Professors Herb Kessel and Vince Bolduc publish an important work on Vermont in Transition
By Buff Lindau
Photo by Alan Jakubek

Since the release in February of Vermont in Transition: Social, Economic, and Environmental Trends in the Green Mountain State, authors Vince Bolduc, professor of sociology, and Herb Kessel, professor of economics, have been in constant demand around the state.

The book is a result of six months of extensive research on trends over the last 20 years in Vermont. They organized their findings into the following areas: Vermont context (population, environment and climate, land use); economy (affordability, agriculture, forestry); infrastructure (physical and electronic infrastructure, energy, education); and institutions (health care, crime and corrections, governance, quality of life). The results were assembled in an impressive oversized publication of 150 pages, over 300 graphs with an online source at www.futureofvermont.org.

After its publication, the authors were featured on Vermont Public Radio at noon every day for the week of March 9-13; they did a lengthy interview on WCAX-TV, and interviews with newspapers and nearly all the TV and radio talk shows in the state. They have spoken to the boards of the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, and other Vermont decision makers and power brokers.

Kessel said, “When historians try to understand what life was like in Vermont at the turn of the
millennium, we hope that they will turn to our study.”

The professors stress the collaborative nature of the project. Parts of chapters were written by professors John Carvellas (Education and Affordability), Sandy Karstens (Climate Change), Kristin Novotny (Governance), and Richard Kujawa (Land Use Planning). Alumni and associates also contributed: Patty Richards, MSA ’08, (Energy), Art Hessler (Environment), Hank Lambert (Infrastructure) and Jake Dubuque ’07 (Governance). Valerie Dillner ’09 worked on a number of different chapters.

According to Paul Costello of the Vermont Council on the Future of Vermont, which commissioned the study, “This is the most comprehensive digest that may ever have been produced on trend lines in Vermont. This book provides reality, qualitative and quantitative knowledge to test against other arguments—it’s a tremendous instrument.”