University of Vermont

Community Development and Applied Economics, 195

Fall 2004

With a Service Learning/ Applied Problem Solving field-course January 2-16, 2005

 
 

 |Course Syllabus| Faculty, Staff and Participants | Overview | Application

St. Lucia links    Travel Info.











Sustainable Development in Small Island States: St. Lucia


An International Field-Course in
Consumer Affairs, Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development

Course meets Wednesday, 4-5:30 from September-December, 2004
Field Component: January 2-16, 2005



This course is a general introduction to the problems of sustainable development on small island developing states utilizing a case study of St. Lucia, West Indies. In many ways, small island states are microcosms of larger nations and even the planct, and are superb laboraties for learning about sustainable development. 

The course culminates in a two-week field component in St. Lucia, working with local partners to solve pressing problems which they have identified.  During weekly meetings during the semester, we will go over critical background information about the island, and do preparatory work for our field projects. 

Field projects will follow two different tracks.  One track will work with the Ministry of Commerce, Investment, and Consumer Affairs on issues they identify related to consumer affairs and small enterprise development. The second track will focus on ecological economics-- the integration of ecological sustainability, social justice and economic efficiency. This track will collaborate with the Ministry of Social Transformation, the Department of Heritage Tourism, and/or community organizations. We will stress complementarities between these two tracks more than differences. For example, a project working with the "buy local" campaign would integrate material from consumer affairs, business, tourism and agriculture.  In both cases, our goal will be to help solve pressing problems identified by our local partners. 
 
Problem solving courses are different from traditional courses for several reasons.  While academics in universities study disciplines, people in the real worldstudy problems.  That is, problems do not respect the artificial boundaries of disciplines, and complex problems can rarely be understood from within the narrow framework of a single discipline.  In addition to the skills of disciplinary analysis, this course will focus on the skills of interdisciplinary synthesis, and the communication of research results to decision makers who can use them. 



 |Course Syllabus| Faculty, Staff and Participants | Overview | Application

St. Lucia Links   Travel Info. 





For more information, please contact :

Jay Ashman
Community Development and Applied Economics 
 University of Vermont 
 Burlington, VT. 05405-1708 
 Phone: 802 656-0862
  Fax  802 656-1423
 E-mail:Jay.Ashman@uvm.edu


 or

Joshua Farley 
Community Development and Applied Economics 
 University of Vermont 
 Burlington, VT. 05405-1708 
 Phone: 802 656-2943
  Fax  802 656-1423
 E-mail:Joshua.Farley@uvm.edu