The Environmental Studies Area of Concentration offers insights into climate change, sea-level rise, food insecurity, social justice, urban environments, animal welfare, governing the oceans, and environmental conservation and stewardship.
About the Program
We’re early adopters! New College’s Environmental Studies Program was founded in 1972 – the first of its type in the United States. Come today and learn new skills from professors across disciplines to help create a better balance between human activity and environmental sustainability.
Investigate topics as diverse as land and marine use policies, water and soil quality, ethical approaches to environmental management, the effects of sea level rise on heritage sites, the role of invasive species, systems modeling, human cognition and persuasion, the green economy, and the use of data analysis to delve deeply into environmental awareness. Be part of the environment on our bayfront campus where our faculty, students, and staff recognize that the landscape of New College of Florida has a history.
“New College students are passionate and civic minded. They tend to be solution-focused. My classes are designed to be rigorous, to give them the skills to be really impactful. They’re up to the challenge.”
Emily Heffernan
Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies
Land Acknowledgement
The space that we currently occupy, Sarasota, was acquired through the territorial dispossession of Native Nations, including the Seminole and Miccosukee, who have historical claims to this land. We acknowledge that our occupation of this land has come at the expense of their displacement. Indigenous people are contemporary people who live throughout the state of Florida on reservations and in cities, and we acknowledge that they, as well as their ancestors, are our hosts.
As a public and intellectually rigorous institution, it is our duty to think critically about what our occupation of this land means. We must challenge ourselves to consider our relationship to the land and to ethically engage with the histories and cultures of Indigenous peoples who have called this land home. This is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning of a long and difficult process of mapping a more equitable future.
Featured Course
ANTH 3320
Conservation and Indigenous Knowledge
This seminar focuses on the ways local and indigenous understandings of the environment compliment, complicate, and conflict with goals of conservation. Students will examine the idea of “indigeneity,” compare multiple forms and definitions of “traditional ecological knowledge,” and consider the multifaceted processes of knowledge production involved in creating cultural and environmental systems of understanding. Course reading will also study the relationship between “indigenous” and “scientific” knowledge, the challenges of community-based conservation paradigms, the on-going debates over indigenous intellectual property rights, and contemporary indigenous environmental rights movements.
Recent Courses
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Career Pathways
- Cartography
- Climate Justice
- Community/Urban Planning
- Conservation Science
- Corporate Sustainability
- Eco Agriculture
- Environmental Biologist
- Environmental Conservation
- Environmental Law
- Food Insecurity
- Hydrology
- Natural Resource Management
- Occupational Health and Safety
- Park Management
- Zoologist and Wildlife Biologist
Recent Theses
- Multi-Criteria Suitability Analysis of Green Infrastructure Targeted at Groundwater Recharge and Flood Mitigation in Sarasota, FL
- Managing Fisheries: a Case Study of Conceptual Frameworks for Policy Design
- Sea Level Rise in Southwest Florida: An Economic Benefit-Cost Analysis of Policy Alternatives
- Herbicide Resistant Crops: Can Genetic Engineering Contribute to Sustainable Agriculture?
- Longleaf Pine: Florida’s Sunflower Forest
- “Altering the Earth to Fit Vera,” Analyzing Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management
- Pollination as an Economic Marketplace
Study Abroad and Domestic Exchange Programs
There are many opportunities for Environmental Studies students to gain experience across the US and internationally, such as New College’s membership in the EcoLeague domestic exchange program.
Contact Us
Environmental Studies
Phone Number
Email Address
Location
Caples Carriage House 208
Environmental Studies Faculty
Dr. Nicolas Delon
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies
Dr. Heidi Harley
Founder & Chief Research Officer, Marine Mammal Science / Peg Scripps Buzzelli Endowed Chair
Dr. Emily Heffernan
Director, Environmental Studies Program
Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies
Nicole Van Der Berg
Institute Coordinator