Town Meeting Day
Town Meeting is a 200-year old democratic decision-making process—one of the most pure forms of Democracy in the world because every citizen is a legislator—meeting their neighbors face-to-face, debating, deciding and voting on the issues that affect them. In this project we analyze town meeting—drawing from more than four decades of research led by political scientist Frank Bryan.
Reports and Documents
Student Media Coverage
Each Town Meeting Day, UVM's Community News Service sends student journalists to locations across the state to collect stories, photos and breaking news of the civic action as it unfolds.
Inspired by Frank Bryan
This project follows the work of political scientist Frank Bryan, who with his students attended more than fifteen hundred Vermont town meetings over a 30-year period, documenting Vermont’s town meeting as an authentic and meaningful form of direct democracy. For more on Frank Bryan, check out Real Democracy; All Those In Favor; this interview and his webpage.
Vermont Demographics
Vermont's aging population and declining or flat population growth in most of the state's 14 counties is one of the top challenges facing the state. While the pandemic has brought new people to Vermont, it has been a very difficult year for people living and working in Vermont. Three projects explore some of these challenges and potential solutions.
The Vermont Telework projects seeks to understand the obstacles and opportunities for those sheltering in Vermont during the pandemic to continue to live here.
Vermont Towns & Local Government
Vermont's system of government puts the state's 246 towns and cities at the center of decision-making. Budgets and spending, roads, and police departments are all decided at the local level. What are those decisions? What are the issues central to those towns? And who are the decision-makers?
Town meeting. Researchers collect participation data and much more following in the footsteps of Frank Bryan, the political science scholar and teacher.
Gender Bias in Vermont Media
An analysis of six months of legislative coverage by Vermont news media.