Introduction
There is an urgent need to transform food systems to deliver better outcomes for people and the planet. High rates of undernutrition and overnutrition persist and coexist, creating a double burden of diet-related health challenges. Agricultural innovation has led to more productive farms, but climate change and shortages of farming inputs like oil and gas threaten our future food provisioning systems. Global trade has allowed greater exchange and improved access to food, but, in more recent times, excess reliance on global supply chains has made domestic supply chains vulnerable to regional shocks and global conflicts (Pingali et al., Reference Pingali, Aiyar, Abraham and Rahmann.d.). Given the complexity and interconnectedness of modern global food systems, transforming food systems to produce better health, environmental, and economic outcomes will require professionals capable of thinking beyond disciplinary silos. Future food systems leaders must be able to lead with empathy and passion and have a deep understanding of the interconnected nature of food systems. Collaborating with diverse stakeholders, from growers to consumers to policymakers, these food systems leaders will bring actionable and sustainable insights into decision-making to increase resilience in food systems.
In response to this need, over the past two decades, higher education institutions in the US—especially land grant institutions—have developed food systems degree programs designed to train the next generation of professionals equipped with the skills and capacities to address food systems challenges (Collier et al., Reference Collier, Ismach, Jansen, Kiser, Henning, Lewis, Spiker and Otten2023). While each undergraduate program is unique, a common goal is to break down traditional academic boundaries that corral students into developing narrow, discipline-led solutions to complex food systems problems. Despite limited empirical evidence, there is general consensus in the literature that inter- and transdisciplinary learning will enable students to more effectively address these problems (Hilimire et al., Reference Hilimire, Gillon, Mclaughlin, Dowd-uribe and Monsen2014; Hartle et al., Reference Hartle, Cole, Trepman, Chrisinger and Gardner2017; Valley et al., Reference Valley, Wittman, Ahmed and Galt2017; Belarmino et al., Reference Belarmino, Kolodinsky, Ammerman, Connor Volpe, Brown, Jilcott Pitts, Hanson, Sitaker, Wang, McGuirt, Carfagno, Hunsinger and Seguin-Fowler2022; Collier et al., Reference Collier, Ismach, Jansen, Kiser, Henning, Lewis, Spiker and Otten2023; Hoffs et al., Reference Hoffs, Chharan, Landry, Ward, Oyewole, Wang, Egan, Bruce and Gardner2024). A common theme among the programs is to help professionals working on food systems develop a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of the system and to promote critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and innovation skills through systems thinking. As of 2023, 42 institutions located across all regions of the US offered Food Systems bachelor’s degrees (Collier et al., Reference Collier, Ismach, Jansen, Kiser, Henning, Lewis, Spiker and Otten2023).
As many of these programs prepare to enter their second (or third) decade, we reflect in this visioning piece on how undergraduate food systems programs can further prepare students for impactful and fulfilling careers in transforming global food systems. Specifically, we evaluate the experience of the Food Systems undergraduate program at the University of Vermont, a national leader in food systems education. We discuss the program’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities, and reflect on our collective efforts to achieve transdisciplinarity within the food systems curriculum. From 2017 to 2026 this included discipline-specific introductory courses, a small number of integrative intermediate and upper-level courses, a fieldwork requirement, and completion of a pre-set concentration. Based on lessons learned, we propose a vision for the next 10 years and an updated curriculum to prepare food systems graduates for meaningful employment in the sustainable food system economy.
The University of Vermont’s undergraduate food systems program
History
Agriculture and the food system are fundamental to Vermont’s economy, culture, and landscape, supporting over 61,000 jobs (Vermont Farm to Plate, 2024) and driving $11.3 billion in economic impact annually (Claro et al., Reference Claro, Danly, Warren, Kahler, Willard and Harris2019). With over 11,500 farms and food businesses, the sector is critical for the state’s tourism, local food and nutrition security, and rural community vitality (Claro et al., Reference Claro, Danly, Warren, Kahler, Willard and Harris2019). Key industries include dairy, maple, and apples. The state has also been at the forefront of the US sustainable agriculture and food systems movement since the 1970s, with early leadership in organic agriculture (Leahy, Reference Leahyn.d.), farm to school (Conner et al., Reference Conner, King, Koliba, Kolodinsky and Trubek2011; General Assembly of the State of Vermont, 2021), and universal school meals (General Assembly of the State of Vermont, 2023) movements, among others. Public interest in local foods is high, with a statewide goal of having 25% of all in-state food purchases be Vermont food products by 2030 (Vermont Farm to Plate, 2026).
The University of Vermont has a long history of supporting Vermont’s food system through research, teaching, and outreach. The University of Vermont was founded as a private university in 1791 and merged with Vermont Agricultural College in 1865 to become the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College (commonly referred to as the University of Vermont or UVM). UVM was among the first institutions nationally to offer degree programs in Food Systems. An undergraduate minor was initiated in 2010, and graduate programs were introduced in 2012. Based on the early success of these programs and undergraduate demand, faculty in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) put forth a proposal for an undergraduate major, which was launched in 2017. With the introduction of an undergraduate degree, UVM became the first land grant university to offer a Food Systems degree at the undergraduate, master’s, and PhD level. While the undergraduate program is based in the CALS, the graduate programs sit within the Graduate College and are separately administered, with distinct governance and curriculum oversight. This paper focuses exclusively on the undergraduate major, which was not substantially revised between 2017 and 2026. The original curriculum included diverse introductory and intermediate-level courses, one upper-level course, a fieldwork requirement, and a concentration aligned with an existing minor within the CALS.
The guiding philosophy
From the beginning, Food Systems scholarship and pedagogy at UVM has adopted a transdisciplinary emphasis (Kolodinsky et al., Reference Kolodinsky, Fukagawa, Roche, Belliveau and Johnson2012). The philosophy of transdisciplinary efforts goes beyond their inter- and multidisciplinary counterparts. The transdisciplinary approach emphasizes integration of knowledge creation processes across disciplines and stakeholders as the starting point. This approach contrasts with interdisciplinary approaches, which envision integration through discourse as the final step in knowledge creation, after knowledge development occurs separately among those with expertise in diverse fields. Scholars have emphasized that transdisciplinary approaches may be further combined with stakeholder engagement and mixed research methods to train students to address pertinent and complex social issues through knowledge co-creation (Rigolot, Reference Rigolot2020; Conner, Reference Conner2025). These transdisciplinary approaches have been at the forefront in discussions on how to address complexities around ensuring food systems sustainability (Mauser et al., Reference Mauser, Klepper, Rice, Schmalzbauer, Hackmann, Leemans and Moore2013; Dekker et al., Reference Dekker, Kraneveld, Dijk, Kalfagianni, Knulst, Lelieveldt, Moors, Müller, Pieters, Pieterse, Rosenkranz, Voesenek and van Westen2020).
At UVM, curriculum design in the early years emphasized building awareness of multiple food systems domains and integrating across disciplines to prepare students to tackle complex food systems problems (Baker et al., Reference Baker, Koliba, Kolodinsky, Liang, Mcmahon, Patterson and Wang2009). As stated in the original proposal, ‘graduates of the program will be trained to integrate knowledge across food production, distribution, and marketing; understand policy development at federal, state, and local levels; manage the interplay of food and health; seek environmental, social, and economic sustainability; ensure access to adequate food for all citizens; and understand the complete dynamics of a global food marketplace.’ This focus was prudent—there is evidence that interdisciplinary education helps students build their perspective-taking skills (Oudenampsen et al., Reference Oudenampsen, Das, Blijlevens and van de Pol2024) and greater interdisciplinarity exposure in college—especially for science majors—is associated with higher average incomes one year after graduation (Han et al., Reference Han, LaViolette, Borkenhagen, McAllister and Bearman2023). Over the last decade, this vision and approach have been reflected in the program’s ability to graduate professionals who understand the collaborative and complex nature of addressing real-world food systems issues.
The major’s governance structure was also designed to embody its transdisciplinary philosophy: instead of sitting in one department, the program is shared across the six departments in CALS. Faculty are not appointed exclusively to the Food Systems program; rather, each participating faculty member sits in their home department and contributes teaching and, for some, advising and/or service within the Food Systems major. The program is led by a faculty director with advice from a faculty committee comprised of representatives from most CALS departments and the CALS Dean’s office. Resources for the program were allocated at the discretion of participating department chairs, with differing levels of investment by department.
The curriculum
As depicted in Figure 1, from the start, the program has endeavored to develop graduates with T-shaped skills, who possess both breadth of knowledge across multiple disciplines (the horizontal bar of the ‘T’) and depth of expertise in a single discipline or domain (the vertical bar) (Bierema, Reference Bierema2019). A set of core introductory courses is intended to expose students to diverse perspectives and broad-based knowledge on issues across the social and natural sciences, such as nutrition science, agroecology, and international development, as well as themes of sustainability, diversity, and global citizenship. Students then continue to gain a depth of knowledge in one specific discipline (their concentration) by completing a minor in one of the following programs: Community and International Development, Community Entrepreneurship, Public Communication, Nutrition and Food Sciences, Animal Science, Agroecology, Sustainable Landscape Horticulture, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Plant Biology. These programs are already offered within CALS. Applied learning is prioritized in the program as a strategy to ground student knowledge in real-world work applications related to food systems transformations. To achieve this, the major requires fieldwork credits attained through internships and/or undergraduate research. A small set of intermediate and upper-level Food Systems courses integrate basic knowledge with skill development and systems thinking skills across disciplines, intended to help students make connections around various topics learnt in the core introductory classes, their self-selected concentration, and their fieldwork experiences.
T-shaped food systems professional, adapted from (Bierema Reference Bierema2019).
Methods
In 2023, in preparation for an Academic Program Review in the following year, the Food Systems advisory committee conducted a self-study and completed an in-depth external review. Data collection involved a survey for undergraduate students enrolled in the Food Systems major and a separate survey for program alumni. Both surveys were administered using Qualtrics. The survey for current Food Systems students was first administered in-person to a class of third- and fourth-year majors and later distributed via email to all undergraduate Food Systems majors. Overall, 33 of the 83 current Food Systems students completed the survey (40% response). The alumni survey was emailed to 108 program alumni and promoted via direct contacts on LinkedIn. The combination of these two efforts generated 36 responses (33% response). This initiative provided a retrospective on program strengths, challenges, and opportunities, and catalyzed planning to update the program.
In the 18 months following the Academic Program Review, the program leadership continued to collect insights and perspectives from students and faculty. The student survey was administered again to an in-person seminar of 17 third- and fourth-year Food Systems majors and received 100% response. To expand what was learned from the survey, a focus group was conducted with five graduating seniors in 2025. In early 2026, all core program faculty were invited to take part in a research focus group to discuss the program. The faculty focus group was attended by 8 instructors in the program and facilitated by the program director.
In what follows, we present key themes that emerged from this process combined with administrative data and course evaluations. Program evaluation data were retrospectively approved by the Institutional Review Board at UVM (IRB# 00004212) and combined with research data collected in 2026 (IRB# 00004047).
Results
In this section, we provide an overview of our findings organized into two broad categories: program strengths and lessons learned. Program strengths include (1) alignment with the land grant mission and regional workforce needs; (2) generation of value for students through ‘learning by doing’; and (3) the presence of highly engaged faculty. Lessons learned relate to the importance of and challenges to (1) clearly defining and implementing the transdisciplinary philosophy; (2) balancing breadth and depth of curriculum; (3) building a culture of hopefulness and empowerment; and (4) effectively governing and assessing a program that sits outside of traditional academic units.
Program strengths
Alignment with the land grant mission and meeting the New England public need
The Academic Program Review identified the Food Systems program’s clear alignment with UVM’s broader land grant mission as a strength. Since its founding, UVM has prioritized research, teaching, and public engagement in service to Vermont communities, particularly within agriculture, rural development, and environmental stewardship. The University’s 2026 strategic plan states that UVM’s land-grant mission drives it to ‘broaden access and strengthen engagement and partners with communities and organizations in Vermont and beyond’ (University of Vermont, 2026). The Food Systems major extends this mission through a curriculum designed to prepare students to address complex real-world challenges related to food, agriculture, health, and sustainability.
Since 2017, 206 graduates have completed the major, most as out-of-state students (Figure 2). Aligning with the diversity of disciplines represented in the program and internships pursued by students, program alumni have gone on to work in the for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors. A 2013 needs assessment by the Farm to Plate Network identified a high need for both entry-level and skilled employees across the regional food system (Tippett and Meunier, Reference Tippett and Meunier2013). Alumni outcomes demonstrate the program’s alignment with the public workforce needs of Vermont and New England. Examples of regional employers who have hired Food Systems program graduates include farms; food processors; retailers; hunger relief organizations such as the Vermont Food Bank and Hunger Free Vermont; hospitals; state agencies including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets; advocacy organizations such as the Vermont Farm Bureau; education organizations such as FoodCorps; and public relations agencies. Some graduates have also gone on to establish their own food business ventures.
Graduates from the University of Vermont Food Systems B.S. program by residency.
Figure 2. Long description
The X-axis represents years from 2017 to 2026. The primary Y-axis on the left measures count from 0 to 35. The secondary Y-axis on the right measures percentage from 0% to 100%. A legend at the bottom identifies yellow bars as Out-of-state, green bars as In-state, and a black line with blue dots as % out of state.
* 2017: Total count 1, entirely out-of-state (100%).
* 2018: Total count 6 (3 out-of-state, 3 in-state), percentage drops to 50%.
* 2019: Total count 14 (13 out-of-state, 1 in-state), percentage rises to approximately 93%.
* 2020: Total count 15 (13 out-of-state, 2 in-state), percentage at 87%.
* 2021: Total count 29 (19 out-of-state, 10 in-state), percentage drops to 65%.
* 2022: Total count 33 (30 out-of-state, 3 in-state), percentage rises to 91%.
* 2023: Total count 31 (27 out-of-state, 4 in-state), percentage at 87%.
* 2024: Total count 27 (22 out-of-state, 5 in-state), percentage at 81%.
* 2025: Total count 33 (29 out-of-state, 4 in-state), percentage at 88%.
* 2026: Total count 17 (15 out-of-state, 2 in-state), percentage at 88%.
The strengths of the Food Systems program are also closely tied to broader regional efforts to strengthen New England food systems. Over the past two decades, Vermont and neighboring states have invested heavily in local and regional economies through farm-to-school initiatives, institutional purchasing programs, sustainable agriculture movements, and regional food resilience planning (Burke and Spiller, Reference Burke and Spiller2015; Claro et al., Reference Claro, Danly, Warren, Kahler, Willard and Harris2019; Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, 2025; Farms, 2026). These efforts have increased demand for graduates capable of working across the full ‘farm to plate’ continuum. Local stakeholders—including prospective employers, community partners, and workforce development organizations—have emphasized that technical knowledge alone is insufficient for addressing contemporary food systems needs in the community. The Farm to Plate Network notes in its Exploring Food System Careers guide that careers in the food system increasingly require workers who can navigate ‘the entire supply chain,’ collaborate across sectors, and respond to rapidly changing environmental, social, and economic conditions (McCarty and Farm to Plate Network Career Profiles Task Force, Reference McCarty2019). This report specifically identifies workforce shortages in employees who can work collaboratively across diverse contexts and contribute to resilient, innovative food system organizations. Further research is needed on the value of Food Systems degrees, including how they impact students and communities in economic and noneconomic ways.
This emphasis aligns closely with the strengths that students have identified in the Food Systems curriculum. Rather than preparing students for a single occupational pathway, UVM’s Food Systems program appears to equip graduates with adaptable skills applicable across multiple dimensions of the food system. Student feedback points to the program’s central role in cultivating relational and professional capacities through interdisciplinary coursework, community-engaged learning, collaborative projects, and applied systems analysis. As one student noted, ‘We get exposure to so much’ from the combination of classes and fieldwork in the curriculum. These capacities are particularly important in a professional field increasingly characterized by interconnected problem-solving rather than isolated or sector-specific issues.
Generating value for students through ‘learning by doing’
The program appears to have had strong student demand from the start. Before the major launched, 87.5% of surveyed Food Systems minors said CALS should offer a Food Systems major. Since 2017, the major has maintained healthy enrollment, attracting both new UVM students and internal transfers (Figure 2). In the early years, enrollment was strengthened by the tuition break program offered through the New England Board of Higher Education, which enabled New England residents from other states to enroll in the Food Systems program at a discounted rate due to the absence of parallel options at other regional state institutions. From 2017–2023, approximately one-third of all enrolled majors received this benefit. The initiation of similar degree programs at other state universities in recent years has likely contributed to reduced enrollment in the program. This decline in enrollment prompted an evaluation of student satisfaction with the major, which informs the curricular reforms that will be in place starting fall 2026.
Recent program evaluations have been positive, with approximately 80% of students reporting satisfaction with the Food Systems major (Figure 3) and most reporting that they would recommend the program to others (Figure 4). Central to these high levels of program satisfaction appears to be the implementation of a ‘learning by doing’ philosophy. As one faculty member shared, ‘The students I met are very unique in the classroom… They’re very interested in making change at a local level… They are different from a student just trying to finish a major. I feel like that’s one thing that is a huge strength for this [program]. It seems to attract a particular type of student who wants to be engaged in some way…’
Student agreement with the statement, “I am satisfied with the Food System major at the UVM” (n = 31 in 2023-24, n = 17 in 2024-25).
Student agreement with the statement, “I would recommend this program to others” (n = 31 in 2023-24, n = 17 in 2024-25).
Student survey results suggest that students’ professional interests are concentrated in practical, community-oriented, and applied areas of the food system, and that most believe the program is adequately preparing them to work in food systems (Figure 5). The fieldwork requirement appears to be valuable in this career preparation. Since 2017, a total of over 55,000 hours of fieldwork were completed by Food Systems majors. Students described program internships as the ‘most meaningful experience’ they had at UVM and emphasized that fieldwork opportunities helped them build confidence, professional networks, and clarity about future career paths. For example, one student shared, ‘I have made so many great connections through my internships. I have also gained valuable experience in the field and learned things that I would not have learned in the [Food Systems] classes.’ Another student added, ‘I think requiring field experience for the completion of a Food Systems degree is essential…food systems is an area of study that requires more than studying and tests. To improve the food system we desperately need people who are willing to get busy and dirty…’ While internships can be broad ranging, among the most popular are participation in UVM’s Catamount Educational Farm’s ten-acre fruit and vegetable operation, the Vermont Foodbank’s Food Access and Gleaning Program, and ACORN (Addison County Relocalization Network), whose mission is to promote the growth and health of local food and agriculture in Vermont’s Champlain Valley. While the fieldwork requirement has been broadly appreciated among students, a recurring challenge has been the misalignment between Vermont’s growing season and the academic calendar. Most Food Systems students prefer to limit their academic enrollment to the fall and spring when fewer preferred internships are available.
Student agreement with the statement, “I would recommend this program to others” (N = 31 in 2023-24, N = 17 in 2024-25).
Additional evidence of the value of the fieldwork requirement comes from internship evaluations. CDAE 3991 is the internship course that the majority of Food Systems students enroll in to complete their fieldwork credits. At the end of the semester, students enrolled in CDAE 3991 submit an evaluation of their internship experience. Data from 124 submissions, between 2022 and 2026, found that 93% of students agreed or strongly agreed that they learned new information, skills, or technologies; 85% agreed or strongly agreed that the experience helped them better understand their strengths and weaknesses; and 87% agreed or strongly agreed that it gave them a realistic preview of the field.
UVM also provides a rich environment to pursue undergraduate food systems research. Food Systems students have completed Honors College theses, had their research published in peer-reviewed journals, and presented their work at regional and national meetings and conferences. Food Systems students have access to diverse campus facilities and research centers, including the Food Systems Research Institute, Catamount Educational Farm, Proctor Maple Research Center, Institute for Agroecology, Institute for Rural Partnerships, Center for Rural Studies, Agriculture and Environmental Testing Lab, Nutrition and Food Sciences Kitchen Lab, and Campus Dining Services. Many program faculty have active research programs and regularly include undergraduate students in this work. Since 2022, the UVM Food Systems Research Institute has supported over 30 summer research fellowships for undergraduate students to study food systems issues relevant to Vermont. Funded projects encompass the diversity of food systems research spanning knowledge transfer between farmers to the use of nutrition assistance programs at farmers’ markets.
Food Systems students’ engagement beyond the classroom is further evidenced by their leadership roles in clubs and volunteer organizations such as local anti-hunger organizations including the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and on-campus Rally Cats Cupboard, and social justice organizations such as Migrant Justice and Huertas Project.
Highly engaged faculty are critical to the student experience
Food Systems faculty are highly regarded for their teaching and have received college, university, and national awards for their excellence in the classroom. As noted above, faculty also frequently engage students in their scholarship. Strong connections with Food Systems faculty are a hallmark of the student experience. In program evaluation surveys, students often praise the quality of instruction and their ‘passionate’ and ‘helpful’ instructors and comment on the relationships they have cultivated with faculty. Students also view the diversity of instructors in the program as an asset, ‘as each one has a different teaching style and perspective.’
Lessons learned
Clearly defining and implementing the transdisciplinary philosophy: ‘The program is like a “salad” instead of a “melting pot”’
While UVM chose to embrace a transdisciplinary approach to food systems education, student, alumni, faculty, and external feedback suggest this remains an area for program growth. As the external reviewer for the Academic Program Review noted in 2024, the program more closely resembles a salad than a melting pot.
A central challenge has been the absence of a clearly articulated and widely shared understanding of its core identity: Who are we, and what approach to knowledge production and education do we collectively subscribe to? This question remains insufficiently resolved among both long-standing and newer faculty. As one junior faculty member said, ‘I think we do inter[disciplinary] really well and the trans[disciplinary] maybe not so well because no one really knows what that means.’ This may be due, in part, to the reality that many program faculty are themselves trained in specific disciplines and all are primarily affiliated with discipline-specific academic units.
At the same time, there is broad agreement among participating faculty that complex food systems challenges cannot be adequately understood or addressed within traditional disciplinary boundaries. As one faculty member noted about the program’s core curriculum, ‘there’s so much pulling from policy and economics and systems theory and… sociology, anthropology, history… we pull on everything. That’s why I think it really works.’ Faculty recognize that siloed approaches are insufficient for grappling with the interconnected social, economic, environmental, and health dimensions of food systems. This shared recognition has served as an important unifying principle, bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines around a common commitment to more integrated and collaborative forms of teaching and research. However, to date, the program has not substantially utilized team teaching to compel integration across fields due to the tension created by faculty appointments within specific academic units and poorly aligned workload and course planning procedures between units in the College. Additionally, faculty have noted that it has been challenging to know how much interdisciplinary knowledge students are attaining from courses and experiences ‘outside of [each] classroom’ in the absence of regular curricular mapping or program faculty meetings. This impacts how progression through the curriculum can be scaffolded for students and introduces the risk of repetition, as students need such a diverse knowledge base in order to engage deeply with any given food system issue.
UVM’s Food Systems program has primarily enacted transdisciplinarity using applied problem solving, stakeholder engagement, and experiential learning through internships and community partnerships. While transdisciplinarity has increasingly been identified as a promising approach to knowledge generation and decision-making (Lang et al., Reference Lang, Wiek, Bergmann, Stauffacher, Martens, Moll, Swilling and Thomas2012; Rigolot, Reference Rigolot2020; Conner, Reference Conner2025), it is not a singular or universally agreed-upon concept. It is often characterized by the inclusion of non-academic stakeholders in the co-production of knowledge (Scholz and Steiner, Reference Scholz and Steiner2015a), but the concept has evolved through multiple intellectual traditions (Klein, Reference Klein2014). Our program aligns with what is sometimes referred to as ‘mode 2’ transdisciplinarity, a practice-oriented way of doing and utilizing science that emphasizes collaboration with stakeholders to address concrete real-world problems through participatory processes (Scholz and Steiner, Reference Scholz and Steiner2015a; Scholz and Steiner, Reference Scholz and Steiner2015b). Our program’s orientation has generated strong connections with practitioners and enhanced the real-world relevance of the program. However, the conceptual foundations of transdisciplinarity have not always been explicitly articulated or consistently integrated across the curriculum.
Faculty may also differ in how they define and operationalize transdisciplinarity in research or pedagogy, and there has been limited structured dialogue to develop a shared framework due to limited faculty meetings in the first eight years of the program. As a result, while the program has embraced many elements of transdisciplinary practice, its distinctive educational philosophy and methodological commitments remain only partially defined. Developing a clearer collective understanding of these commitments and creating structures that facilitate transdisciplinary teaching and learning are essential for strengthening the coherence of the curriculum and advancing a more intentional transdisciplinary model for global food systems education.
Balancing breadth and depth of curriculum: building discipline-relevant skills with systems thinking skills in a 4-year time frame is hard
Input from faculty and students suggests that the program has been highly successful in developing scholars with broad knowledge of different domains within food systems. However, many students cite repetition of basic food systems topics (e.g., Columbian Exchange, Green Revolution) across introductory courses and a wish for more rigor through advanced Food Systems-specific courses that cover distinct topics and skills. A challenge has been ensuring all graduates build depth of expertise in a specific area (i.e., the vertical bar of the T). Students often discuss the ways in which the program can be tailored to meet different needs, acting as a ‘baked potato’ that can be complemented and enhanced through the concentration. While this flexibility is praised by the most focused students, it can present challenges for those who are still building momentum towards a specific discipline. As one student put it, the ‘carve your own path’ nature of the program, ‘takes a type of person who is very self-motivated to get a lot out of it.’ For students without a strong vision for what they would like to accomplish, the program may offer ‘too much breadth and not enough depth’ (faculty comment). Administratively, the use of minors within CALS to deliver the concentrations expedited the launch of the major and took advantage of existing programming within CALS. However, this approach also has enabled some students to complete their degree while taking limited advanced-level courses. Each minor within CALS has distinct requirements, and some can be completed with exclusively introductory and intermediate-level coursework. Further, for some students who wished to gain depth in areas different from the minors offered within CALS, the requirements of concentrations could be ‘limited and confining.’
A recurring challenge for students is recognizing and articulating systems thinking. Many students appear to intuitively understand the interconnected nature of food systems and can identify relationships across social, economic, environmental, and health dimensions. For example, students often recognize how decisions about agricultural production influence environmental sustainability, labor conditions, food affordability, community well-being, and public health simultaneously. However, because systems thinking and transdisciplinary analysis are not always explicitly taught and framed within the curriculum, students often struggle to organize these insights in a structured way or apply them systematically to complex problems. Without examples that illustrate and name systems thinking concepts such as trade-offs, interdependencies, feedback loops, and multiple stakeholder perspectives—or a shared vocabulary to describe these patterns—they sometimes perceive their integrative thinking as unusual or out of place rather than as a distinctive intellectual strength. As a result, students may fail to recognize that their ability to think across disciplinary boundaries and identify relationships among complex issues is precisely the type of analytical capacity that complex food systems challenges require. A more intentional pedagogical approach that names, models, and reinforces systems thinking could help students develop confidence in this perspective and view it as a core professional competency rather than an individual peculiarity without depth.
Food Systems has the potential to feel like a ‘major in existential dread’
While students value the interdisciplinary and critical nature of the Food Systems curriculum, findings from the Academic Program Review and subsequent listening sessions also reveal an important tension within the major. Many students described feeling overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of contemporary food systems challenges such as climate change, food insecurity, labor exploitation, biodiversity loss, and public health inequities. In one listening session, a student joked that they chose to ‘major in existential dread’ by joining the Food Systems program. This perspective leads to a broader concern that exposure to systemic crises without sufficient attention to pathways for change can produce feelings of hopelessness, paralysis, or burnout. Faculty have similarly noted the challenge of balancing critical analysis of food systems issues with the need to prepare students to engage constructively and sustainably in this work over the long term. At the same time, many students in the program have described its interdisciplinary nature as a source of inspiration and possibility. As one student reflected, ‘the people give me so much hope for the future… I also like how [the major] touches on many things,’ suggesting that the relational and integrative dimensions of the program may help counterbalance the emotional weight of studying food systems challenges.
Our research findings reiterate the stance that preparing students for meaningful work in food systems requires more than specialized disciplinary knowledge. Notably, program faculty have described Food Systems student cohorts as particularly engaged, discussion-oriented, and willing to grapple with difficult topics in the classroom. One faculty member noted that Food Systems students ‘bring a lot of passion to understanding food systems’ and are ‘very interested in making change,’ while another reflected that they are often more comfortable facilitating conversations and engaging with uncomfortable or contentious issues than students in more traditionally disciplinary programs.
Governance and assessment: an area for improvement
The program’s original governance was set up to help support its transdisciplinarity by avoiding attachment to a single disciplinary unit in CALS. However, external review of the program highlighted that the program’s ‘vague governance structure’ created challenges to realizing the transdisciplinary goal. Faculty teaching in the program had little ownership of the design and delivery of the curriculum due to primary appointments to discipline-specific academic units. The Faculty Advisory Committee had a limited role in guiding the program’s direction, leaving most programmatic decisions solely to the director. Further, since teaching and advising assignments are determined within academic units, teaching and advising commitments to the Food Systems program were not guaranteed annually.
While UVM’s dedication to food systems scholarship ensures that relevant faculty are acquainted with one another, the program structure did not explicitly include cross-pollination and alignment opportunities. This may have been due, in part, to the program existing outside of CALS established disciplinary units (departments) and the absence of a program budget. Notably, to our knowledge, between 2017 and 2025, only one meeting brought together all core instructors in the program to discuss the curriculum. In the absence of regular faculty meetings, transitions in program instruction due to shifting commitments, retirements, and professional leaves create additional obstacles to effective program delivery and progressive scaffolding of content. In the 2025–2026 academic year, only one-third of the program’s core courses were taught by the same person who taught the course in 2018–2019, when the last curriculum mapping was conducted.
While consistent program assessment commenced in 2023, a paucity of assessment data prior to this year makes it challenging to assess the early effectiveness of the program. However, other metrics of success suggest Food Systems students are high academic achievers and create positive impact through their work. For example, in 2023, a Food Systems senior won CALS’ prestigious Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award for distinguished academic achievement and outstanding service.
Program evolution
As we look to the next decade of the program, we continue to hold the goal of transforming food systems for health and environmental, economic, and social sustainability as our North Star. The transdisciplinary approach remains the means by which we aim to achieve this goal. With this shared goal and purpose in mind, and in response to feedback received, the program has begun to substantially revise its mission, how it is governed, the overarching goals, the curriculum, and its assessment. We believe that these programmatic changes will help ensure that we can sustain and improve the quality of education and employability of food systems professionals. In this section, we outline the changes that have been made and are in progress, beginning with changes to the program’s governance structure.
Governance development
In late 2024, the CALS Dean’s office, in collaboration with the interim program director and key faculty, collaborated to document key responsibilities for a program director. This was the first time that the role had been fully outlined. A new director was appointed to direct program delivery, plan and execute program-specific events, and coordinate program assessment. Critically, the new director was immediately tasked with leading curricular revisions in line with recommendations from the Academic Program Review and provided with a modest annual budget to support program-specific activities.
To help address the lack of faculty ownership over the program and to ensure greater inclusion of different perspectives, in the 2025–2026 academic year, the faculty advisory committee was re-positioned as a faculty steering committee of individuals representing diverse departments within CALS. Starting in 2025, the steering committee, chaired by the program director, has representation across the four departments in CALS that have seen the most minor enrollments from Food Systems students—Nutritional and Food Sciences, Community Development and Applied Economics, Plant Biology, and Agriculture, Landscape and Environment, and is accountable for updating and reviewing the Food Systems program curriculum. This committee meets monthly to advise the director, vote on programmatic issues, and serve as liaisons for their departments. Beginning in 2026, student representation will also be included on the steering committee for the first time to share student issues and act as student liaisons. All members of the steering committee, including student members, will help support program events, such as tabling events, admitted student days, and honors days.
Learning from the last iteration of the program that Food Systems courses and advising are not always prioritized by departmental chairs, and to ensure workload commitment from across administrative units, the CALS Dean’s office and program director have drafted a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with individual departments. The goal of the MOU is to ensure that teaching for core courses, program advising, and service to the program is counted in the workloads of faculty associated in these capacities in the program. The MOU will also ensure students will be assigned an advisor, preferably in alignment with the student’s unique interests within the major and in consultation with the department chairs. For example, students most interested in cropping systems will be assigned an advisor in the Agriculture, Landscape, and Environment department while those most interested in food security will be assigned an advisor in the department of Nutrition and Food Sciences or Community Development and Applied Economics.
A further aim related to program governance is to advance alignment of program faculty and facilitate substantive collaboration. Faculty described the 2026 program faculty meeting and curriculum mapping exercise as a valuable opportunity to discuss their teaching with other instructors in the program: ‘This is really helpful for me in feeling like I have a better understanding of the progression of where students are coming from when I get them and where I’m trying to send them after I have them.’ Moving forward, the director will convene an annual faculty meeting to develop a definition of transdisciplinarity for the program, assess course content, discuss the effectiveness of specific assignments and teaching tools in achieving learning goals, make collective decisions, solve problems, and foster a shared sense of collegiality and support among faculty. An important administrative issue for continued program development is synergizing between the undergraduate and graduate programs to support shared learning and integrated pathways for undergraduate students interested in pursuing graduate education.
Reimagine program mission
Building on a vision to transform food systems through transdisciplinarity, and in response to recommendations provided in the 2024 Academic Program Review and our continued data collection, the steering committee met on multiple occasions in 2025 to review and refine the program. During that time, the steering committee worked to update the program mission and learning objectives and redesign the curriculum to embrace its transdisciplinary roots and more deeply embed systems thinking, while providing students the opportunity to build skills relevant to food system employers. Over the last year, the program’s mission and learning outcomes have been updated through a broader visioning exercise and corresponding curriculum update. These changes will become the starting point for conducting future assessments in the program.
The new program mission (Table 1) is to prepare students to advance more sustainable food systems as citizens and professionals. This includes applying knowledge related to the program’s focus areas to analyze the impacts of current food systems and design sustainable solutions that are based on credible evidence and consider place-based needs and contexts. Towards the pursuit of this mission, the program will be guided by three learning outcomes:
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1. Use systems thinking to understand complexity and interdependence across food systems;
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2. Communicate clearly and effectively about opportunities and obstacles to building sustainable food systems; and
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3. Apply skills from the classroom and field experiences to develop and implement solutions to pressing food systems challenges.
Comparison of past and future program description and requirements for the Food Systems B.S. at the University of Vermont
Table 1. Long description
The table compares the current and future Food Systems B S program requirements.
* Mission and Goal: The 2017 to 2026 program focuses on breadth across disciplines and depth in a specific natural or social science concentration. The 2026 program focuses on preparing students to advance sustainable food systems through evidence-based design and place-based solutions.
* Description: Both programs provide foundational knowledge in environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The 2017 to 2026 program requires a minor-based concentration and 6 credits of internship/research. The 2026 program is highly individualized with faculty-advised plans of study and 4 credits of internship/research.
* Introductory Courses: Both require MATH 1077 (3 credits), STAT 1110 (3 credits), C D A E 1020 (3 credits), N F S 1043 (3 credits), P B I O 1060 or 1040 (3 to 4 credits), and A L E 1210 (3 credits). F S 1930 changes from 2 credits to 1 credit. The 2026 program specifically requires N F S 1073, whereas the older version allowed a choice between C D A E 1040 or N F S 1073.
* Intermediate Courses: Both require F S 2010 / N F S 2113 (3 credits). The 2026 program replaces F S 2020 and F S 2030 with C D A E 2101 (3 credits), N F S 2195 (3 credits), and N F S 2196 (1 credit).
* Advanced Courses: The 2017 to 2026 program requires one 3000-level elective (3 credits). The 2026 program requires F S 3090 / C D A E 3090 (3 credits) and F S 4930 (3 credits).
* Field Experience: Credits decrease from 6 in the old program to 4 in the 2026 program.
* Concentration and Focus Area: The 2017 to 2026 program requires a C A L S minor (15 credits). The 2026 program uses an individualized plan of study (18 credits) including at least three 2000-level and two 3000-level courses, plus a 3-credit skills course.
Notably, the final learning outcome focuses on solutions. Findings from our program evaluations point toward the importance of helping students develop not only diverse technical competencies, but also a grounded sense of empathy, agency, and confidence in their ability to participate in food systems transformation through systems thinking. We consider one of the emerging responsibilities of food systems programs to be creating conditions in which students can critically engage with problems while also developing the relational capacities, practical skills, and sense of possibility necessary to sustain long-term engagement in building a more hopeful, healthful, and sustainable future. Grounded professionals who can translate discipline-specific scientific solutions into holistic solutions that address multi-dimensional issues across the food system are needed.
To reflect the program’s commitment to a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge creation and action, three awards were introduced for graduating seniors: the transdisciplinary research award (for excelling at transdisciplinary research), the engaged scholar award (for translating academic achievement into meaningful contributions to ‘real world’ food systems), and the food systems practitioner award (for the demonstrated commitment to the advancement of sustainable food systems).
Curricular revisions to balance breadth and depth of scholarship
The Academic Program Review and revised program mission and learning outcomes underpinned specific changes to the curriculum. These changes, as outlined in Table 1, were designed to fill identified gaps in student learning, improve support to higher-level learning, and help students synthesize knowledge and skills prior to graduation through a capstone learning experience. To help scaffold the learning experience and to support student success and satisfaction in the program’s flexible curriculum, all first-year students will be pre-scheduled into the program’s required introductory courses, including a seminar course designed to introduce the major, opportunities for experiential learning, and potential careers. Rather than requiring students to complete a minor to serve as their programmatic concentration, a set of potential plans of study for students with varying interests (e.g., food entrepreneurship, farm management, food security) have been outlined to support course selection and planning, but the program will be highly individualized by students working with their faculty advisors. These plans of study will require students to take more upper-level courses. A capstone project will challenge students to integrate and apply knowledge, skills, and concepts learned through the Food Systems degree.
To help reduce redundancy in content across courses and identify areas where additional instruction is needed, instructors of all required Food Systems courses were invited to a collaborative curriculum mapping workshop in early 2026. Nine individuals attended this in-person workshop, representing 75% of core courses in the program. Attendees divided based on course level and potential overlap and worked to reach consensus on how to divide teaching core concepts in introductory courses and identify areas where students need additional skill development (e.g., identifying misinformation online, communicating in groups).
Assessment plan
With the above-described programmatic changes, a new assessment plan was developed to track and measure progress towards the program’s updated mission. This involved creating a curriculum map to show where program learning outcomes are taught and assessed, as well as clarity on when program assessment will occur going forward. The goal is for assessment to be primarily focused on reviewing the portfolio items collected annually in Food Systems Seminar II. Portfolio items from the program’s capstone seminar will assess students’ progress toward program learning outcomes and will evaluate their understanding and application of the program’s transdisciplinary approach. The alumni survey, disseminated every three years, will assess the long-term effectiveness of the approach in supporting skills development and career progression. Beyond maintaining institutional accreditation, ongoing assessment is needed to continuously improve student learning and drive further curriculum refinement. Critically, continued dialogue is needed with colleagues beyond the university to align workforce preparation with jobs in the food system.
Each year, there will be an assessment team convened, consisting of the program director, at least one member of the steering committee, and the instructor for Food Systems Seminar II. The program director will be responsible for appointing the assessment team and providing an orientation. Members of the Assessment Team will meet twice annually to review, analyze, and discuss the assessment plan and data. The Assessment Team will report back to the full Food Systems Steering Committee and the CALS Associate Dean of Student Services and Academic Programs to share results and discuss plans for moving forward.
Conclusion
The Food Systems program at UVM is well-positioned to prepare students for impactful careers within our local and regional food economy, drawing on a set of key strengths that align closely with emerging opportunities in the field. Strengthening and improving the sustainability of food systems by cultivating capable and confident food systems professionals remains the program’s North Star. By balancing big-picture thinking with scientific depth and rigor, graduates leave prepared not only to navigate complex food systems challenges, but to drive meaningful change within them. While we continue to seek to achieve transdisciplinarity and support the development of t-shaped food systems professionals, we aim to remain flexible and continue to adapt to the evolving needs of food systems and realities of higher education.
In this piece, we reflected on the efforts taken to build the program and the inputs needed to both sustain and build on this momentum. Above all, in alignment with UVM’s land grant mission, we remain committed to generating long-term value for our students and our regional food systems economy.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the students, alumni, and faculty who provided data for program evaluation and this paper. We also wish to thank the External Reviewer for our Academic Program Review for providing valuable external insight into our program. The Codex app (https://openai.com/codex/) was used on May 13, 2026, to assist with the preparation of survey-based figures (Figures 3–5) from author-provided Microsoft Excel data files. Codex was used to recode Likert-scale responses into grouped categories, calculate counts and year-specific response shares, generate and revise charts, combine outputs across survey years, and make figure-formatting adjustments, including layout and color changes. Specifically, the tool was used to produce figures for the statements ‘I am satisfied with the food systems major at UVM,’ ‘I would recommend this program to others,’ and ‘I feel this program is preparing me for a career in food systems,’ and to create cross-year comparisons between the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 student surveys. The underlying source materials were author-supplied survey workbooks. No external datasets were introduced by the tool. This tool can be accessed for free online, and the app can be downloaded and installed on a computer device. The graphs were generated in Microsoft Excel and remain accessible to the authors in spreadsheet form. Final edits to the graphs were made by the authors using Microsoft Excel, and all underlying graph data were verified by the authors. JPEG files were converted to TIF format using Codex.
Funding statement
Open access publication of this article was made possible with funding from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Vermont.
Competing interests
All authors are or were recently employed at the University of Vermont and affiliated with the undergraduate Food Systems program.
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