Undergraduate Course Catalog 2010-2011
College of Life Sciences and Agriculture
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Community and Environmental Planning (CEP)
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Professor: Robert T. Eckert, Lyndon E. Goodridge, John M. Halstead, Bruce E. Lindsay
Associate Professor: Mimi Larsen Becker, Kelly L. Cullen, Douglas E. Morris, Robert A. Robertson
Lecturer: Mary Adamo Robertson
Extension Associate Professor: Charles A. French
The community and environmental planning (CEP) program is designed to equip students to operate in contemporary and future planning environments in which the challenges related to the creation of viable and sustainable built environments are a reality. UNH’s program is designed to provide students with the theoretical and applied knowledge and skills that will equip them to be effective community or environmental planners. They will be expected to be able to anticipate and foster sustainable development at various landscape scales and to help communities and natural resource managers to effectively facilitate and implement land resource management decisions.
The community and environmental planning program prepares students for professional careers as community, regional or environmental planners, and community facilitators and educators. Local municipalities in New England and other regions in the country are turning to full-time professionals to assume responsibility for the day-to-day planning activities that were previously carried out by part-time town officials. Officials at the New Hampshire Municipal Association estimated that New Hampshire needs, each year, at least twenty-five new graduates in community and public administration to fill local government professional needs. In addition to professional planning positions in local or regional government, employment opportunities are also available with public agencies and organizations at the state, national, and international levels. Job opportunities range across the landscape: town planners, regional planners, public lands managers or planners, water resource planners, coastal zone resource planners, land conservation organizations, cooperative extension specialists, etc. This program has high expectations for student performance as the practice of the planning profession has important consequences for the health of communities and resource systems these future planners will serve.
The program is of necessity interdisciplinary and consists of a core set of requirements as well as a focus area or minor. Both natural resource and human systems sustainability principles are embedded in all aspects of the program. Students will develop their capacities to integrate human and natural systems as they develop critical thinking and technical planning skills. They will have the ability to facilitate citizens' engagement in planning, analyze community and resource problems and facilitate development of viable alternative solutions to aid decision makers. To accomplish these outcomes, students will develop a sound understanding of what sustainability means as well as a strong belief that they can make a difference in bringing about a more sustainable future. They will learn how natural systems function, how human activities impact natural systems, how governance works at various scales, including locally, and develop basic administrative and technical planning skills to support sound, sustainable community level land use and environmental service decisions. Students will be ethical collaborators, trained to foster interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approaches to planning. They will have successfully completed an approved planning internship.
To attain these results, the CEP core requirements include planning and decision making; communications, law, governance and conflict resolution; environmental and social systems; economics and statistics, as well as applied internship experiences. Students are encouraged to undertake independent research. In addition to the core, students, in consultation with their advisor, design a focus area or minor, in which they can develop specialty tools and field experiences geared toward entry level jobs in the community and environmental planning fields. For example, elective courses in Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing, Watershed Management, Wetlands Management, Pollution Control, Forest Management, Sustainable Agriculture, Justice Studies, Environmental Policy, or Tourism can form a focus area of expertise.
The program also provides a firm base for graduate study in a variety of areas such as regional planning, public administration, environmental planning, environmental information and law.
Students interested in the contributing their energy and talents to mastering the challenges of community and environmental planning should consult with Dr. Mimi Larsen Becker, CEP program coordinator, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, 134 James Hall, (603) 862-3950 or by e-mail: mimi.becker@unh.edu.
Required CORE Courses
CEP 415, Community Development Perspectives, or CSL 201, Intro to Community Service & Leadership
CEP 508, Applied Community Development
CEP 614, Fundamentals of Planning
CEP 777, Topics in Community Planning (Capstone for the major)
CEP 794, Community Planning Internship, or Community Administration Internship
CMN 600, Public Speaking as a Civic Art
ENGL 401, First-Year Writing
ENGL 502, Technical Writing
EREC 411, Environmental and Resource Economics Perspectives
EREC 525, Statistical Methods and Applications, PSYC 402, Statistics in Psychology, or SOC 502, Statistics
EREC 627, Community Economics
ESCI 409, Geology and the Environment
NR 435, Contemporary Conservation Issues and Environmental Awareness
NR 527, Forest Ecology or BIOL 541, General Ecology
NR 658, Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
NR 718, Law of Natural Resources and Environment
NR 724, Resolving Environmental Conflicts
NR 785, Systems Thinking for Sustainable Living
PBIO 412, Introductory Botany
Choose one of these:
POLT 502, State and Local Government, or POLT 508, Supreme Court and the Constitution, or alternative approval by advisor.
SOC 530, Race and Ethnic Relations
SOC 540, Social Problems
ECON 669, Women and Economic Development addressing issues of social disfunction affecting communities or alternative approval by advisor.
Living Green (Choose two):
CIE 444, Housing, Everyone Needs a Place to Live
CHE 410, Energy and Environment
NR 784, Sustainable Living
CEP 672, Fundamentals of Real Estate
CEP 673, Green Real Estate
Sustainable/Organic Food System Course (e.g.):
NUTR 698, Intro to Ecogastronomy, or PBIO 582, Sustainable Food Systems
Electives (21-25 hours) Focus area or a minor.
These may include a second internship, directed research, independent study, community service and leadership, economics (EREC 606 Land Economics, EREC 756 Rural and Regional Economic Development, ECON 707 Economic Growth and Environmental Quality) and/or other courses that will help you add expertise to Community and Environmental Planning "Toolbox".
Discovery Program Requirements
Writing Skills (ENG 401)
Quantitative Reasoning (Statistics)
Inquiry Course (may be taken in a category below or within the major)
Sciences (3 courses, 1 must be a lab course, and only two may be from the same category)
Biological Sciences (PBIO 412)
Env., Tech. & Society (NR 435)
Physical Sciences (ESCI 409)
Historical Perspectives
World Cultures (Study Abroad, Language, Courses)
Fine & Performing Arts
Social Science (EREC 411)
Humanities
