young Professionals as an Emerging Leaders.

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Rising Senior Ayden Carpenter wins Outstanding Leadership and Engagement Award for Undergraduate Students of Color

saa — Fri, 24 May 2024 18:41:52 +0000

Ayden Carpenter wasn’t sure about moving from Washington, D.C. to Vermont to attend ��̽̽. Part of his hesitation was that he just didn’t know what to expect. “I definitely didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I looked at all the numbers and I knew that Vermont was a very white state. That's nothing you can like shy away from. But actually, Vermont is a very welcoming place. There are so many resources and just amazing people that are here, and they want to be there for you as resources and as mentors. As long as you're willing to come here and be open and accepting the state will be as open and accepting back.”

In the summer before his freshmen year Ayden got an e-mail from the Mosaic Center for Students of Color inviting him to apply for the Summer Enrichment Scholars Program. "It's like a little introduction to ��̽̽ over the summer. They get a small cohort of students of color to come to Vermont a little early take a class and just do community building. You go sleep in the dorm with all these people, you take a class with all these people, you run around with all these people, and that was my first introduction to Vermont. It made me feel that there were resources here for me as a student of color and it made me excited and hopeful. I think the Mosaic Center offers so much for students and it is like a little anchor to make sure I always have something to go back to if it gets hard in Vermont."

The Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) is the thing that ultimately attracted Ayden to ��̽̽, “CDAE is the reason I'm here. I love my department from top to bottom. My first CDAE class was this massive 300-person lecture and I just remember hearing this broad freshman-level overview of world topics and a lot of the challenges and wicked problems facing the world, and some of the ways we're dealing with them. That's what my department is about and that's when I knew I picked the right program. Ever since then I end up taking fifteen to eighteen credits of CDAE every semester. My department just cares so much about the world and about good people doing good I'm very happy to call it my academic home.”

Some of the highlights of his program include all the out-of-classroom learning opportunities that he’s had, “As a department CDAE relies heavily on experiential learning and our capstones are no different so for the public communication capstone it's you're partnering with a nonprofit and you're functionally given a project to help them out. One group of students worked with Vermont Migrant Justice and made stuff for them like some posters and some brochures. It’s really just doing tangible work with a local organization. It's a really cool opportunity for students from the wide range of public communication concentrations, whether you're a journalism person, whether you're a visual media student, whether you love (Adobe) Illustrator, there's an opportunity for everyone to just showcase the skills they've built over the past four years.”

Ayden has also found time to pursue lots of additional activities beyond his regular course work. He’s an avid cyclist, has been on the bicycle racing team, and has served in leadership positions for the organization of major campus racing. He’s also been in leadership positions in Student Government.

But he says two of his favorite experiences have been working for on-campus professional internship projects. As a freshman he applied to work with the Center for Research on Vermont and was hired to be an on-camera interviewer for dozens of episodes of a television production.

You can see some of that work here.

Next, he went to work in the Consumer Assistance Program (CAP) office. The CAP program is a unique ��̽̽ opportunity where students in Consumer Law in Action work for the Attorney General of Vermont answering calls from the public in a hotline environment and assisting those callers as consumer advocates.

Ayden summarizes his time at ��̽̽ this way, “There are so many people on this campus, just trusting the innate ability and passion of students to do amazing work. They give them the resources and guidance and freedom to explore what interests them, and to try out what they can do for the world. I'm just constantly amazed by the things that I'm able to do and that my peers are able to do!”

Ayden is keeping busy this summer doing a local internship at a non-profit that focuses on assisting Ethiopian immigrants and refugees and he says he’s really looking forward to his senior year, which, because he’s carried so many credits throughout his time at ��̽̽ will be pretty chill by comparison.

As for after graduation he says he can see a clear direction even if he hasn’t set a particular goal, “I feel like I have a good idea of what the path forward is -- not immediately -- but probably in like 3 or four years, I'm going to go back to grad school. I don't know whether I want to do a master’s in public administration, or just go to law school. Very thankful my department has giving me an opportunity to play around with both of those fields and I liked both of them. Maybe I’ll just do a joint degree. Between then and now and then it looks like I'm going to work, probably work at a nonprofit, or I might try and do Peace Corps. I’d also like go to Europe and ride my bike up some mountains for a little bit.”

As for the honor of winning such a prestigious award, “It just genuinely touches my heart that someone cares enough about me and the work that I've done academically and all my extracurriculars, that they decided of their own volition that they wanted to nominate me for something. It really means a lot. There's a lot of people that have helped me in so many ways throughout my academic journey and I would not be as successful as I have been during my time here if not for them.”

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Ayden Carpenter is the recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Leadership and Engagement Award for Undergraduate Students of Color

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��̽̽ Students Support Community through the Consumer Assistance Program

saa — Wed, 01 May 2024 13:17:48 +0000

“The most beautiful thing about the Consumer Assistance Program (CAP) is there's not one specific takeaway that a student is going to get,” Margaret Tabb, a Public Communication graduate said. “A student is going to take away what skill they're looking for, what transferable skill they're looking to develop, and [that] is something that you can take with you anywhere that you go.”

CAP is a partnership program between the Vermont Attorney General's Office and ��̽̽. The academic component is a service-learning class based out of the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) which embodies the values and mission of the department through hands-on learning for the public good. Students develop professional skills by assisting consumers, businesses, and the public through outreach and education.

CAP was created in the late 1980s by Jay Ashman, a former professor in CDAE and an Assistant Attorney General. “He knew that there was an opportunity to offer students a service-learning experience where they could apply the knowledge of what they were learning in consumer law, and to assist Vermont consumers with unresolved complaints,” explained Lisa Jensen, Assistant Director of the CAP.

The specific name of the class is CDAE 2590: SL-Consumer Law in Action. It is offered every semester, making it easy for students to get involved and focus on what they want to get out of it.

“We try to tailor the experience to what students' interests are,” said Margaret Tabb, the Program Support Generalist at the CAP. “We were seeing a lot of CDAE Students in the class, but we wanted to expand the program to individuals who might be in other majors.”

The CAP provides educational resources to Vermonters and helps resolve any complaints with various businesses located in Vermont as well as out of state businesses. This ties back to the community-focused mission of CDAE and directly engages students in applied work.

The purpose of CAP, according to Jensen, is “to develop a community within our office where students feel welcomed.” Students are encouraged to help Vermonters through CAP’s mediation service and by offering referrals to appropriate resources if CAP cannot assist them. The work of the CAP team directly impacts a consumer’s financial stability. Students are an integral part of the team in this respect. “They’ll reach out to the business; they'll help the consumer resolve the complaint. That is economic stability and that is tied right into CDAE's mission,” Jensen said.

At the heart of the program are the complaint mediation service, the referrals program, and the scam report protocol.

Complaint mediation entails students checking in with consumers about complaints against businesses. Students then mediate a solution through communication with both parties. If CAP is not equipped to deal with this complaint, students will then refer the consumer to the next available agency that can handle it. Lastly, students will research scams and log them onto a database. Tracking scam trends helps CAP spread awareness of the latest scams for Vermonters.

CAP empowers students to find their interest and how they can assist Vermonters. For example, Claire Montgomery, a Junior majoring in Public Communication and Community Entrepreneurship, says that working in the CAP office made her feel like she is working toward her career.

“We respond to these complaints by mediating it through a letter service and try getting customers refunds,” Montgomery said. “It’s been awesome just to be able to work directly with consumers and talk to them on the phone,” she explained. “It feels like I'm making a difference.”

For Olivia Miller, her work at the CAP office has allowed her to help her friends and impact her local community. A Junior majoring in Public Communication with two minors in Food Systems and Community International Development and Consumer Affairs, Miller said, “I can use what I have learned here for landlord tenants’ issues. I can let my friends know what to look out for.” She particularly appreciates helping members of the local community resolve an issue. “I got a message saying that a complaint had been resolved and it's a really rewarding feeling,” Miller said. “It benefited someone!”

CAP is a mutually beneficial partnership between the Vermont community and ��̽̽ students. “This is my favorite class I have taken at ��̽̽ so far and I like how hands-on it is,” Henry Beling, a sophomore majoring in Public Communication, said of his experience in CAP. “I feel like that is rewarding to me because I'm helping people and using my knowledge from CAP and applying it to help people out.”

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CDAE Class Spotlight: Strategic Planning for Community Entrepreneurship

saa — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:02:14 +0000

One of the things that Community Entrepreneurship Lecturer Lisa Glass-Kornstein enjoys about teaching CDAE 3670: Strategic Planning for Community Entrepreneurship is pulling experiences from her own career in social entrepreneurship to train the new generation of community leaders.

"I love the course because I get to teach all the things that I wish someone had taught me early on in my career as an entrepreneur," she said. “This course is the summary of the lessons I learned in the field starting a Health IT company and pitching it to investors and VC’s. Learning in the field is slow, painful, and expensive. This course provides an incubator where students can develop their concepts with guidance from me, each other, and experts in the field.”

This is a hands-on class where students incorporate marketing, management, and finance experience to develop community-focused business pitches.

"Community entrepreneurship serves markets and also has the community as a distinct stakeholder," Glass-Kornstein stated, highlighting how the course provides students with opportunities to develop real working business plans for community-center economic development.

Lecturer Glass-Kornstein provided an overview of the course structure. "We start by establishing a common understanding of Community Entrepreneurship because it’s critical to share a common language," she explained. Glass-Kornstein defines the terms as follows:

Community: A defined group of people with common interests or characteristics based on where they work, live, learn, play or pray.

Community Entrepreneurship: The act of working to meet both individual and collective needs, while developing connections among stakeholders, strengthening the group, and developing collective agency. Can be a for-profit, non-profit, government entity, and individuals.

For the first time, Glass-Kornstein introduced a Community Needs Assessment module to the course. Once students established the problem they care about and the community that cares about the problem, the Community Needs Assessment provided further discovery.

Glass-Kornstein was thrilled with the results of the process, stating “In some cases the Community Need Assessment led the students to go in a completely different direction. For one group, it led to a critical pivot: the students had thought that musicians lacked opportunities to perform, but the assessment concluded that what they really wanted was more practice space. This led to a more refined business concept that met the community where they were.”

Such work reflects the overall focus of the Community Entrepreneurship (CENT) major itself. “Community Entrepreneurship instills the foundations of successful enterprise development including strategic business planning, marketing techniques, and market analyses and projections,” the CDAE department explains about the CENT major. “As entrepreneurship is a vital thread in the fabric of a community, students acquire entrepreneurial skills in the context of social responsibility and healthy community development.”

The key message of this course is to always start with a problem, rather than the solution. Entrepreneurs often identify a product or service they would want to have (the solution) without focusing on or thoroughly understanding the problem it addresses. There are many businesses vying for attention; the ones that are successful solve the real problems that people care about. There are usually various solutions to a problem so execution may vary, but when there is a clear focus on the problem the results are superior.

This class successfully produced investor-ready business pitches. Two CDAE teams were selected for the University-wide business plan competition: Burlington Community Music Center and Burlington Free Meals Program.

To deepen this real-world aspect of the class, Glass-Kornstein draws upon her own experience in entrepreneurship and also brings in guest speakers from local businesses to share their insights into their own experience.

“Hearing from Entrepreneurs keeps the focus on the Applied in CDAE,” she says. Networking is also prioritized – the class requires interviewing mentors, prospective customers or industry experts. One guest lecturer exemplified the importance of networking: the owner of Timely Tire got his start by locating someone with the same business in a different market who was willing to tell him everything he needed to know, telling the class ‘That was the fastest check I ever wrote.’

Glass-Kornstein aspires to bring students to entrepreneurship earlier in their college career. “We have a lot of CDAE students starting great businesses, but sometimes students feel that they are not prepared enough to start a business,” she explains. “In reality, students are far more prepared than they think. The only thing that is between them and the start is the decision to go.”

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Photo by CDAE Content Creator, Mia Gardner.

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CDAE Student Launches Inclusive Sewing Business to Empower Communities

saa — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:44:19 +0000

As a young girl, Lucy Powell would sit in front of her sewing machine breathing new life into her father’s old T-shirts with each stitch. Later, in high school, she was disappointed to find out that her school no longer offered Home Economics classes and that none of her friends knew how to fix their loose buttons. Fast forward to now, and Powell stands before a packed audience, pitching an idea for a new company that makes sewing more accessible to people across society.

Powell is a graduating senior at ��̽̽, double majoring in Community Entrepreneurship (CENT) and Public Communication (PCOM), as well as double minoring in Community and International Development (CID) and Consumer and Advertising.

This level of commitment to her academic studies is also reflective of her entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. Such a combination of vision and practice led Powell to become a finalist (along with her business partner, Taylor Moulton) in ��̽̽’s new Joy and Jerry Meyers Cup. This is the first year of the competition, which is helping to finance Vermont-based business ventures led by undergraduate entrepreneurs. The $212,500 grand prize will be awarded to the business venture that demonstrates the greatest potential to enhance Vermont’s social, economic, and environmental structure.

Powell found out about the Joy and Jerry Meyers Cup in the fall, and after looking into it she thought, “I might as well try,” as she already had an idea for a business.

The company Powell and Moulton started is called Sew Up, a business designed to provide members of the community with accessible in-person and digital sewing lessons. It also provides resources such as technical modules, business development, and various classes to improve people’s sewing skills. Powell repeatedly highlighted this component, stating that, “The core mission of the company is just making [sewing] more accessible to everyone.”

But it hasn’t always been easy for Powell. Figuring out how to make her dream into a reality took countless hours and lots of trial-and-error. Powell cites ��̽̽ Lecturer Mirian Fritz for pushing her to figure out how to transform this idea of accessible sewing for the community into an actual business. On top of that, finding the time to prepare for such a competition during her senior year has been no easy feat. Between working on classes, looking into future careers, and working at ��̽̽’s Center for Biomedical Innovation Powell has put an extraordinary amount of time into developing Sew Up to be a prosperous venture.

Driven by her commitment to accessibility, she’s also created the Sew Up Scholarship Fund. This initiative sets aside five percent of membership purchases for lower-income community members to receive funding for lessons. Powell also plans to continue developing this enterprise after she graduates, no matter the outcome of the Meyers Cup.

When asked about her feelings on being selected as a finalist, Powell responded with an infectious grin, stating, “We were blown away when we got selected to move on. We’re really excited.”

Powell’s background in CDAE helped inform her business model. “I feel like that's a big thing I leave CDAE with, knowing that I'll never actually leave it,” she said, explaining that the skills and wisdom she gained in the department will stay with her long after graduating.

Powell also highlighted the importance of how CDAE classes helped her learn how to speak in front of people and be vulnerable with an idea. She also learned the importance of problem-solving, receiving feedback, being creative, and listening to others' opinions—all of which she carried into the Meyers Cup.

Her CDAE background has taught her that, “the first option is not always the right option or the best way to go,” and instead to use her intellect to think deeply about issues before making a hasty decision.

Although she would love to win the Meyer’s Cup, Powell said she’s just happy to be able to present her idea and have the experience. She also hopes that other students will be inspired by her work in CDAE and think, “That's totally what I want to do!”

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How CDAE Senior Lecturer Kelly Hamshaw Engages Students in Research to Build Resilient Communities

saa — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:34:27 +0000

Senior Lecturer Kelly Hamshaw’s office is everything you’d expect a busy PhD candidate and professor’s office to embody. The big window lets in the late afternoon light between shelves filled with books and a desk with organized piles of papers.

Hamshaw teaches in the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) and is a researcher at the ��̽̽ Center for Rural Studies, where she focuses on projects related to affordable housing in rural areas, community planning, disaster resilience, and environmental education. Her expertise in these fields, while previously important, became invaluable when Vermont flooded in July of 2023.

When asked about how she became an integral person working towards efforts to better the disaster preparedness and recovery in manufactured housing communities, or MHC’s, she says that it began in her undergraduate years.

Her mentor was Dan Baker, an Associate Professor Emeritus in CDAE, who at the time was looking into zoning and planning issues that impact people’s quality of life, especially those in MHC’s.

Hamshaw found this work with rural communities to be rewarding, particularly when she and Baker visited “communities that have struggled for a long time with being stigmatized and bearing a disproportionate burden from these climate-related hazards.”

Working in partnership with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity's (CVOEO) Mobile Home Program, Hamshaw and Baker began exploring key questions about the vulnerability and resilience of these rural communities across the state of Vermont, especially to flood hazards.

She references a map in her office surrounded by numerous thank you and holiday cards from students and friends. This map was created by the pair as “one of the first maps ... using digital data of all mobile home parks in the state of Vermont.”

Hamshaw also points to another detail on the board highlighting a survey from 2011. This survey involved thirty CDAE students who traveled across VT one fall semester and “went door to door and to parks all the way up to Derby Line and all the way down to Bennington and Brattleboro, and everywhere in between,” she explained. Opportunities such as these allowed students to learn more about working with communities and gives them practical skills in communicating difficult information about sensitive topics such as the ability of people to prepare for emergencies and their housing concerns.

Involving students in real-world research is a big asset in Hamshaw’s teaching. It was a powerful experience, she said, “particularly for students who maybe didn’t grow up in more rural areas, to actually see a different part of Vermont.”

Since then, Hamshaw has continued to mentor several students who, under her guidance, have graduated and moved into professional roles within the Mobile Home Program at the CVEO.

Community and International Development (CID) major Miranda Degreenia worked with Hamshaw on this research over the summer through the Simon Family Public Research Fellowship Program. “Having the opportunity to work with such a talented project team on research that is so impactful was a truly life-changing experience,” Degreenia said. “Part of the reason why I chose to pursue a major within CDAE (CID) was to have this kind of research opportunity and to make tangible change in Vermont communities.”

“I am from Vermont’s rural Northeast Kingdom and grew up myself low-income in a flood-prone area, which particularly fueled my desire to pursue this research opportunity with Kelly,” Degreenia continued. “When we entered recovery mode, the act of physically doing the fieldwork, surveying of the communities, and some of the clean-up was the most powerful part of the experience for me. Being able to be there for the residents affected by flooding in any way possible, whether by helping them sort through their belongings or lending an ear was a life-changing and eye-opening experience that I will never forget.”

Lately, following the July 2023 flooding, Hamshaw’s involvement in the community has transitioned from pure research to applying her research to response and recovery efforts. Hamshaw explains that the data she’s collected in the past was tied to the CDAE mission to “empower decision makers and community members around how to think about these big issues that are impacting people’s quality of life on the ground.”

In ��̽̽’s Spring 2024 semester, Hamshaw led a project planning and development course (CDAE 3730: Project Development and Planning) where students got involved in assessing the flooding experiences through qualitative interviews with stakeholders engaged in the response and ongoing recovery efforts throughout Vermont. These conversations created opportunities for these stakeholders to reflect on their experiences over the past nine months.

The students focused their questions on “what’s been helpful, (or) what's been challenging?” regarding the recovery from the floods. One of these students continued his involvement in the recovery effort professionally at CVOEO following his graduation in the winter of 2023.

Connecting on this level is important to Hamshaw because there's no better way to get to know the needs of the community than talking with those who live within it. Listening to people in these times of destruction and repair is one of the most important parts of Hamshaw's response and recovery work. Community members often felt uncertain about the next steps to take after the floods. Listening to their concerns and questions helped Hamshaw understand the needs of the homeowners to connect them with specific disaster resources.

“My experience with this kind of fieldwork-oriented research made me want to continue doing work on the ground and helping communities in the state I love,” CID student Degreenia explained. “Overall, this research experience was the ultimate application of everything I have learned in my CDAE classes – from the community capitals to economics, everything that I learned in the classroom could somehow be seen or used in different parts of my research.”

This ethical and participatory approach to engaged research helps put the most impacted people at the heart of the development of resilient solutions to natural disasters related to climate change.

It is critical to Hamshaw to have “those conversations in a way where people feel comfortable,” she explains, because “you’re talking about these sorts of challenging topics.”

In the future, Hamshaw looks forward to starting a new project with the Vermont Rivers Program that will build on the previous statewide assessment work and focus on identifying mitigation efforts to reduce flood vulnerability in selected communities. For the future, she and her research colleagues are planning to be “back on the ground in many of these similar communities to do more specific work in terms of – let’s look at the maps, let's get some more imagery, (and do) more data collection. What is actually possible to help make our park a safer place to live and more resilient to flooding?”

Hamshaw teaches classes with a variety of focuses and welcomes students to her research if interested. “If we can help identify where it’s possible to do things, do them wisely, and understand the downstream impacts,” she says, “That’s a really good role for us to play as researchers and community advocates.”

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CID Major Miranda Degreenia and Dr. Kelly Hamshaw conducting post-flood research and recovery work in summer 2023.

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��̽̽ Dining Intern Molly McDermott ’24 Illustrates Sustainability Efforts Across Campus Dining

saa — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:40:15 +0000

Molly McDermott ’24, a Public Communications major with a concentration in Communication Design, has spent many an hour not only dining on campus, but designing for Dining on campus. As an intern with Sodexo, ��̽̽'s campus dining partner, McDermott has created a vast variety of colorful and creative designs, from chalkboard art to logos found across campus. “Working with ��̽̽ Dining has been one of the top highlights of my ��̽̽ student career,’’ the Maine native shares. “I have learned so much—not only in the aspects of design and marketing, but also how to work in a professional environment. I am immensely grateful for my experience as an intern with the ��̽̽ Dining team.”

McDermott’s work, which has been used to creatively communicate strategic messaging for dining programs since 2021, has culminated in a final piece intended to represent one of the major pillars of the campus experience at ��̽̽: sustainability. On Earth Day 2024, Molly presented the ��̽̽ Dining Sustainability Timeline, a chronological list of initiatives and programs related to sustainable food purchasing, waste reduction, and food access starting in 2000. Molly created each timeline milestone graphic using ink and markers, then digitized them to be printed on canvas. Molly has left her mark on ��̽̽ with this project, encapsulating her interests in nutrition, sustainability, and art.

��̽̽ Dining's sustainability manager Nicole Reilly and marketing manager Jennifer Wefers worked with McDermott to bring their initial concept for the project to fruition. “We have wanted for a long time to have a hand-drawn timeline highlighting all of our sustainability efforts, initiatives, and programs,” Wefers explains. “Molly understood our vision for this project and was able to make it a reality.”

The piece is currently on display in the Davis Center’s first floor Sodexo Sustainability Timeline.

The ��̽̽ Dining Sustainability Timeline currently on display in the Davis Center (c) Nate Stevens

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McDermott's project, ��̽̽ Dining Sustainability Timeline, is a detailed and hand-crafted art installation now hanging in the Sodexo Sustainability Gallery in the Davis Center.

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Molly McDermott ’24 poses in front of her visual timeline project on Earth Day in the Sodexo Sustainability Gallery.

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Americans More Willing to Pay for Climate Action After Extreme Weather

saa — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 19:54:05 +0000

People who personally experience extreme climate events, especially wildfires and hurricanes, are willing to pay significantly more for climate action, even if they report skepticism about human-caused climate change, finds new research from ��̽̽.

Trump voters who reported experiencing an extreme weather event were more likely to vote in favor of a clean energy referendum than Trump voters who had not experienced such events.

“Despite people's beliefs about climate change being human-caused, despite people's political affiliation – both of which we know have really strong impacts on how people think about climate change – we find that when people have experienced extreme events, they are more likely to support climate mitigation policy, even if it costs more money,” says study coauthor Rachelle Gould of University of Vermont (��̽̽).

For the study, researchers from ��̽̽ and University of Colorado examined survey data from nearly 6,000 residents of the U.S. northeast, southeast and West about their experiences of extreme climate events in the past five years. Respondents were asked if they would support a clean energy policy and if they would pay a utility bill increase – a random number between $5 and $265 – which allowed the researchers to study how willingness to pay differed among respondents who reported different climate change beliefs and different experiences with extreme climate events. In addition to the survey data, the team independently verified the occurrence of the reported climate events using a variety of data sources.

The findings, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, suggest that when respondents have truly felt the impacts of climate change, regardless of their stated stances on the issue, they are willing to pay more for a means of mitigating climate change – about $100 more per year than people with similar beliefs and attributes who hadn’t experienced an extreme event.

“When climate change is a distant concept, we've had a hard time getting people to be willing to actually pay more money for a mitigation policy,” study coauthor Trisha Shrum of ��̽̽ says. “There's something that clicks when climate change comes to your doorstep in a way that makes people willing to say, ‘Ah, I get it, it's worth it to invest in renewable energy.’” She adds, “It was very interesting to see that effect even among people who report that they think maybe the climate is changing, but it's not caused by humans.”

According to the researchers, the study is novel in various ways. While past research has explored the effects of confirmed extreme events on people’s beliefs or examined outcomes for people who’d reported experiencing an extreme event, this research paired people’s reported experiences with external climate data – the first study to bring both methods together to see how they match up.

Hurricanes were among the extreme weather events that strongly influenced willingness to pay. Photo: Guilherme Christmann / Pexels

Also novel is the researchers’ separate considerations of different extreme climate events, to understand how each affects respondents’ willingness to pay for climate mitigation policies. For example, hurricanes and wildfires had a strong effect on willingness to pay, while tornadoes and droughts did not have a significant effect on their own.

In addition to mental and emotional anguish, climate disasters can also create financial devastation. From medical costs to cleanup of homes and communities to lost property or the need to move – extreme climate events can leave behind tremendous financial costs for those who live through them.

“People can get really polarized on big ideological issues,” says study coauthor Donna Ramirez-Harrington of ��̽̽. “But when you look at people’s firsthand experiences with climate change, the results imply that they understand how it can hit their pocketbook. I think that's when decisions get made, and at the end of the day, those who experience extreme events first-hand are willing to pay more.”

What does this mean? The authors note that there are different ways to view the data, but they strike an optimistic note. “There's a hopeful message here,” Gould says. “People recognize climate change as an important issue that’s worth spending a bit of money on. They are willing to contribute to the societal good, and that is encouraging.”

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Even among those who say climate change is not human-caused, support for climate action jumps with personal experience of extreme climate events, new research shows

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Forest fires were among the extreme climate events that respondents reported experiencing. Photo: Pexels

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