M.A. in Environmental Studies

 

Program Faculty and Application

Graduate Program Coordinator:   Ed Weber

Program Advisor:  Dr Mark Neff

Applications are done through the Western Graduate School. 

Program Mission

The Master of Arts in Environmental Studies is a two-year, interdisciplinary academic degree, designed to prepare students to productively engage in societal discourse, analysis, and decision making regarding human-environment interactions. Students in this program co-design their academic emphasis with their faculty advisor. We share a commitment to fostering critical thinking and contextual understanding alongside technical skills and knowledge.

Program faculty have expertise in and offer courses in physical geography, human geography, environmental justice, environmental governance, energy systems and policy, disaster studies, environmental sociology, geographic information science, and science policy. Our program prepares students for careers in government, consulting, advocacy, business, teaching, and research, as well as advanced academic and legal degrees.

In addition to our ENVS MA, we offer a graduate certificate in GIS. This certificate complements many areas of scholarship. ENVS MA students have priority admission to this certificate.

Over the last 15 years, we have graduated 81 students; over 85% of our accepted applicants received at least a partial teaching assistantship or research assistantship at the start of their program to support their education. All received at least some teaching or research assistant position during their time in the program. For those who received only partial support, over a third received added funding through recruitment incentives or tuition waivers.

Areas of Faculty Expertise

Beginning upon arrival in the fall of their first year, each student works with their academic advisor to identify a thesis or project topic, specify research questions, and select methods to address those questions. Students should work with their faculty advisors as well to select the courses most appropriate to their educational goals. Coursework is essential to an academic master’s degree; we encourage students to use their coursework to add breadth, depth, and critical engagement to their developing expertise. Below are areas in which our faculty teach and have expertise, but students are encouraged to consider relevant courses from across campus. 

Environmental Policy, Politics, and Governance

Scholarship in this area emphasizes critical engagement with the roots of environmental controversies, environmental injustice, disaster vulnerability and the material impacts of natural resource use. It explores existing and emerging approaches to governance that bypass entrenched political disagreements to achieve equitable social and environmental outcomes.

Work in this area emphasizes environmental decision-making with particular focus on the ecological, economic, political, and social factors that affect environmental governance processes. Research methods in this area draw from the full range of the social sciences and include some that are more typical of the humanities. Typical methods include: interviewing, surveying, discourse analysis, statistical and geospatial analysis, policy analysis, case studies, and Q method.  

Core faculty advisors include Kate Darby, Mark Neff, Rebekah Paci-Green, Xi Wang, and Cam Whitley.

Our faculty are engaged in scholarly work in the areas of:

  • Environmental justice
  • The roles of science in environmental controversies and decision making
  • Environmental governance
  • Disaster risk reduction
  • Sustainable development
  • Human dimensions of natural resource management
  • Critical animal studies

Geography/GIS

Geography is the science of place and space. Environmental Geography links the social sciences and natural sciences, studying the relationships between human activity and natural systems. We draw on knowledge from many different fields of study to give us the big picture of how and why socio-ecological systems and cultural and natural landscapes interact over space and time. Geographers use quantitative, qualitative, and spatial analysis methods and techniques to explore geographical patterns and processes. Our program offers strong opportunities to develop skills in Geographic Information Science (GIS), remote sensing, and cartography.

Core faculty advisors include Andy Bach, Patrick Buckley, Aquila Flower, Francisco Laso, Michael Medler, David Rossiter, Laurie Trautman, and Xi Wang.

Geography faculty expertise and scholarship includes the fields of:

  • Biogeography
  • Climate change
  • Economic geography
  • Geographic Information Science
  • Historical geography
  • Long-term environmental change
  • Political ecology
  • Pyrogeography
  • Salish Sea and US-Canada regional geography

Energy Policy

Scholarship in this area includes energy system transitions, stakeholder engagement, energy policy, innovation policy, and environmental politics/policy.

Core faculty advisors include Mark Neff, Imran Sheikh, Charles Barnhart, Froylan Sifuentes, and Xi Wang.

Our faculty are engaged in scholarly work in the areas of:

  • Energy studies
  • Energy efficiency
  • Energy system transitions

ENVS Graduate Program Learning Objectives

Upon graduation, Environmental Studies masters students will be able to:

  1. Identify and explain the complexity of issues and processes which contribute to an environmental problem.
  2. Describe how their research is situated in the history and scope of environmental studies.
  3. Identify a range of theoretical frameworks and methodologies used in environmental studies and explain the appropriate contexts for their application.
  4. Demonstrate a fundamental knowledge of disciplines relevant to their research topic.
  5. Explain, justify, and correctly execute a method(s) appropriate to their research topic.
  6. Use effective verbal presentation skills to share their research plans and results.
  7. Use writing skillfully to communicate theory, methods, results, and relevance of their research project.
  8. Independently design, implement, and complete a research project (thesis or field project).

Prerequisites

  • Students with a 4-year degree in Environmental Studies or related fields, who meet the requirements of the Graduate School and who show evidence of superior scholarship, are encouraged to apply.

    • Specific test requirements: The GRE exam is not required to apply, but can often provide additional insight into your academic ability.   If you include your GRE scores, they will be evaluated as part of our whole-person review in conjunction with your transcripts.

Program Requirements (45 credits minimum)

Application

  • Generally admitted during fall quarter only.   Application Deadline:   1 Feb
    • Admission for subsequent quarters will be considered on a space-available basis and would require strong support/advocacy of faculty advisor
  • Applications are all done online with the WWU Graduate School.
  • GRE Test is now optional. If you take it, your score will be used as part of our whole-person review process.
    • There is no minimum score requirement