Indigenous and local knowledge systems offer valuable insights and practices that complement and enhance scientific approaches that create understanding, mitigate sustainability challenges, and build resilient communities.

Gateway Academic Programs

Academic Programs

Penn State students can engage sustainability’s biggest challenges through their coursework, service, and applied experiences. In alignment with our Climate Consortium, the Sustainability Learning Gateway’s overarching themes provide pathways to learning about sustainability challenges, diving deep into the issues inside and outside of the classroom, and developing expertise that is personally, civically, and professionally meaningful. You can also search by your level, undergraduate or graduate. We have included these academic programs for one of three reasons. The program must:

  1. Require sustainability explicitly (Ex: Renewable Energy and Sustainability Systems, Energy and Sustainability Policy, or Sustainability Leadership);
  2. Provides a track or pathway for students to easily incorporate sustainability into the program (Architecture, Public Policy, or Ethics)
  3. Affords creativity or innovation to students to integrate sustainability into their program (Ex: Art, Integrative Sciences, or Music Composition).

There is a lot of information on these pages. To make the most of it, don’t hesitate to set up an appointment with an academic adviser or a trusted mentor for assistance. If you have questions or feedback about the Gateway, please email: sustainability@psu.edu.

African Studies (B.A.)
Develop your understanding of various aspects of the African continent, including its socioeconomic conditions and global relations.

Community, Environment, and Development (B.S.)
In addressing just and sustainable development, this major incorporates climate change, statistical research, economics, and more in this multidisciplinary porgram focused on communities.

Geography (B.S.)
Study geography with optional applications in fields such as environmental issues or urban and regional planning.

Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management (B.S.)
Explore the theoretical, managerial, and technical facets of recreation, parks, and tourism to enhance sustainable engagement and management.

Civic and Community Engagement
Extend your education beyond the classroom through engagement in socially meaningful public scholarship in community projects.

Environmental Studies
An interdisciplinary introduction to the natural environment and human interactions with it.

Food Systems
Prepare for for existing and emerging food systems careers through interdisciplinary studies of health, science, economics and business, community, agriculture, the food service industry, and policy.

Geography
Study geography with optional applications in fields such as environmental issues or urban and regional planning.

Landscape Architecture
Learn the art of design, planning, or management of the land and of the natural and built elements upon it.

Sustainability Leadership
Promote environmental, social, and economic sustainability in personal and professional lives through studying systems thinking, change agency, ethics, and more.

Development and Sustainability in Africa
Learn about relationships between development and the different environments on the continent, and consider the inter-relationships between development and equality, as well as the key drivers of change.

Environment and Society Geography
Engage frameworks such as political ecology, environmental geography, sustainability, and globalization to address how geographers approach questions concerning human-environment relations, environmental processes, and environmental justice.

Landscapes: Societies, Cultures, and Political Economies
Examine human societies and how their cultures, economies, and politics develop within the context of their environment.

Keystone Certificate for Integrative Humanities
Understand how issues of intersectionality, history, interculturalism, global perspectives, democratic and ethical decision making, and other areas fundamental to the humanities relate to being better citizens at work and in local, national, and global communities.

Community and Economic Development
In addressing just and sustainable development, this major incorporates climate change, statistical research, economics, and more in this multidisciplinary porgram focused on communities.

Rural Sociology
Understand the various facets of societal organization pertinent to the rural sector.

Transdisciplinary Research in Ecology and Society
A dual-title program with tracks to focus in anthropology, energy and mineral engineering, education policy and leadership, and more.