Champlain College
AC-3: Undergraduate Program

Learn how to cultivate a sustainable future for people, planet, and profit.

The way we think about the environment can never be fully separated from the way we think about people, and vice versa. Our environments and social systems—communities, governments, economies—are complex and interdependent.

In Champlain's Applied Sustainability major, you'll look at the various connections between people and planet from different perspectives, learning to create effective action plans and ask the right questions.

In our Applied Sustainability major, you won't be confined to environmental studies; you'll focus on social justice, environmental health, and economic welfare, examining the intersections of each one with the others.

Champlain's Upside-Down Curriculum gets you into sustainability courses in your first year.
Our learn-by-doing approach to education means you get to take everything you learn in the classroom and use it on real projects and meaningful internships.
You don't have to already know exactly what you want to do when you graduate—but if you do, Champlain will help you get there. Your dedicated career coach will help you explore your options and create opportunities.
You can choose a concentration to focus your studies, building specific skills for the type of work you're most interested in.

Through project-based courses, you'll learn how to effectively share crucial messages and engage an audience.

Learn about marketing fundamentals, explore the ways business models can be optimized to "do good," discover what activist marketing looks like for brands and individuals, and practice applying marketing strategies and tactics to non-profits and social campaigns.

Champlain's minor in Activist Marketing pairs well with a wide variety of majors—you'll build important skills for your career and/or volunteer work.

Awareness of environmental issues has penetrated every aspect of our culture—from business, to school, to government—and the relentless public and private pressure to proactively address environment concerns is changing the way we live and work.

Learn a new layer of knowledge that employers in every field are hoping to find in their new hires.
Gain a solid grounding in understanding complex, multi-dimensional environmental issues and the politics surrounding them. Such a background in environmental policy will be of tremendous value to your future employer and to the community you live in.
Focus less on the theoretical aspects of environmental science and more on the action-oriented practicalities of what people and organizations can do to create bold solutions and change things for the better.
Focus primarily on the politics of environmental issues and learning how you and your organization can begin to address environmental impacts and challenges.

Are you interested in integrating socially just practices into your field of study? Do you want to make a real difference in your communities and the world? The 16-credit Social Justice minor will prepare you to view and approach your work through a social justice lens—how an issue impacts the access, opportunity and equality of an individual's or communities' essential economic, political and social rights. Upon completion of this minor, you'll be able to

Analyze the relationship among power, privilege and oppression;
Recognize and counter stereotypes, myths, and discriminatory attitudes and practices at the individual and institutional levels;
Create strategies to advocate for social, political, legal and economic justice;
Facilitate building safe, equitable, sustainable and non-discriminatory communities;
Apply ethical principles to social justice practice.

https://www.champlain.edu/academics/undergraduate-academics/majors-and-programs?type=minors