Sustainability is about choices made within specific environmental, economic, social, and cultural contexts. Sustainability scholarship involves creating, integrating and harnessing new knowledge to protect and improve social and natural systems and their interactions.
The Department of Community Sustainability (CSUS) is an interdisciplinary department that addresses contemporary issues of sustainability in agriculture, recreation, natural resources, and the environment. The Department of Community Sustainability (CSUS) was formerly called the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies (CARRS).
Consistent with its mission to assist in the development of sustainable communities, the department offers three undergraduate majors linked by a common core in community sustainability. These three majors – Environmental Studies and Sustainability (ESS); Sustainable Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SPRT); and Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Education (AFNRE) – share a set of courses centered on community sustainability. The CSUS graduate program offers two graduate majors: Community Sustainability (MS and PhD) and Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas Management (MS and PhD). In both undergraduate and graduate programs, CSUS embraces international as well as domestic applications, engagement, and opportunities.
UNDERGRAD: CSUS undergraduate programs are designed to educate scholars and practitioners who are able to create, integrate and harness new knowledge to protect and improve both social and natural systems. We offer a core curriculum in community sustainability that supports three majors: Environmental Studies and Sustainability (ESS), Sustainable Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SPRT), and Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Education (AFNRE).
GRADUATE: CSUS offers two graduate degree programs: one in Community Sustainability (CSUS) and the other in Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas Management (STPAM). Both programs offer Master of Science (MS) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees. CSUS is for students who want an advanced degree related to community sustainability and are interested in interdisciplinary research. STPAM is for students who want an advanced degree related to parks, recreation and tourism with an emphasis on sustainability.
Photo of community garden in Vanuatu courtesy of Michigan State University College of Agriculture & Natural Resources.