Academic Programs
Updated March 2008
With programs focused on environmental sustainability and climate change integrated across the curriculum, Colorado State students are well prepared to be strategically competitive in meeting this surging need for a highly skilled green-collar workforce.
Alternative Energy and Biofuels
Colorado State is a leader in alternative energy and biofuels research and offered one of the first courses on biofuels in the country. CSU is internationally known for its research developing clean energy solutions, and this includes programs in alternative fuels, clean engines, photovoltaics, and other solar energy production capabilities, "smart" grid technology, wind engineering, water resources, and satellite-based atmospheric monitoring and tracking systems. Students are active participants in both classes and research activities in all these areas of academic engagement.
Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes
The Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes is a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center focused on understanding and predicting the role of clouds in the Earth’s climate system and improving the representation of cloud processes in climate models. The Center has a science and education mission to educate and train people with diverse backgrounds in climate change and earth-system science by enhancing teaching and learning and disseminating science results. This educational mission has extended to hosting the Colorado Global Climate Conference in 2008 and a workshop on Weather and Climate for Teachers in July 2008 for certified teachers of any grade level.
Ecology
The Graduate Degree Program in Ecology (GDPE) at Colorado State University is an interdisciplinary program for students with interests in a wide range of ecological subjects. The program's goal is to provide advanced training in current ecological methods, theories, concepts, controversies and applications by drawing together individuals and synthesizing knowledge from a wide variety of traditional disciplinary areas of science. The program is jointly administered by the Warner College of Natural Resources and the College of Natural Sciences. It currently involves 113 faculty members from 17 departments.
Environmental Affairs Interdisciplinary Program
The Environmental Affairs interdisciplinary certificate program is designed for students of all majors who have a particular interest in environmental topics. This is a 21-credit undergraduate certificate program centered in the College of Liberal Arts but also including courses from the rest of the university. Similar to a minor, completion of the certificate program is noted on a student’s transcript. The program's core in the social sciences and humanities is supplemented with science and elective courses. It provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to draw upon Colorado State University's environmental expertise as they broaden their education.
Environmental Engineering
CSU offers a graduate program in Environmental Engineering, which aims to understand human and natural environments and how they function, and to understand how they can be damaged and how hazards arise from environmental contamination. Environmental Engineering research projects at Colorado State have included water reuse planning, aquatic habitat assessment, stream restoration, health hazards of land treatment, water planning, water quality monitoring, giardia removal, filtration theory, water quality standards, nonpoint source pollution, fate and transport of toxic organics and heavy metals, biological treatment of organics, road dust and deicer impacts and urban stormwater management.
Environmental Philosophy and Environmental Ethics
The Philosophy Department in the College of Liberal Arts offers master’s and doctoral programs with an emphasis in Environmental Philosophy and Environment Ethics. University Distinguished Professor Holmes Rolston is a co-founder and associate editor of Environmental Ethics and founding past-president of the International Society of Environmental Ethics.
Environmental Learning Center
The Environmental Learning Center is both a unique learning environment and a valued natural resource in Northern Colorado. The ELC is situated on 212 acres of land located approximately three miles east of CSU’s main campus, on the banks of the Poudre River at the end of the Poudre River Trail. It is managed through CSU's College of Natural Resources and staffed primarily by students. With four distinct ecosystems on the property — wetlands, riparian, cottonwood forest, and prairie ecosystems — the ELC is home to a diversity of flora and fauna and birds in the care of the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program. The mission of the ELC is "to connect people with nature by facilitating educational, inclusive and safe experiences in the natural environment and to advance the field of environmental education through sound research and practice."
The ELC provides programs for schools, scout troops, the general public, families, and others. The ELC also conducts and hosts many research projects affiliated with Colorado State University, from evaluating the effectiveness of experiential learning to studying the song patterns of chickadees.
Environmental Politics and Policy
The Political Science Department in the College of Liberal Arts offers a graduate program with a unique concentration on the study of environmental politics and policy.
Environmental Psychology
CSU has offered a graduate seminar in environmental psychology and an undergraduate course in environmental psychology for over 30 years. The Environmental Psychology textbook authored by Paul Bell, Ross Loomis (first edition), and CSU alumnus Tom Greene is in its fifth edition and is used at universities throughout the world; it has even been translated into Chinese. Graduates of the environmental specialization in CSU’s Psychology Department have been placed with numerous universities as well as with the U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, and the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.
Extension
CSU Extension makes extensive educational information available to the public about topics such as water conservation in and around the home, xeriscaping, graywater reuse and rainwater harvesting, operating a home irrigation system, and more.
Fair Trade and Environmental Sustainability
The Graduate Program on Social Change in the Department of Sociology at CSU offers courses designed to explore the questions related to fair and alternative trade, globalization, and the environment, including SOC660 (Development Theory), SOC666 (Globalization and Socioeconomic Restructuring), SOC667 (State, Economy and Society), and SOC669 (International Inequality and Change).
FEScUE
FEScUE is a multidepartmental program at Colorado State, funded by the National Science Foundation, that engages undergraduates and faculty in mathematics, statistics, and the life sciences in jointly mentored interdisciplinary research clusters and in structured multidisciplinary coursework. The program is built around actively engaging students in research clusters mentored by two senior faculty members, one from mathematics and one from the life sciences. FEScUE currently encompasses three research clusters representing traditional and emerging strengths in research at CSU: Ecology and Evolution; Bioinformatics; and Structural Biology. The need for interdisciplinary research that combines the mathematical and life sciences is increasingly urgent as our abilities to gather data outpace our ability to effectively analyze the data we collect--and as we seek to understand phenomena over ever wider ranges of scales. While the jointly-mentored research experience is the program’s focal point, FEScUE is a comprehensive educational experience that includes special seminars, gateway and fusion courses, and career advising.
Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise Master of Science Degree
To address global challenges of poverty, environmental degradation, and poor health, the College of Business has created a new 18-month Master of Science in Business Administration degree in Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise that teaches students to use entrepreneurial, sustainable approaches. The curriculum tailors business subjects to address the challenges of sustainable global enterprise and offers cross-disciplinary courses including social entrepreneurship, microfinance, and ecological perspectives for business. At the core of the GSSE experience is team-based project work, which enables students to work on real-world opportunities, often with leading institutions in the field of environmental conservation and international development.
Green Building Certificate Program
The Institute for the Built Environment at CSU has created a program that focuses on sustainable building tools and strategies, including LEED®, the nationwide rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council. Its Green Building Certificate Program is an on-campus, accelerated evening program providing critical knowledge about emerging practices in commercial and residential building.
Human Dimensions in Natural Resources
The Human Dimensions in Natural Resources Department offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, with undergraduate concentrations in protected area management, global tourism, natural resource tourism, and environmental communication. A degree can lead to a career as an outdoor education specialist, park ranger, tourism planner, recreation manager, or adventure tour guide. More than half of Colorado state park employees are graduates of this department.
Little Shop of Physics
CSU’s hands-on science and physics education program is collaborating with the University’s Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP) in taking science education and environmentally focused science projects to schools and the community.
Master Gardener Program
The Colorado Master Gardener Program through CSU Extension trains volunteers to assist in delivering knowledge-based information about home gardening to Colorado residents. The Master Gardener training consists of more than 66 hours of classroom instruction offered in counties statewide. While content is focused on the interests of home gardeners, 20% of the students who participate are in the green industry and use the classes for career training.
Mechanical Engineering
The Mechanical Engineering program at CSU offers a curriculum that combines classroom learning with engineering practice. Students not only learn about mechanical engineering analysis and design, they also gain valuable hands-on experience through class projects and application-oriented research. All senior mechanical engineering students can participate in designing and building a capstone project that is part of a national senior design competition. Students also have the opportunity for research-based projects. Each project is based on a corporate model that provides students significant opportunities for leadership development and experiential learning. In the graduate program, master’s and Ph.D. students are integral members of research teams addressing global issues. Student researchers apply the fundamental concepts of mechanical engineering to aid in the development of new technology in areas which include: biofuels, clean engines, photovoltaic solar cells, battery technologies, materials science, bioengineering, plasmas and space propulsion, dynamics and controls, and motorsport engineering.
Pingree Park Summer Field Program
CSU is uniquely positioned to educate natural-resources professionals because of its Pingree Park mountain campus, a Rocky Mountain high valley (9,000 feet above sea level), located approximately two hours from Fort Collins and surrounded by two National Forests and Rocky Mountain National Park.. Academic classes held during the summer provide outdoor labs, field study, and classroom work to undergraduate students with majors in fishery biology, forestry, natural resource management, rangeland ecology, and wildlife biology.
Program for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Ecology, and Statistics
The Program for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Ecology, and Statistics (PRIMES) at CSU is designed to address the challenges of studying complex ecological systems. Modern studies of ecological systems incorporate an extremely wide range of scientific and quantitative techniques, from the collection of data in the field, to the modeling of complex systems. Consequently, quantitative ecology has become an inherently multi-disciplinary activity. The idea underlying PRIMES is to equip graduate students from ecology, mathematics, and statistics with the skills to work at the interface of the three disciplines and to support research on ecological problems involving advanced quantitative tools. PRIMES activities concentrate in the areas of Ecology of Managed Ecosystems, Ecology of Global Change, Dynamics of Introduced Disease, Aquatic Resources Modeling, and Evolution in Structured Populations. These activities include innovative course offerings, early exposure to team-based research, and the hosting of long- and short-term visitors, workshops, and internships and mentoring for students by ecologists working in national laboratories and agencies.
Protected Area Management & Training
The Warner College of Natural Resources offers the Wildlands and Protected Area Management course. This course has been in place for 17 years with more than 350 past participants from 26 countries. Each year, the course strives for carbon neutrality. This year, it calculated the CO2 emissions emitted by participant travel and course operation, and then offset these emissions by donating money to construct energy efficient cookstoves.
Solar energy conversion
Bruce Parkinson, professor of chemistry at Colorado State University, has expertise in the areas of solar energy conversion and the hydrogen economy. He offers a course on "Energy and Society" through the University Honors Program.
Warner College of Natural Resources
All academic departments in the Warner College of Natural Resources have an environmental focus: Fish/Wildlife; Forest/Rangeland; Geosciences; and Human Dimensions in Natural Resources. The Warner College offers a large number of freshman courses, an interdisciplinary degree program in environmental management, and an interdisciplinary certificate in conservation biology.
The Western Center for Integrated Resource Management
The Center’s mission is to improve the sustainability and profitability of forage-based agriculture and natural resource systems through integrated, innovative multidisplinary research and education programs. The program offers a Master of Agricultural Sciences degree that involves contributing faculty from the College of Agricultural Sciences, the Warner College of Natural Resources, and the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. The long-term goal of the Western Center is to "improve the competitive position and sustainability of independent livestock producers and the economic and environmental health of rural communities."
