Graduate Program in Environmental Sociology
The critical association between societal well-being and environmental quality is increasingly becoming a topic of Sociological inquiry. Environmental Sociology as a subdiscipline within Sociology explores the various forms of interaction between human society and the environment, focusing on the social dimensions of the surrounding natural and human-made environments. For instance, Environmental Sociologists seek to understand environmentalism as a social movement, the ways in which societal members perceive of environmental problems, and the origins of human-induced environmental decline. The inequitable social distribution of environmental hazards is another central area of Environmental Sociological research, examining the processes by which socially disadvantaged populations come to experience greater exposures to myriad environmental hazards including natural disasters.
Environmental Sociology represents one of several focal areas of research and teaching in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Incoming students may explore any topical areas within Environmental Sociology, but our faculty’s specific expertise includes population-environment dynamics, environmental justice, and environmental hazards and disasters.
Graduate course offerings include:
•Foundations of Environmental Sociology
•Human Dimensions of Environmental Change
•Environmental Justice and Social Stratification
•Social Dimensions of Environmental Disasters
•Rotating topic seminars in Environmental Sociology
The Sociology Graduate Program offers a Ph.D. degree and, in general, seeks to educate creative and productive scholars and teachers. The Department maintains strong emphases in the theories and methods of the discipline to provide students with sound basic training regardless of their area of specialization. These include classical, contemporary, and modern theory, and qualitative and quantitative research methods and analytical techniques.
The Boulder campus is, in general, renowned for its environmental focus in both teaching and research, therefore offering many opportunities for engaging interactions with environmental scientists within other disciplines. In addition, the Front Range region of Colorado is replete with governmental and non-profit organizations focusing upon environmental issues. As examples, Sociology faculty have been involved with campus and local organizations such as:
•The Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS);
•The Program on Environment and Behavior, Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS);
•The Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School;
•The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Environmental Center;
•The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL);
•The Environmental and Social Impacts Group (ESIG), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR);
•The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES);
•Global Response, Environmental Education, and Action Network.
In addition, a campus-wide Graduate Certificate Program in Environmental Policy offers the opportunity for students to gain interdisciplinary experience with environmental issues.Environmental issues obviously transcend ordinary academic boundaries, and policy analyses to deal with these problems must integrate insights and information from many different disciplines. The Graduate Certificate program draws on courses in Anthropology, Economics, EPO Biology, Geography, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, the College of Architecture and Planning, the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the School of Law.
In addition, the Department of Sociology is developing a Graduate Internship Program in Environmental Sociology. Graduate students would work full-time during summers or part-time during academic semesters on faculty-approved assignments at participating institutions along the Front Range. Interns will gain employment experience as well as receive academic credit for their participation in the program. Institutional partners with the program are being sought, and may include such governmental and non-governmental organizations such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, City of Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, Colorado Peoples’ Environmental and Economic Network, and Global Response.
The Environmental Sociology faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder includes:
Liam Downey (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology whose sociological interests revolve around race and class inequality in the environmental, political, and economic realms. Dr. Downey's research examines environmental inequality in metropolitan America, the mental and physical health impacts of residential proximity to polluting manufacturing facilities, and the impact that residential segregation has on residential proximity to manufacturing jobs and pollution. He is also conducting research that seeks to discover whether female-headed families are more likely than male-headed families and married couple families to live near polluting manufacturing facilities.
Lori Hunter (Ph.D., Brown University) is an Associate Professor of Sociology with primary areas of expertise in Demography and Environmental Sociology.The intersection between the two areas provides a framework for her examination of human-environment interactions.Dr. Hunter’s work to-date has examined four areas of human-environment interactions, 1) population, land use change, and biodiversity, 2) migration and environmental risk, 3) public perception of environmental issues, and 4) the social distribution of environmental hazards. Dr. Hunter is a Faculty Research Associate with the Program on Environment and Behavior, of the Institute of Behavioral Science.
Joyce McCarl Nielsen (Ph.D. University of Washington) is Professor of Sociology. Dr. Nielsen's environmentally-related research is social psychological and covers a broad range of social issues, including sociological carrying capacity of wilderness and recreation areas; recycling as attitude change; domestic violence in western boomtowns; and feminist utopian ideals in environmentalism. She is currently Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Kathleen Tierney (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Hazards Center is housed in the Institute of Behavioral Science, where Prof. Tierney holds a joint appointment. Dr. Tierney's research focuses on the social dimensions of hazards and disasters, including natural, technological, and human-induced extreme events. With collaborators Michael Lindell and Ronald Perry, she recently published Facing the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness and Response in the United States (Joseph Henry Press, 2001). This influential compilation presents a wealth of information derived from theory and research on disasters over the past 25 years. Among Dr. Tierney's current and recent research projects are studies on the organizational response to the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center disaster, risk perception and risk communication, the use of new technologies in disaster management, and the impacts of disasters on businesses.
Barbara C. Farhar (Ph.D., University of Colorado) is an adjunct Sociology faculty member who consults on sustainable energy policy analysis. She spent 25 years o the senior staff of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where she focused on the human dimensions of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. Dr. Farhar's current research includes market assessments for zero-energy homes, perceptions and preferences on energy and environmental policy, and geothermal issues at federal and tribal lands. She also publishes in the area of gender and sustainable energy.
Also relevant to Environmental Sociologists, the Conflict Research Consortium, led by Guy and Heidi Burgess, represents a multidisciplinary program of research, teaching, and application, focused on constructive ways of addressing difficult, long-term, and intractable conflicts. In addition, the group works to provide information to the people involved in these conflicts so that they can approach them in a more constructive way. Environmental conflicts as related to facility siting and land use decisions represent important components of the Consortium’s history and present agenda.
