Sustainable Communities, Master of Arts

In addition to University Requirements:

• Complete individual plan requirements.

Minimum Units for Completion	36
Additional Admission Requirements	Individual program admission requirements over and above admission to NAU are required.
Fieldwork Experience/Internship	Required
Thesis	Thesis is required.
Oral Defense	Oral Defense is required.
Research	Individualized research may be required by chosen emphasis or offered as an option.
Progression Plan Link	View Program of Study
Accelerated Undergraduate/Graduate Plan	Optional

Purpose Statement

The mission of the Master of Arts in Sustainable Communities is to provide interdisciplinary face-to-face graduate education on the complex issues of sustainability and social justice, encouraging students to pursue important social and environmental issues concurrently. The program seeks to educate students as critical thinkers for community leadership and to enable its graduates to contribute to the well-being of communities. At the same time, the program aims to push students intellectually, looking to produce thoughtful and critical graduates who can think theoretically. The curriculum is student-centered; students bring their intellectual, ethical, and practical concerns to bear on their particular academic inquiry. These skills are sharpened in collective collaborations between students and different communities through praxis.
 
Central Concepts Of The Program
 

• Sustainable Communities: sustainability encompasses the interactions between human and natural systems; sustainability is broadly defined and emphasizes the necessity for people to live in communities. Students explore what makes communities economically, environmentally, socially resilient and equitable, and how to ensure that communities have a direct say in building their future. They also examine the interactions and networks that form between different communities at the local, bioregional, national, and international levels.

• Civic Engagement: students envision themselves as interconnected to the fabric and leadership of the university through both their work on the university campus as well as their meaningful participation in the larger Flagstaff community through the use of various models of activism, organizing, and scholarship. This includes examination and use of various models of activism and organizing, historical analysis of movements for social change, and other scholarship on democratic practice and civic engagement.

• Inquiry-based Research: recognizes the interdependence between theory, modes of inquiry, and practice. Students explore models and understandings of action research and community-based research.

• Scholar-Activism: scholarship and praxis acknowledges and speaks directly to the needs of communities and offers theoretically and empirically pragmatic solutions grounded in sustainability. Approaches are inherently interdisciplinary and take into account the social, cultural, economic, and ecological dimensions of issues.

• Social Justice: considers issues of environmental and community sustainability as deeply interrelated. Students examine relationship between intersectionality of multiple identities (e.g. race, ethnicity, social class, gender identity, language) with issues of power, access to resources, place, climate change, and ecological impact.

• Social Transformation: recognizing that individual transformation in terms of knowledge, understanding, and skills are deeply connected to collective transformation, students critically reflect and demonstrate elements of individual transformation as well as the implications of their work towards collective transformation.

 
Student Learning Outcomes
 

• Define, examine and apply various interdisciplinary definitions and conceptions of sustainable communities

• Distinguish, formulate and evaluate interdisciplinary theories and modes of social transformation through multiple communities.

• Identify, question, and transform power dynamics between environmental, economic, ecological, and social factors that foster or inhibit sustainable communities.

• Name, describe, interpret positioning self along lines of differences and lived experiences vis-à-vis sustainable communities

• Appreciate, generate, and apply interdisciplinary methods of inquiry.

• Recognize, explain and synthesize how global, local, economic, political, and cultural systems are interrelated.

• Think critically through reading, writing and discussions.

• Work collaboratively along lines of difference (e.g. race, class, gender, etc.) in classrooms and communities.

• Foster and develop strong interpersonal, listening, and leadership skills.

• Develop and apply different ethical and social justice frameworks.

• Translate understanding to action and commitment using multiple change-agent strategies.

• Imagine and design possible alternatives of sustainable communities.

• Facilitate and create inclusive, diverse, egalitarian, and democratic spaces in the classrooms and communities.

 

Additional Admission Requirements

• Individual program admission requirements over and above admission to NAU are required.

• The NAU graduate online application is required for all programs. Admission to many graduate programs is on a competitive basis, and programs may have higher standards than those established by the Graduate College.
  
  Admission requirements include the following:

  • Transcripts.
  • Undergraduate degree from a regionally accredited institution with a 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale ("A" = 4.0), or the equivalent.

  
  Visit the NAU Graduate Admissions website for additional information about graduate school application deadlines, eligibility for study, and admissions policies.
  
  Ready to apply? Begin your application now.

  International applicants have additional admission requirements. Please see the International Graduate Admissions Policy.

• • Three letters of recommendation
  • Personal statement or essay

Master's Requirements

• This Master’s degree requires 36 units distributed as follows:

  • Sustainable Communities Common Coursework: 17 units
  • Sustainable Communities Focused Electives: 13 units
  • Integrative Project or Thesis:  6 units

  
  Take the following 36 units:

  • SUS 601, SUS 602, SUS 603, SUS 604, SUS 608, SUS 695 (17 units)
  • Electives related to sustainable communities and focused on your area of study, chosen in consultation with your graduate advisor. Courses may include independent study and fieldwork experience, as well as special topics courses and courses from disciplines across the University. (13 units)

• • Select one of the following:
    • Integrative Project: SUS 689, for the preparation of a final integrative project.
    • Thesis: SUS 699, for the research, writing, and oral defense of an approved thesis.
    • Please note that, in preparing your thesis or integrative project, you may end up taking more than the 6 units of thesis/project credit because you must enroll each term while you are working on your thesis/project.

Additional Information

• Be aware that some courses may have prerequisites that you must also successfully complete. For prerequisite information, click on the course or see your advisor.

• This program is available as an Accelerated Undergraduate/Graduate Plan wherein a student may start a master's degree while simultaneously completing their bachelor's degree.

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