Sterling College (VT)
IN-27: Innovation D

The Self Sufficiency Task Force was established in Spring 2020 to assess a way forward for the College amid the public health and economic crises that will likely continue in the wake of the pandemic. This task force was assembled specifically to inventory Sterling’s existing land-based resources as leverage points for increasing both institutional and community self-sufficiency and resilience. Such a task included establishing specific goals for increasing community food and energy security and identifying those existing assets and initiatives already underway, as well as possibilities for the intensification and expansion of those efforts necessary to achieve these goals. This process necessarily demanded a further enumeration of resource needs to meet these expanded goals. Each of these points of analysis was placed within a four-part framework that sought to situate our effort within the mission of Sterling College and the Wendell Berry Farming Program. The four nodes are: 1) Institutional-Level Self Sufficiency 2) Community Function 3) Curricular Intersection 4) Work Program Integration