Sustainability Studies (B.A.) with Community Development Concentration

Program Overview

Mission: Sustainability Studies is an interdisciplinary major in an emerging field for those determined to make a practical difference in the world as students and beyond. It combines elements of the social sciences, politics, environmental sciences and community development in both urban and rural settings. The major requires a core curriculum; a chosen concentration in Community and Urban Development, or Sustainable Agriculture; and a practicum experience in the form of an internship employing the skill learned in the curriculum. Students completing this major will have the theoretical basis, skills, and experience needed to enhance the environmental, economic and social sustainability in the church and society.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates from Messiah’s Sustainability Studies program can:

1. Describe human systemic pressures on environmental systems and the basic ways in which these pressures impact human and other biological life
2. Evaluate ethical assumptions made about human-environment interactions in social and individual decisions
3. Formulate a personal understanding of sustainability, and integrate that understanding into a vocational direction
4. Develop strategies to personally and collaboratively engage in action toward improving social and ecological ailments
5. Design and implement interventions to transition human institutions and/or social systems toward sustainability.

Graduates with the Community Development concentration can also evaluate the economic, political, and social barriers to creating a socially and ecologically just society

Graduates with the Conservation and Agriculture concentration can also evaluate ecological health and the social changes needed to conserve human wellbeing and biological diversity

Major Requirements

Complete the following for your major:

Nine credits from the following:

Three credits from the following:

Community Development Concentration (21 credits)

Three credits from the following:

Eighteen credits from the following:

General Education Requirements