What a difference 20 years make.
In 1994, Community Development and Applied Economics -- a brand new amalgam of three small departments: Merchandizing, Consumer Studies and Design; Vocational Technology; and Agricultural and Resource Economics -- attracted 70 undergraduate majors and six graduate students.
In 2014, CDAE is one of the largest departments on campus, with 450 majors and 50 graduate students.
To mark that success, reflect on its meaning and set a course for the next two decades, CDAE held a 20th anniversary celebration last week crammed with events -- more than 20 in all.
“Often people don't take the time to step back, take a deep breath and say, wow, look at what we’ve accomplished,” said Jane Kolodinsky, department chair. "We wanted to do that, while also engaging our audiences in a dialog on the themes and subject matter that have made us successful."
A highlight of the celebration week, Kolodinsky said, was the keynote address delivered by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean -- “Community as a Foundation for Change: Celebrating 20 Years with Community Development and Applied Economics” -- to a packed house in the Billings Center on Tuesday night.
The former governor went out of his way to praise the department, Kolodinsky recalled. “He said that the generation today’s college students are part of -- the millenials, which he called ‘global firsts’ -- really do want to make a difference and do things differently in the future, and that our department does things a little differently than the status quo, and that’s why students flock to us and are successful.”
The week also provided a concentrated dose of what contributed to CDAE’s growth in the first place: a strong emphasis on promoting student success after graduation. Most days featured multiple career presentations by alumni, entrepreneurs and Career Services staff.
The week also celebrated two key elements of the department’s ethos, Kolodinsky said: community service and international service.
Gov. Dean, a recent recruit to UVM’s James Marsh Professor-at-Large program, made a return appearance on Wednesday, talking to CDAE classes all day on those themes. Tuesday morning, he was joined by William Sorrell, Vermont attorney general, to pitch students on careers in public service. The department also hosted a standing-room-only Peace Corps roundtable with Dean and returning members of the corps.
The celebratory week came to a close with another highlight, Kolodinsky said: a goat roast in the Mansfield Room of the Davis Center.
Like everything else during the week, the menu was making a statement.
“What better way to celebrate international development than with a catchy event that included food that 70 percent of the world eats,” Kolodinsky said. The dinner menu, which was all Vermont grown, including the goat, also put a spotlight on community entrepreneurship and food systems, areas of focus for UVM, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and CDAE, and on the university’s dining services partner, Sodexo. The company recently launched a national program, piloted at UVM over the last several years, that brings local food to college dining programs.
Kolodinsky admitted to being “a little bit cautious” about the meat at the center of her plate, which Sodexo prepared three different ways: leg of goat with chimichurri sauce, curried goat and goat sausage. But it was “fabulous,” she said.
That seemed to be the general sentiment. The Mansfield Room was jam packed, and most students, faculty and staff sampled all of the goat preparations and lingered for hours.
So what does CDAE do for an encore over the next 20 years?
“I think we still want to be a relevant, innovative department that puts the tools in students’ toolbox using an applied curriculum and service learning," Kolodinsky said. "Our students will continue to contribute to society by becoming entrepreneurs in both the for- and non-profit sectors, locally and around the world."