Certificates

The 15-credit interdisciplinary certificate examines the current affairs of energy and sustainability. Students begin with an overview of how energy affects peoples’ lives and policy options for energy, as well as the science of energy and how energy is generated for today’s society. Students then select additional energy courses tied to geography, architecture, geology, engineering, or economics depending on their specific interests.

The School of Sustainability offers a 15-credit interdisciplinary Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems, a comprehensive, sustainability-oriented introduction to food systems for undergraduate students. The certificate, which complements a variety of majors from Agribusiness to English, draws from food-related courses in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, and applied sciences.

Developing sustainable solutions requires collaboration across industries. Many organizations, businesses, governments, and agencies seek individuals with knowledge of sustainability and experience applying sustainability concepts. The graduate certificate in sustainability prepares students to apply sustainability problem solving methods to challenges in a wide array of disciplines and organizations. The 15- credit certificate is available as a stand-alone program or may be used to enhance a student’s experience in another area of study.

The global energy system is a complex system. Leaders in sustainable energy require a transdisciplinary perspective that combines technical, economic, social and policy dimensions of energy systems. The certificate in energy and sustainability is designed to train students from diverse educational backgrounds to see beyond the boundaries of traditional methodologies and disciplinary viewpoints, enabling them to integrate technological knowledge with societal insights. The 15-credit certificate is available as a stand-alone program or may be used to enhance a student’s experience in another area of study. Students in this certificate can select their elective coursework from a pre-approved list.

Achieving sustainable economies, corporations and communities requires the consideration of tradeoffs. Environmental and resource economics (ERE) provides a rigorous framework for weighing these tradeoffs. It also provides theory and data analysis tools for understanding how individual consumers and companies respond to the incentives presented by markets and government policies.

This 15-credit graduate certificate is offered online with two weeklong, in-person sessions. The program will help the next generation of food policy leaders understand the current policy landscape and how it was shaped; position them to impact policy by training them on the elements of a strategic policy campaign; allow them to apply their knowledge to real-world policy problems; and develop a network of leaders in the policy community, including strong mentoring relationships, that participants can draw on throughout their careers.