MAJORS IN CDAE
The Community-Centered Design major helps students learn about creative collaboration and design processes by which we understand complex issues and develop, implement, and share new ideas.
Focused on sustainable and responsible solutions for real-world communities, this program places equal emphasis on theory, critical thinking, reflection, creativity, empathy, and working effectively with others, including community members and professionals in different fields.
Students customize their education by picking a concentration in Applied Design or Relational Design. Upon graduation, Community-Centered Design graduates are design-process experts ready to create a better tomorrow—a resilient and responsible tomorrow—together with local and global communities.
If there was ever a hands-on major/minor, this is it. Community Entrepreneurship 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 acquire entrepreneurial skills in the context of social responsibility and healthy community development.
The Community and International Development major or minor offers students a structured opportunity to jump into the world and make a difference. Backed by rigorous coursework and experienced faculty oversight, students put ideas into action on the ground, both here in Vermont and all over the world. What they find is that real world issues are more complex than they usually seem. There are underlying social, economic, and cultural factors that can hinder development or be an asset to it.
Public Communication (PCOM) is the practice of understanding, designing, implementing, and evaluating successful communication campaigns within a framework that serves the public interest. The PCOM program uses communication to inform and persuade, to build relationships, and to encourage open dialog in organizations and communities toward resilient solutions. This is accomplished by crafting successful messages through the application of research, theory, technical knowledge, and sound design principles. Students majoring in Public Communication use an integrated, hands-on approach to communication in the public interest to critically analyze situations, manage information, and craft messages that work in an increasingly global society.