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Sustainability Studies (B.A.) with Community Development Concentration
Program Overview
Director: Brandon Hoover
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:
- Describe human systemic pressures on environmental systems and the basic ways in which these pressures impact human and other biological life
- Evaluate ethical assumptions made about human-environment interactions in social and individual decisions
- Formulate a personal understanding of sustainability, and integrate that understanding into a vocational direction
- Develop strategies to personally and collaboratively engage in action toward improving social and ecological ailments
- 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:
SUST 495: (capstone) Fulfills Writing Enriched course requirement for major.
Nine credits from the following:
STAT 269 meets the QuEST requirement for Mathematical Sciences
Community Development Concentration (21 credits)
Three credits from the following:
| SOCI 271 | Quantitative Research Methods and Statistics | 3 |
| SOCI 281 | Qualitative Research Methods | 3 |
| POLI 243 | Political Research Methods | 3 |
Eighteen credits from the following:
QuEST Requirements
| Experiential Learning requirement | 0 |
| QuEST requirements | Credits |
| First Year Seminar | 3 |
| Oral Communication | 3 |
| Created and Called for Community (W) | 3 |
| Mathematical Sciences (STAT 269)** | 3 |
| Laboratory Science (BIOL 140/SUST 140) | met/major |
| Science, Technology & the World (BIOL 216) | met/major |
| Social Science *** (SOCI 310) | met/major |
| European History or United States History | 3 |
| Literature (ENGL 174 suggested) | 3 |
| Philosophy and Religion | 3 |
| Arts | 3 |
| First Semester of Language | 3 |
| Second Semester of Language | 3 |
| Third Semester of Language or Cross Cultural | 3 |
| Non-Western Studies (SOCI 212) | met/major |
| Bible | 3 |
| Christian Beliefs | 3 |
| Wellness | 1 |
| Ethics (BIOL 315), World Views or Pluralism | met/major |
| QuEST requirements | 40 |
| Major requirements (inclusive of concentration) | 54 |
| Free electives | 29 |
| Total credits | 123 |
*INTE 394 must be taken for a letter grade to fulfill Major requirement.
**STAT 269 meets the QuEST requirement for Mathematical Sciences
***ECON 117