Students in the Minor in Sustainability Studies can earn the Gulf Scholars Certificate from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine without taking any additional classes. All the classes in the Gulf Scholars Program (GSP) count toward the Minor in Sustainability Studies. Students can earn scholarship funding and make important professional connections in the Gulf Scholars Program, while earning both the Minor in Sustainability Studies and the Gulf Scholars Certificate.
The Minor in Sustainability Studies-Gulf Scholars Program curriculum includes the following classes:
SUST 2000 - Introduction to Sustainability (core class for the Minor in Sustainability Studies, and elective GSP class)
SOCY 3600 - Nature, Self, and Society (core GSP class and elective for the Minor in Sustainability Studies)
SUST 5000 – Capstone in Sustainability (core class for both programs)
6 additional credits of sustainability electives that count toward the Minor in Sustainability Studies
To learn more about the Gulf Scholars – Minor in Sustainability Studies Dual Program, and to apply, see our website, or contact Rebecca Retzlaff at rcr0001@auburn.edu.
The GSP is guided by the following core values:
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Resiliency: The Auburn GSP uses a resiliency framework to address Gulf issues, aiming toward long-term sustainability. We will frame Gulf issues in terms of both the processes and outcomes of adaptation to change, including community, environmental and social stresses.
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Environmental Justice: The Auburn GSP uses a reparative justice, community-centered approach to frame the sustainability challenges of the Gulf region. We will orient students toward community-driven sustainability processes and solutions, including repairing past harms, stopping present harm, preventing the reproduction of harm and redressing systematic harms to marginalized communities and others along the Gulf.
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Change Agentry: The Auburn GSP will provide the tools and knowledge for students, community members and faculty to become change agents for Gulf sustainability. A change agent is an activist and entrepreneur who takes creative action to solve pressing societal challenges, work across disciplines and engage diverse communities to understand and develop proactive, locally-driven, resilient and community-oriented solutions to problems.
Through the Auburn GSP, we will contemplate the following four enduring and wicked problems:
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How can we achieve a sustainable and equitable Gulf region that meets the needs of living things and the planet across resilient communities and across generations, addressing present and future environmental challenges?
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How can we make the most of the diversity, cultures and traditions of the Gulf region to build sustainability and resiliency and repair past and present harms to marginalized communities and people?
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How can we understand the Gulf region as part of a system of complex and interdependent local and global communities with natural, social, political and economic environments that interact with and affect each other to create a sustainable future?
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How can our current understanding of socio-environmental issues and stressors better inform visions, decisions, plans and action to better position communities to deal with future issues proactively?
