Research Philosophy

Antioch University New England's Doctoral Program in Environmental Studies is a dynamic learning community of environmental scholar/practitioners who combine scope and vision with depth and precision, conceptualizing and implementing research strategies and designs that:

contribute to solving regional, national, and global environmental problems;
develop and evolve discourses of ecological thought, using ecological principles and systems thinking as the foundation for multi-disciplinary approaches to knowledge and learning;
respond to critical community and institutional needs, attendant to the concerns of organizational development and human diversity;
lend an epistemological dimension to professional practice and scholarship, encouraging engaged research, intellectual challenge, conceptual insight, and practical action;
understand, evaluate, and implement diverse research designs and strategies, what we call methodological pluralism;
articulate and delineate the boundaries of knowledge and information, within the context of a specific, complex problem, with local and/or global parameters;
identify the ethical and moral “commonwealth of research and scholarship,” contributing original and/or collaborative knowledge in the spirit of open inquiry and moral purpose.

Given the urgency and ubiquity of environmental problems, it is essential to train researchers who are prepared to study, understand, reflect on, and contribute original knowledge to the solution of these problems. We expect that advanced practitioners wish to better understand whether programs work, why policies succeed or fail, the intellectual and epistemological context of problems, and the prospects for imaginative, multidisciplinary solutions. The Antioch University New England program is for students and faculty who wish to do such research.

Excellent scholarship refers to intellectual rigor, the ability to understand a problem from several perspectives, thoroughness, knowledge of the literature, the ability to effectively communicate, knowing how to choose and synthesize diverse strands of information, ethical integrity, self-critique, and collaborative inquiry.

We believe that the PhD includes not just the content area or field of study, but also an awareness of how personal values and the cultural context of the learning experience frame and lend meaning to the research problem. This is the core of doctoral learning— the integration of theory and practice, the ability to understand the personal, social, political, and professional context of research. Antioch has a strong tradition of fostering excellence regarding this type of reflective practice.

In our discussions with both academics and practitioners, there is universal agreement regarding the necessity of reflective learning—the need for people who understand the full dimensions of their work, who have the scholarly vision to express this, who go beyond mere reaction, and become engaged in thoughtful action.

Last Updated: 3/4/10