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Environmental Studies - Environmental Advocacy and Organizing
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Environmental Advocacy and Organizing
Eight Key Ideas
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program
The Environmental Advocacy and Organization Program is defined by eight key ideas:
Committed Values
Our program will openly embrace a diversity of perspectives which are grounded in a deep commitment to:- biodiversity and wilderness preservation
- occupational and public health
- sustainable community economics
- popular democracy
- social justice
Citizen Action Focus
Our program will place its primary emphasis on training current and future leaders, staffers, and volunteers of grassroots and nonprofit advocacy groups. In particular, we stress the skills of organizing, coalition-building, action research, and popular education as the most direct means of building a globally-oriented, grassroots environmental movement.Ecological Awareness
Our program seeks to deepen students’ scientific understanding of the earth’s ecological systems, environmental vital signs, natural history, and human ecology. It also aids them in understanding key ecological debates, working with scientists and resource managers as allies in advocacy struggles, and interpreting scientific research for the general public.Critical Thinking
Our program will look critically at how environmental destruction and social injustice are rooted in cultural patterns of domination and the way we organize and conduct our economic and political lives. It will place particular emphasis on developing a deeper understanding of global political economy, social oppression, and consumer culture.Becoming Practical Visionaries
Our program will encourage students to envision desirable and sustainable ways of life, grounded in a broad environmental and social ethic, and made practical through programmatic thinking about creative innovations in our underlying social, political, and economic institutions at local, regional, national, and international levels.Strategic Savvy
Our program will help students deepen their understanding of social action strategies and how to organize powerful grassroots movements that can cooperate effectively on local, regional, national, and transnational levels. Emphasis will be placed on social movement history, the dynamics of social power, and “best practices” for our efforts in coalition-building, citizen lobbying, media work, electoral campaigns, nonviolent direct action, and creating alternative institutions.Sustained Inspiration
Our program will pay attention to the development of the “whole person” and the affective dimensions of social change and personal growth. Emphasis will be placed on spirit, imagination, celebration, connection to the natural world, emotional and artistic expression, building an affirming community, and sharing reflections on the personal challenges we face as advocates. Such work will help students avoid burn-out and foster ways of connecting more meaningfully with each other--and the sources of their own deepest passions--to help sustain them for the “long haul.”Empowering Education
Finally, our program will encourage students and teachers to work together as co-creators and interpreters of the knowledge and skills needed for effective environmental advocacy. Emphasis in the program will be placed on honoring multiple learning styles, posing problems of emerging relevance to students, fostering critical thinking and participatory dialogue, encouraging personal reflection and cooperative learning, supporting student learning initiatives, and integrating theory and practice through field experience and experiential education.
As a Department, we affirm the Principles of Environmental Justice which were adopted at the 1991 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, DC.
© 2007 Antioch University New England, 40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431-3516 800.553.8920
Last Updated: 6/18/07