Mar 29, 2024  
2020-2021 UMass Dartmouth Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2020-2021 UMass Dartmouth Undergraduate Catalog [Archived Catalog]

Sustainability Minor


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This 18 credit minor helps students develop both broad understanding and practical skills that contribute to their marketability to potential employers, including private businesses that have greened their production methods, public agencies, think tanks, and non-profit organizations. Outcomes include:

  • The addition of a sustainability knowledge base
  • The ability to identify unsustainable practices and to offer the latest science and technological solutions to reduce the impact of these practices
  • The capacity to affect policy implementation at the local, regional, national, and global levels
  • A deeper understanding of the local and global challenges to sustainability from economic, environmental and social perspectives

A minor must be completed at the time of the degree and will be so noted on the student’s transcript.  A student cannot be readmitted to the University to complete only a minor.

Program Requirements (Minor)

The Sustainability Studies minor consists of 18 credits, distributed as follows:

Required Foundation Course (3 credits)


At least ONE of the following (if more than one is taken, the additional course(s) count as electives):

Content Area Breadth Requirement (9 credits)


At least ONE course (3 credits) in EACH of the following three content areas:

  • Sustainability in the Natural Sciences
  • Sustainability in the Arts, Thought, and Media
  • Sustainability in Economy, Society, and Policy

Additional Elective Courses (6 credits)


TWO elective courses in any content area.

Upper-Division Credit Requirement


Of the 18 credits used to complete the minor requirements, at least nine must (a) be numbered 300 or higher AND (b) may not count toward the student’s major requirements. All credits used to complete the minor requirements may count toward college and University Studies requirements.

Elective Courses


Most Sustainability electives are courses offered by participating faculty in other departments, and these courses bear the prefixes and numbers assigned to them by those departments. Occasionally, an elective will run only as “SUS,” but most often it will be cross-listed in both SUS and other department(s). The “content area” designation of these courses varies by topic.

·  SUS 202 - Topics in Sustainability Credits: 3

·  SUS 350 - Special Topics in Sustainability Credits: 3

·  SUS 450 - Advanced Seminar in Sustainability Studies Credits: 3

·  SUS 495 - Independent Study Credits: variable; 1.00 to 6.00

·  SUS 496 - Directed Study Credits: variable; 1.00 to 6.00

Sustainability electives are also sometimes offered as “topics” within variable topics courses in other departments. In these cases, courses are approved for Sustainability credit on a topic-by-topic basis. Such courses are denoted below with the caveat “Approved Topics Only,” followed by recent examples of approved topics.

New courses and topics are approved every semester, so students are strongly encouraged to contact the Sustainability Director for the most up-to-date list.

In some cases, students may “contract” to take courses that do not normally run as Sustainability electives for Sustainability credit, provided that the student is able to use the course assignments to examine issues of sustainability. Contracts must be approved by the Sustainability Director.

Sustainability in the Natural Sciences


Sustainability in Economy, Society and Policy


Sustainability in the Arts, Thought and Media


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