I am here first and foremost for students, whether you are in my class, my advisee, or really just anyone- ALE, CALS, UVM, or even from anywhere else. I have an open door policy.
For Fall 2024 my Student Office Hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:00 – 11:30 AM, Wednesdays 8:30-10:00 AM, or by appointment. Please make an appointment at: tbradsha@uvm.edu.
As a fruit crop specialist; Director of Catamount Educational Farm; former commercial fruit grower; and raised on a multi-generation Vermont dairy farm, I bring a real-world, experienced perspective to teaching and scholarship around food and farming systems. My teaching role within Food Systems and Agroecology is to provide a farm-based perspective in agriculture and food systems curricula.
I cannot say enough good things about Terry. He’s an awesome lecturer, the content is super interesting (even when it’s not), he’s brought on awesome guest lecturers even after we transitioned to online, etc. But I think the best thing about him is that his approach to being a professor isn’t just about teaching us content, it’s about helping us learn how to think critically about it, which is something that I think has really been missing in a lot of my other classes at UVM. Especially in a class like this when there is a lot that’s open to interpretation, he encouraged us to really learn how to get all the information, name our biases, and develop informed opinions that weren’t rooted in ideology or tropes. -2020 CDAE 208 student
My teaching philosophy is simple: food production is a complex topic that requires science-based knowledge; farmers are operators of complex systems with environmental, social, and economic components that require transdisciplinary skills; and foundational knowledge in crop science and food systems is necessary to be successful. In order to convey such information, I strive to provide complete and balanced information. My teaching style is primarily experiential, but with a firm foundation in classroom-derived concepts so that students understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘how’ farms are managed. When students are presented unbiased (or bias-acknowledged) information from multiple sides of a topic, they may best make up their own minds by developing critical thinking skills that will benefit them beyond the course at hand.