2023-2024 Course Catalog
Welcome to Virginia Tech! We are excited that you are here planning your time as a Hokie.
Welcome to Virginia Tech! We are excited that you are here planning your time as a Hokie.
1115: Strategies to promote sustainability through the identification, description, and analysis of the dominant interconnections within and between environmental, social, and economic systems across local to global scales. 1116: Perceptions of, conditions of, and strategies to analyze processes of change within complex systems, and promote sustainability across local to global scales.
Introduction to problem solving related to natural resources and environmental issues. Developing a sense of identity and place within the college while acquiring skills and knowledge that enhance academic success. Exposure to programs on campus that support sustainability and student success. Introduction to a variety of career pathways within natural resources and environmental conservation.
Problem solving related to natural resources and environmental issues, focusing on research, writing and oral presentation skills. Orientation to the college while acquiring skills and knowledge that enhance academic success, including university resources and professional/ personal ethics. Introduction to a variety of career pathways within natural resources and environmental conservation. Restricted to transfer students.
Leadership principles and humanities perspectives that help examine and engage global sustainable development challenges such as climate change, food-water-energy nexus, rising middle class, circular economy, and environmental justice. Topics include collaboration, stories, conflict resolution, self-awareness, bias, equity, religion, hubris, globalism, and moral naturalism. Examine trade-offs among economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainable development. Integration and application of disciplinary topics including ethics, ecology, evolution, anthropology, economics, religion, aesthetics, and risk management.
Elements of professionalism and principles of success across a wide spectrum of natural resources careers. Skills for ethical and professional interaction including effective communication, advancement of diversity and inclusion, and personal responsibility. Career preparation principles including employer outreach, job seeking, resume writing, and interview preparation. Guest speakers from academia, industry, and government. Pre: Senior standing.
Examination of domestic and international natural resource use, exploitation, and degradation problems, with special focus on use of economics to understand why potential overuse of natural resources exists, and what policy options are available to correct these problems and ensure sustainable natural resource use over time. Water, forests, fisheries, land and exhaustible resources. Permission of instructor may be substituted for the pre-requisite.
Preparation for leadership roles in the natural resource professions. Introduction to theories of leadership; characteristics of effective leaders; leading and working in interdisciplinary teams. Techniques of meeting facilitation; written and oral communication skills in a leadership context. Effects of preferred modes of interacting with others, perceiving information, making decisions, and approaching tasks on the ability to lead and work with others. Consent of instructor.
Preferred styles for dealing with change and conflict; generational change in the workplace; approaches to negotiation and resolution of conflicts. Exploration of specific models of leadership. Application of leadership skills, conflict resolution, teambuilding and project development skills in student group projects. Consent of instructor.
Practicum in sustainability. Synthesize and integrate knowledge from undergraduate career and apply to real world problems of sustainability. Topics and projects selected from opportunities to examine specific local and regional sustainability issues on the VT campus, in the New River Valley and the Commonwealth at large. Pre: Senior Standing.
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