Areas of Study

Environmental Science (Climate, Biodiversity, Pollution)

This area of study focuses on the scientific process, principles, and methodologies required to understand the interrelationships within the natural world. Environmental Science covers how Earth’s physical, chemical, and biological components interact with each other, their effects on the environment, and how they impact global systems such as climate, water, energy, and air among many others. This area also involves investigating the complexities of how humans interact with their environments including biodiversity, human population growth, ecosystem services, biogeochemical cycles, food resources, climate change, pollution, waste production, and sustainability.

Environmental Justice (Communities & Mobilizations)

This area focuses on understanding how environmental issues impact communities, peoples, and places in differential ways often tied to issues of power, access, and opportunity in a given society and on a global scale as well. Delving into case studies, community mobilizations, data utilization strategies, advocacy campaigns, and vulnerability indicators, among other factors, coursework in this area will explore historical and contemporary justice issues across a range of environmental and climate-related challenges (e.g., food, water, energy, health, land, and more), with a focus on cultivating skills and tools for transformation.

Environmental Culture (Humanities, Arts, Communications/Media)

The European Environment Agency defines this area as: “The total of learned behavior, attitudes, practices and knowledge that a society has with respect to maintaining or protecting its natural resources, the ecosystem and all other external conditions affecting human life.” Within this broad construct, there is a focus on how environmental issues are framed across varied media from social networks and movements to performances and narratives. Through this lens we seek to understand the meaning of environmental and climate challenges and to develop mechanisms for transforming our understanding of them.

Environmental Governance (Law, Policy, Government)

In this area of study, we interrogate the intersection of environmental issues with law and economics, focusing on decision-making processes, power dynamics, and policy impacts. Central themes will include how decisions are made and conflicts addressed, where the locus of power and policymaking resides (at local, regional, national, and international scales), and how legislative initiatives are deployed in environmental campaigns. Matters of process will be considered as they influence substantive outcomes, as we develop tools to identify leverage points and assess the impacts of interventions. Central themes will include how positions are articulated and conflicts addressed, where the locus of power and policymaking resides (at local, regional, national, and international scales), how private- and public-sector entities address sustainability issues, and how legislative initiatives are deployed in environmental campaigns.

Core Competencies

Environmental Science and Interdisciplinary Approaches

Build a foundational and integrated understanding of the core knowledge in the fields of environmental and sustainability studies, to engage in critical, systematic, and interdisciplinary analysis of interconnected and interdependent human and ecological systems.

Global Communities & Local Impacts & Actions

Develop the knowledge and behaviors that inform responsible local and global action to address environmental and sustainability challenges.

Diverse Perspectives

Develop mindsets and practices for responding to ecological problems through direct and sustained engagement with diverse perspectives, with humility and respect.

Justice and Ethics Lens

Cultivate an understanding of the past and future of environmental inequities and differentiated environmental risk impacts, especially for marginalized communities, in the context of future action and intergenerational justice and ethics.

Innovation & Changemaking

Develop and practice the capacities to collaborate and lead on environmental change issues, in spaces that are constantly changing and uncertain.

Sense of Hope & Agency

Formulate a sense of personal and communal agency, grounded in the realities of the state of the environment, and guided by hope and the heart, in order to move from crisis to possibility.