CDAE has four majors, six minors, and participates in two cross-CALS minors, Food Systems and Biosecurity, and a cross-college minor, Sports Management, for undergraduates.
Applied Design
The applied design minor offers the hands-on experience needed to visually communicate a wide range of ideas and information on digital or print media. This minor enhances any student's ability to visually express themselves or results of their work to a desired audience. In addition to becoming proficient in software applications used in design, students participating in this minor learn design strategy and apply their knowledge to real-world projects, campaigns, or organizations.
This minor requires 15 credits of coursework in visual communication, design, and digital illustration.
Applied Design Faculty
- Steve Kostell
- Jane Petrillo
Biosecurity
Our increasingly global society creates opportunity for the spread of both intentional and unintentional threats to food and agriculture. To protect the food system from harm, agrosecurity, biosecurity, and cybersecurity need to work hand in hand. Put in positive terms, biosecurity is the opposite of bioterrorism and not only includes the study of threats, but the systems necessary to prevent those threats or reinforce resiliency to those threats.
This minor allows students to formalize a grouping of courses from social science and agriculture to STEM disciplines with a focus area on biosecurity. Topics include bioterror threats, prevention, and resilience in our lived, built, and natural environments.
This minor requires 17 credits from departments across the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) including Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (MMG), Animal Science (ASCI), Community Development & Applied Economics (CDAE), Nutrition and Food Science (NFS), and Food Systems (FS).
Community Entrepreneurship
This hands-on minor instills the foundations of successful enterprise development including strategic business planning, marketing techniques, and market analyses and projections. As entrepreneurship is a vital thread in the fabric of a community, students aquire entrepreneurial skills in the context of social responsibility and healthy community development. Many Community Entrepreneurship students start enterprises of their own in the real world while they are still students or upon graduation.
This minor requires 16 credits of coursework in community development, financial management, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
CENT Faculty
- Trisha Shrum
- David Conner
- Tao Sun
- Qingbin Wang
Community and International Development
The Community and International Development (CID) minor offers students a structured opportunity to make a positive impact in their local and global communities. Backed by rigorous coursework and experienced faculty oversight, students put ideas into action on the ground through service-learning courses, internships and travel study. Students will examine complex issues and identify underlying social, economic, and cultural factors that impact development. This minor includes opportunities to apply their coursework in international settings through our small and successful international projects in Peru, St. Lucia, Kenya, Nepal and Puerto Rico.
CID alums go on to work in the private, public and nonprofit sectors on issues related to environmental sustainability, global health, humanitarian relief, international education, microfinance, agriculture and food systems, peace and conflict resolution.
This minor requires 15 credits of coursework in sustainable community development, ecological economics, resiliency, agriculture, and policy.
CID Faculty/Staff
- Dan Baker
- Dan Tobin
- Thomas DeSisto
- Josh Farley
- Kelly Hamshaw
- Travis Reynolds
- Asim Zia
Consumer and Advertising
Ineligible majors: Public Communication
The consumer and advertising minor focuses on advertising to meet the needs and evoke interest from the public consumer. This minor pulls from consumer affairs, advertising, design, and communication. Students will explore ways to connect directly with target consumers and interact with faculty from a variety of disciplines.
This minor requires 15 credits of coursework in strategic communication.
Consumer and Advertising Faculty
- Jane Kolodinsky
Food Systems
The design of the Food Systems minor offers students an historical perspective and structural framework for studying our contemporary food system across disciplines. Students will identify and examine complex issues involving food, from soil to table, and develop knowledge and skills to become a more sustainable and responsible food citizen.
This minor requires 18 credits of coursework in humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.
Food Systems Faculty
- Jane Kolodinsky (CDAE)
- David Conner (CDAE)
- Meredith Niles (NFS)
- Terence Bradshaw (PSS)
- Jeanne Harris (PBIO)
- John Barlow (ASCI)
- Rebecca Guy (MMG)
If you would like to declare a minor in Food Systems, please contact Alie Sarhanis.
Green Building and Community Design
The Green Building and Community Design minor allows students to explore the integration of design principles and application of renewable energy, natural building materials, and ecological landscape into building design and community development. Students will learn innovative construction techniques merged with community design and planning, gain hands-on experience planning for and working with environmentally friendly materials, and examine a holistic approach to design that incorporates functionality as well as landscape features and energy flows.
Green Building and Community Design Faculty/Staff
- Jane Kolodinsky
- Josh Farley
- Jane Petrillo
- Dan Kirk
Public Communication
Communication doesn't happen in a vacuum. Public Communication (PCOM) students learn and use an integrated approach to communication that includes critically analyzing situations, managing information, and crafting messages that work in an increasingly global society. By embedding real-world projects with classroom reflection, service-learning courses allow students to acquire the skills necessary to succeed in a professional environment. Whether they are creating press releases, analyzing case studies, or designing visual components, PCOM students leave UVM with a competitive portfolio of work that allows them to jump right into the ever-evolving profession.
This minor requires 15 credits of coursework in communication, media, strategic writing, design, event planning or policy.
PCOM Faculty
- Sarah Heiss
- Jane Petrillo
- James McGuffy
- Steve Kostell
- Ben Dangl
- Matthew Dugan
- Tao Sun
Sports Management
The Sports Management (SMGT) minor reflects a unique cross-campus collaboration among the Rubenstein School’s Parks, Recreation, and Tourism (PRT) Program; Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences; the Grossman School of Business; and the College of Education and Social Services (CESS).
Minoring in SMGT requires 18 credits; three required core courses and three selected from a specific group of course options in marketing, management, and entrepreneurship.