Undergraduate Course Catalog 2012-2013

College of Life Sciences and Agriculture

» http://www.colsa.unh.edu/

Community and Environmental Planning (CEP)

Professor: Robert T. Eckert, John M. Halstead, Bruce E. Lindsay
Associate Professor: Mimi Larsen Becker, Kelly L. Cullen, Alberto B. Manalo, Douglas E. Morris, Robert A. Robertson
Senior Lecturer: Mary Adamo Friedman
Extension Professor: Michael R. Sciabarrasi
Extension Associate Professor: Charles A. French

The community and environmental planning (CEP) program is designed to provide students with the theoretical and applied knowledge and skills that will equip them to be effective community planners. They will be expected to develop knowledge and skills that will enable them to anticipate and foster sustainable development at various landscape scales and to help communities and environmental and resource management agencies manage development. They will be able to facilitate protection of the natural resources and environmental services upon which people and other living things depend. This program has high expectations for student performance as the practice of this profession has important consequences for the health of communities these future planners will serve.

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. They will have a clear understanding of what sustainability means, and of the criteria they will use to assess progress toward a sustainable community. They will have a strong interest and belief that they can make a difference in bringing about a sustainable future.

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, multistakeholder approaches to planning.

Students will have successfully completed an approved planning internship.

Students interested in planning may wish to take elective courses in watershed management, wetlands management (DNREN), pollution control (engineering), forest management, sustainable agriculture, justice studies, environmental policy, and tourism to develop a foundation in both natural and human built systems. Students must complete a minimum of 128 credit hours to graduate and achieve a grade of C- or better in all courses taken for the major.

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 an applied 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, 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 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
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
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 adviser

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

Living Green (choose two)
CIE 444, Housing, Everyone Needs a Place to Live
CHE 410, Energy and Environment
NR 784, Sustainable Living
CEP 673, Green Real Estate

Sustainable/Organic Food System Course (e.g.)
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 (may be taken in a category below or within the major)
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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