Environment and Community, M.A.

The Environment and Community Program is a 2-year, interdisciplinary Master of Arts program. Environment and Community focuses on the diverse relationships between environment and community using interdisciplinary perspectives. We find just and sustainable solutions to complex social and environmental challenges, grounded in the knowledge that racial justice,
settler colonialism, and environmental problems are deeply intertwined. We seek to foreground intersectional and decolonizing understandings of power/privilege and identity in environment and community interrelationships. We welcome future researchers, tribal, government, or nonprofit leaders,
political and policy organizers, and all those who want to make contributions
to their environment and their community. Join us in:

• embracing critical interdisciplinarity in the context of environment and community relations.
• advancing just sustainability and environmental justice using frameworks that acknowledge the power-laden connections between race, other axes of social difference, and environment.
• learning with and from our students, teaching advocacy, supporting their interests, and mentoring them to be effective leaders.

Program Admission Requirements

Postbaccalaureate Candidate Pathway

Completed B.A. or B.S. degree from an accredited college or university.

• Prior coursework in the liberal arts.
• Applicants whose coursework does not include the liberal arts should indicate in their statement of purpose how they plan to acquire a basic understanding of liberal arts expertise and research before beginning the program.
• Coursework, training, certificate programs, written materials, advocacy, community work, and/or lived experience that foreground intersectional and/or decolonizing understandings of power/privilege and identity.
• This requirement can be met by taking an additional course on power, privilege and/or Indigenous studies/decolonization in the first semester of the program. *
• Please describe how you have met or will meet this requirement in your statement of purpose.
• Minimum 3.0 grade point average in the last 60 units of coursework.
• If you have less than a 3.0 in the last 60 units, then we recommend ensuring that one of your letters of recommendation is from a faculty or advisor and speaks to your ability to navigate graduate-level work.
• GRE scores are not required.

*This additional course does not count toward the M.A. degree requirements.

Bachelor’s + Master’s (Undergraduate) Pathway

The Environment and Community program has developed, in conjunction with select undergraduate majors, CBMP that enable exceptional students to simultaneously earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in five years. Although the pathway does not change undergraduate major nor graduate degree requirements, students in the program progress from undergraduate to graduate status. Students are eligible to apply for the pathway upon completion of 60 units. A faculty committee evaluates student applications. Participation is based on prior academic performance and other measures of academic excellence.

Requirements for the Degree (30 units)

For a description of degree requirements to be fulfilled in addition to those listed below see, “Master’s Degree Requirements ”.