Undergraduate Course Catalog 2015-2016

College of Life Sciences and Agriculture

» http://www.colsa.unh.edu/

Community and Environmental Planning (CEP)

Professor: Russell G. Congalton, John M. Halstead
Associate Professor: Kelly L. Cullen, Alberto B. Manalo, Robert A. Robertson
Assistant Professor: Catherine M. Ashcraft
Senior Lecturer: Mary Adamo Friedman
Lecturer: Clayton R. Mitchell
Extension Associate Professor: Charles A. French

The community and environmental planning (CEP) program is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills that will equip them to be effective community planners. Both natural resource and human systems sustainability principles are embedded in all aspects of this 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 for the community’s future. They will be able to analyze community and environmental problems, and recommend viable alternative solutions designed to ensure that a desirable quality of life exists in the future.

Students will have a strong background in the theory and practice of sustainable development.
Students will have an explicit awareness of both the necessity of and means for protecting natural resource systems and the environmental services they provide to human communities.
Students will have the ability to assess the consequences of proposed changes to the landscape at different scales, from the very local to regional, as well as to anticipate the consequences of the land use changes that will require community resources and regulatory tools.
Students will understand how local governments function, and will have basic administrative and technical planning skills to support the development and implementation of sound community-level development and land use change decisions.
Students will be clear communicators, able to foster and facilitate informed citizen participation in planning processes that provide the links between the citizens of a community and their government and which serve to determine a common community vision.
Students will be effective ethical collaborators, trained to foster interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approaches to planning.
Students will have successfully completed an approved planning internship.

The CEP core requirements include planning and decision making, sustainability principles, communications, law, governance, conflict resolution, environmental and social systems, economics, and statistics, as well as a community planning internship experience. Students are encouraged to undertake independent research. In addition to the core, students, in consultation with their adviser, 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, social impact assessment, 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, and environmental planning.

Students interested in contributing their energy and talents to mastering the challenges of community and environmental planning should consult with Mary Friedman, CEP program coordinator, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, G62 James Hall, (603) 862-4456 or by e-mail: .mary.friedman@unh.edu

Required Core Courses
CEP 415, Community Development Perspectives
CEP 508, Applied Community Development
CEP 614, Fundamentals of Planning
CEP 777, Topics in Community Planning (Capstone for the major)
CEP 794, Community and Environmental Planning Internship
CMN 500, Public Speaking
ENGL 401, First-Year Writing
ENGL 502, Professional and 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
PBIO 412, Introductory Botany
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, or NR 602, Natural Resources and Environmental Policy
NR 724, Resolving Environmental Conflicts
NR 785, Systems Thinking for Sustainable Living

Choose one of these
POLT 502, State and Local Government, or
POLT 508, Supreme Court and the Constitution, or
alternative approval by adviser

Choose one of these
SOC 530, Race and Ethnic Relations, or
SOC 540, Private Troubles, Public Issues: Contemporary Social Problems, or SOC 645, Class Status and Power, or SOC 660, Urban Sociology
ECON 669, Women and Economic Development, or
alternative approval by adviser

Living Green (choose two)
NR 507, Introduction to Energy Systems ENE 520, Environmental Pollution and Prevention
NR 784, Sustainable Living
CEP 673, Green Real Estate
ECOG 401, Introduction to EcoGastronomy

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 Perspectives; EREC 756, Rural and Regional Economic Development; ECON 707, Economic Growth and Environmental Quality); and/or other courses that help students add expertise to their CEP "toolbox."

Discovery Program Requirements
Writing Skills (ENGL 401)
Quantitative Reasoning (Statistics)
Inquiry Course
Sciences (three courses; one must be a lab course)
   Biological Sciences (PBIO 412)
   Environment, Technology, and Society (NR 435)
   Physical Sciences (ESCI 409)
Historical Perspectives
World Cultures (study abroad, language courses, geography, anthropology)
Fine and Performing Arts
Social Science (EREC 411)
Humanities

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