Emerson College
AC-3: Undergraduate Program

While each major program at Emerson engages the liberal art in a manner appropriate to its discipline(s), there is also a distinct Liberal Arts curriculum—Foundations, Perspectives, and Minors—in which all students engage and which accounts for more than a third of their overall educational experience. The Foundations curriculum introduces first-year Emerson students to the intellectual life of the academy and its responsibilities to the wider world. Courses cultivate the habits of thought, methods of inquiry, and means of presentation that will enable students to understand and participate in deliberations about the academic, professional, and public issues they will encounter in their undergraduate education and beyond. The structure of the Perspectives Curriculum guarantees that students will discover a variety of liberal arts disciplines beyond their major. Through exposure to the major liberal arts traditions, they emerge with an understanding of the different kinds of questions and methods that each of these knowledge communities engages as well as tools to develop critically informed perspectives that are appreciative of diversity and conducive to becoming ethical, informed, and active participants in society. Students who declare a minor will be afforded opportunities for increasingly more challenging and sophisticated work in the chosen disciplinary or interdisciplinary field. Each Liberal Arts minor consists of four to five courses (16-20 credits) and requires completion of core and elective courses from a list of specified options. Environmental Studies is one of the 15 minors, with many other minor courses having sustainability themes (e.g. Science Minor, Philosophy Minor, Political Science Minor, Global and Post Colonial Studies Minor, and History Minor).

This interdisciplinary minor examines environmental processes, challenges, and solutions from a variety of perspectives, including science, policy, economics, history, ethics, media, literature, and the arts. Students will explore the relationships between people and the environment, focusing in particular on the sustainable use of natural resources and the causes, consequences, and communication of the complex environmental problems faced by human societies, including air and water pollution, habitat loss and restoration, and climate change. Students must complete 4 courses, 16 credits, from the list of courses below to complete the minor. Students must select at least one course from each track and must complete at least one course at the 300/400-level.