SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah is now offering an Integrated Certificate in Sustainability for students in all majors, with the exception of those already majoring in environmental and sustainability studies.
Obtaining the certificate involves completing a 23 credit-hour program with one required introductory course. Students can choose either Introduction to Environment and Sustainability or Foundations of Urban Ecology.
They also need to complete one final project and 15 credits of electives, with a certain number of them being upper-level courses. The program is interdisciplinary, and to complete it, students must take at least six credits outside of their home college.
The undergraduate certificate was the brainchild of the founding director of the university’s Office of Sustainability, Craig Forster, who began laying the groundwork for the effort in 2008, prior to his untimely death in a hiking accident.
The two co-directors of sustainability curriculum development, university faculty members Steve Burian and Dan McCool, see the implementation of the certificate program as a great need, but also as a way to honor Forster’s work in first bringing sustainability to the campus.
The certificate will be available to students starting in the fall semester of 2012.
For more details about the program, students should contact Ed Barbanell, associate dean of Undergraduate Studies, at 801-585-6423.