MA in Socially Responsible Business and Sustainable Communities Program
I love teaching and community development and have spent over 40 years with this as a focus for my life. I have taught community economics, finance and development to graduate students in business, planning and public administration programs at Columbia, Cornell, Tufts, MIT, Goddard College and the University of Vermont, and to community development professionals in training programs around the country including the Neighborhood Reinvestment Training Institute, Tufts Management and Community Development Institute, Goddard Business Institute, MS Foundation Women and Community Development Institute, and the New School for Democratic Management.
I am particularly interested in community economic development, and in the virtues of local and cooperative business ownership. I directed the technical assistance program at the National Cooperative Bank in the early 1980’s, provided training to worker and consumer cooperatives in the 1980’s and 90’s, worked with the Industrial Cooperative Association on financing worker cooperatives in the 80’s, consulted to the Charles Stewart Mott and Ford Foundations in the 90’s on replication of the South Bronx Cooperative Home Care Associates, and now serve on the board of the Hanover, NH Consumer Cooperative (15,000 members; $65 million annual sales).
I founded and directed the Tufts University Management and Community Development Institute (1983-90) and helped setup and directed the Goddard College Business Institute (1993-95) to provide training for community and cooperative development organizations and socially and environmentally responsible businesses.
During the last 10 years, I have focused more on sustainability. I designed and taught the Sustainable Community Development core course at UVM’s Department of Community Development and Applied Economics. I also developed and taught courses on Food, Farms and Schools and Going Local designed to strengthen the local food system. I currently serve on the Advisory Board of Valley Food and Farm, an organization that links local farmers and local consumers.
I taught at Goddard (1991-98) and, in spite of continuing battles with presidents and board members uncomfortable with the idea of democratic education, I learned more about teaching and learning than I had in my previous 25 years of academia. For several years in the early 1990’s, I was teaching at MIT and Goddard at the same time, providing an amazing and instructive contrast between faculty/curriculum-centered and student-centered education.
I have lived in Vermont since 1991, have four children and six grandchildren, love hiking and conversations, and am very engaged with my local community and its UU Church.
Educational background: PhD and MS in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University (1966); B.Mechanical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1959); AB in Philosophy, Dartmouth College (1957).
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