Mission

The Ramapo College Masters in Sustainability Studies will equip its students to build upon and transform their experience and knowledge into the burgeoning practice and discourse of sustainability. We intend to collaborate with potential sustainers in learning how to project sustainability into a variety of institutional, organizational, cultural, professional, and geographical contexts.

The Masters in Sustainability Studies reinforces the four pillars of the Ramapo College Mission Statement. The MASS mission is thus defined:

• Sustainability engages the discourse on globalization and such international issues as promoting innovative forms of durable livelihood and inventing solutions to climate change.
• By its nature, sustainability must be thoroughly interdisciplinary, encompassing the interplay among economics, ecology, ethics, culture, communities, and social organizations.
• Sustainability significantly involves indigenous peoples and world cultures. Cultural restoration and protection of indigenous peoples provides a central theme in sustainability. All such interventions culminates from participatory processes which involve the affected communities.
• The Ramapo College Masters in Sustainability Studies will feature a prominent experiential component. The program will enable sustainers to effectively participate in building sustainability and to demonstrate innovation in the implementation of sustainability within a diversity of contexts.

Goals

The student will demonstrate through oral and written communication:

1. A sound understanding of sustainability within these contexts:
   • Biophysical/human dynamics within such realms as natural resources and non-exploited species; ecosystems and landscapes; and the biosphere itself
   • The built environment and appropriate technologies
   • Organizational/social processes within communities and about social change
2. The application of knowledge of and intervention in the realms of civil society, government, and business
3. The practice of applied research in sustainability, including gathering and evaluating information pertinent to sustainability in these contexts
4. The written and oral communication of sustainability at technical and popular levels of discourse

Assessment

Annual assessment of student learning is guided by the goals stated above. To facilitate the annual assessment, the curriculum identifies in year two of the program a specific process and locus by which student engagement translates into specifc and formidable outcomes, the capstone proect. Further, the exit interviews conducted by the Director with an appropriate faculty member will directly feed back into the delivery, content, and structure of the program. The Director will, after consultaion with the convening faculty, circulate to the Provost and to all other interested parties a final report for the academic year, due by the end of June of that year. Conforming to standard policy, a five-year review will be conducted.

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Ramapo College, Master of Arts in Sustainability Studies | Version 1.1
Initialized: 2/24/2008 | Last Update: 2/28/2008