The world is not static, and neither is UVM’s Department of Community Development and Applied Economics. CDAE is always working to remain relevant to students’ needs and our changing society. This innovative thinking led to the recent launch of a new Community-Centered Design major, which focuses on design skills for building community resilience and positive change. The major is now available to UVM students. 

“This applied major teaches and empowers students to understand complex issues and develop, communicate, and implement ideas to design for a better tomorrow,” the CDAE webpage for the major explains.

With the Community-Centered Design major, “Students learn creative collaboration and design processes for visual communication, material products and landscapes, policy, systems, and/or experiences that meet the needs or solve problems faced by a person, group, organization, or community.”

Key classes in the major, Design Innovation I and II, focus on the complexity of systems and solving problems within them. In Small Group Communication – the third new class in this major – students learn to work with fellow designers who hold diverse skillsets and collaborate for problem solving.

Such coursework provides a way to practice working with groups to create answers. “All classes will provide skills that help students understand frameworks and apply them to create sustainable and responsible solutions,” explained CDAE Professor Steven Kostell, a key architect behind the new major.

Students in the major can concentrate in Applied Design or Relational Design, and explore curricular tracks to help them cluster courses in related topic areas. Applied Design focuses on designing tangible outputs based on community or individual needs through curricular tracks in Communication Design or Green Design.

The Relational Design concentration emphasizes understanding and interacting with stakeholders across communities and systems, and includes curricular tracks in Community Resilience, Advocacy and Social Change, or Project Leadership, Management and Planning.

The new Community-Centered Design major reflects the practical application of theory and knowledge that defines CDAE’s approach to teaching.

“The Community-Centered Design major teaches to solve the wicked problems facing society,” explains CDAE Chair and Professor Jane Kolodinsky. “Design thinking permeates through so much of what we do. It brings everything in community development together.”