Catalog Entries |
Spring 2012
Apr 25,2024 |
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 | Select the Course Number to get further detail on the course. Select the desired Schedule Type to find available classes for the course. |
| SUST 600 - IS: SUSTAINABILITY |
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0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Independent Study Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 605 - FOUNDATIONS: SUSTAINABILITY THEORY |
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This course is aimed at imparting a broad and deep knowledge about the discourses of sustainability, as they pertain to the theory and practice of dealing holistically with social, ecological and economic systems, under the conditions described above, and with a particular concern for the well-being of present and future generations. We will review key texts, and seminal works that shape the current state-or-the-art in sustainability discourse, and we will learn to apply this discourse to the practice of sustainability.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 610 - FOUNDATIONS:NATURAL RESOURCES,PROCESSES & MANAGEMENT |
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This course presents a broad survey of the critical, foundational concepts related to natural resources and their sustainable management. As a team-taught course, topics are addressed within four thematic modules: (a) geological resources; (b) water, pollutants and waste management; (c) energy and climate change; (d) applied ecology. Most weeks, the class is divided into three segments: (1) lecture about critical principles; (2) student presentations about case studies from the tri-state region; (3) seminar-style discussion about readings from the primary literature. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on how to extract useful lessons from case studies of environmental sustainability and degradation at local, regional and worldwide scales.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 630 - METHODS & PRACTICES OF SUSTAINABILITY |
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Sustainability does not occur in a vacuum. Its context is the myriad problems that exist at the meeting point of society, economy and environment. Identifying, addressing and monitoring these problems is essential for the achievement of sustainability. Over time, it involves constant course correction to keep these three realms in balance. Steering requires an ongoing flow of information, a way to analyze and understand it, a way to disseminate it and a way to act on it. This core course for the second term in the MASS program is intended to complement and run concurrently with the Organizational and Social Process course. Methods and Practices of Sustainability focuses on appropriate means for gathering information to support sustainable analysis and interventions and actions as well as how to use community information to build agreement and consensus. An emphasis on particpatory approaches to documentation, discourse, valuing and decision-making is given, informed by the national Environmental Policy Act, the public participation methodology beginning in the 1970s and participatory design methods. The focus in the companion course is on the community dynamics involved. Here the question is how participation is accurately and adequately informed.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 640 - ECONOMICS OF SUSTAINABILITY |
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How can the economy be harnessed to serve world sustainability? What makes this question so ironic is that the growth in the physical scale of the economy and its rapacious character under economic globalization has depleted resources, destroyed ecosystems, overwhelmed natural waste disposal sinks, waged war on subsistence cultures, and produced shocking maldistribution of wealth and income. How, then, can the economy be turned around to reinforce sustainable development rather than to destroy ecosystems, resource endowments, and indigenous cultures? This alchemy must be resolved to promote sustainability. The now familiar definition of sustainable development from the Brundtland Commission Report, World Commission on Environment and Development, defines sustainable development as: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." How adequate is this definition? Can the precept adequately define guidelines for policy prescription and ethical principles? Does it ensure justice? Will democracy be nurtured? What economic strategies can promote sustainability? Has the concept been distorted to serve narrow commercial interests? The Economics of Sustainability takes up the challenge of working out an ethical and strategic analysis upon which to base civic action, public policy, and normative legitimacy. The global economy, a robust engine of change, must generate world sustainability rather than amplify entropy or indulge corporate interests. This challenge must include but transcent notions of a green economy and must extend its principles globaly.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 650 - SUMMER PRACTICUM |
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The summer Practicum acts as a fulcrum, pivoting the program from its First-Year focus on theory to its Second-Year emphasis on practice. Students will be guided into internships or fieldwork opportunities that will help them develop their understanding of how sustainability is implemented, in ways which help prime their thinking about their own second-year Capstone experience. This course takes the form of supervised fieldwork, and must serve to underscore the criteria of the triple bottom line, in that the activity engaged in must simultaneously consider ecological, social, and economic variables.
The (typically) four-week internship will be book-ended by one week of reading-intensive preparation and one week of writing-intensive reflection. Each Practicum must entail a minimum of 150 formal work hours, supervised by MASS faculty, or by pre-approved faculty from within the Ramapo College community, or, in special cases, by guest faculty drawn from the broader MASS social network. The course will meet on a weekly basis, apart from the actual internship or fieldwork experience, so as to ensure adequate on-going feedback and guidance by faculty. Digital conferencing will be used in cases where students are working abroad or are otherwise away from Ramapo. Students will prepare and maintain a Field Journal, to track their progress through the experience, and completion of the Practicum will be marked by the preparation of a reflective de-briefing report which lays out the experience and the learning embodied by the internship or fieldwork.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 660 - SUSTAINABILITY STUDIO |
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The purpose of the Sustainability Studio is to provide an experiential, project-based lecture/lab space where participants can explore and develop the complex of skills and abilities needed for implementing sustainability. Each year, a site-specific real-world project will be designated to provide the context within which students will work, in teams, to accomplish sustainability objectives, and to develop the collaborative work-practices needed for conducting the interdisciplinary sorts of work that sustainability requires. Using techniques deriving from complexity theory, such as adaptive management, and applying tools and techniques that foster collaborative decision-making, participants will work to craft proposals that meet the designated sustainability objectives.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 670 - EXPERT PRACTITIONER SEMINAR |
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The purpose of this course is to set up models and metaphors for the practice of sustainability. By examining what sustainability practitioners actually do, and how they got to be where they are, students will gain first-hand insight into the pragmatic world within which such practices are negotiated. Some key themes that may emerge and be opened for exploration might deal with the sociology of practice, the significance of relationships, the ability to transcend the material world and grasp its formative processes and functions, the importance of goal-directed but adaptationist thinking, and an appreciation of the ways in whch the sustainability world actually works. This course will be broken up into three-week modules, with each module anchored by a visiting expert sustainability practitioner. Typically, the first week will entail intensive research in preparation for the visiting expert. The second week will take the form of a workshop focused on the visitor's work. And the third week will entail assimilation and reflection. Participants will emerge with a clear understanding of the practical dimensions of sustainability implementation, and a nuanced appreciation for the institutional frameworks within which sustainability practitioners typically operate. Students will be able to articulate key lessons learned from diverse sets of experiences to which they will be exposed. And they will be able to explain some of the key variables that determine success and failure in the world of sustainability practice.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Seminar Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 710 - PROJECT DEVELOPMENT |
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The purpose of this course will be to develop the policies and protocols leading up to an implementation program for the Capstone Project in the subsequent semester. Students will work with assigned advisors and other specialist faculty to explore the policy implications of potential alternatives and to finalize a program for the Capstone Project. Interactive presentations will allow all participants to learn from one another, and to share in each other's research process. Interdisciplinary panels of faculty and visiting experts will be assembled to give detailed feedback and direction to students at key milestones. A workshop seminar format will be maintained.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Lecture Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 720 - CAPSTONE PROJECT |
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This will be the culmination of the Second Year experience, building on the work done throughout the two-years of the program. Working closely with program faculty, participants will develop their final project, and gain experience in making professional presentations to jury panels.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Seminar Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
| SUST 721 - PROJECT CONTINUATION |
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Project Continuation is required for students who have not completed either SUST 710 Project Development or SUST 720 Sustainability Capstone Seminar in the allotted timeframe.
0.000 TO 1.000 Credit hours 0.000 TO 1.000 Lecture hours Levels: Graduate Schedule Types: Administrative Sustainability Department Course Attributes: MSS COURSE FOR GRAD FEE ASSESS |
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