Environmental Studies and Sustainability (BA)

The conservationist Aldo Leopold once described his fear that education is a process of "learning to see one thing by going blind to another." In learning to see the world through the specialized lenses of academic disciplines and professional careers, he was pointing out, people often lose sight of the whole—in particular, of that fundamental reality that the world is not a backdrop to human life, but a complex, wonderful planet on which that life depends.

Expertise is essential to addressing the profound environmental challenges of our time. But these challenges are so deep, their nature so complex, and their scope so global that tackling them also requires visionaries who can appreciate, integrate, and communicate across different fields and industries.

Aurora University’s BA in Environmental Studies and Sustainability is an exciting major that takes this foundational principle as its starting point. It combines a grounding in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities with an integrative focus on learning experiences designed to nurture students’ ability to communicate across disciplines and tackle real-world problems. Students in the program explore regional and global environmental issues through a variety of lenses, seeking not only to understand their place in the natural world, but to chart paths forward.

With its broad curriculum, the Environmental Studies and Sustainability major is intended to supplement another field of study, such as Biology, Business Administration, Communication, Human-Animal Studies, Parks and Recreation Leadership, and Political Science and Public Policy among others. By earning a double major in the program, you will be prepared for graduate study in a variety of fields and be poised to address environmental issues within whichever sector you ultimately seek employment. And even with a second major, you will still be able to graduate in four years.