Overview

The major and minor in Environmental and Urban Studies (ENST) is now the major and minor in Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU). For all ENST majors declared before the CEGU major was launched, the ENST requirements will remain in effect with the option to adopt the CEGU major name and requirements. The new requirements for the CEGU major will go into effect as of Autumn 2023 for all newly declared majors. New requirements for the CEGU minor will also then replace those currently in effect for the ENST minor.

The transdisciplinary major in Environment, Geography and Urbanization is housed in the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU). The CEGU undergraduate major prepares students to understand and confront the wide–ranging societal, historical, and spatial dimensions of contemporary planetary environmental crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and other forms of large–scale socio–environmental transformation. Such issues are explored in diverse spaces, including cities and metropolitan regions; zones of extraction, agriculture, energy production, and waste; dispersed settlement spaces and village ecologies; rangeland, forest, and jungle landscapes; remote wildlands; and coastlines, rivers, watersheds, and oceans. The curriculum emphasizes a plurality of theoretical approaches to the histories and geographies of socio–environmental transformation, underscoring the contested character of environmental knowledge in a polarized and turbulent world order.

The Environment, Geography and Urbanization major consists of a sequence of foundational courses; substantive and methodological training in environmental, geographical, and urban studies; transdisciplinary electives spanning diverse thematic areas; and various capstone options, including the senior thesis and a community study. The major provides students with strong foundations in spatialized and historical approaches to environmental studies, with more specialized thematic tracks available in several fields, including urban environmental studies, energy histories and geographies, and environmental humanities. Through engagement with these fields of inquiry, students explore the wide–ranging social, historical, and spatial transformations that have produced the environmental emergencies of our time.

Graduates of the CEGU major will be well–equipped to conduct advanced research on socio–environmental processes, transformations, and crises across time and space, and to engage in diverse fields of urban and environmental practice. The curriculum combines scholarly inquiry, methodological training, experiential learning, and community engagement to prepare students to contribute to—and transform—the collective process of forging more equitable, livable, and hopeful planetary futures.