Do you want to use your knowledge and skills to promote justice, resilience, and positive change in the ways humans interact with our shared environment? Are you interested in learning how you can participate in the decisions shaping the future? Then the Environmental Studies – Environmental Policy, Politics, and Governance concentration is for you.
This Policy, Politics, and Governance concentration is a future-oriented degree that trains students to understand the nature of environmental disputes within the context of history, political economy, policy, and culture to empower them to be effective change agents. It teaches students to work beyond entrenched disputes to collaboratively identify mutually acceptable interventions that respect nature and help society achieve its goals.
Students will become familiar with how policies and politics change over time and how to effectively enact future change. Students will learn about democratic mechanisms, regulatory processes, grassroots activism, collaborative and deliberative governance, and market-based strategies for change. Coursework will emphasize how these processes can be used to promote environmental and climate justice, resilience, and sustainability.
Environmental Policy, Politics, and Governance students go on to establish careers in the private sector; with non-profit organizations; with federal, tribal, and state agencies, such as Forest Service, NOAA, EPA, DNR, and Ecology; and with local municipalities. In all these sectors, graduates are empowered with ethical frameworks, skills, and insights to work towards a more just and sustainable world.
Sample Careers
Environmental consultant, environmental analyst, policy analyst, environmental and/or justice advocate, environmental communications specialist, emergency manager, and more. Additionally, graduates can pursue careers in international non-governmental organizations in the areas of humanitarian aid and international development.
This concentration prepares students also for graduate work in social sciences, science and technology studies/policy, political ecology, disaster studies, natural resource management, environmental/energy law, public administration, international development, and related fields.
