The Department of Community Sustainability engages with colleagues, students, stakeholders and communities to address social choices within specific environmental, economic and cultural contexts that advance or conflict with sustainability goals.

Can solar farms develop quickly and equitably? MSU faculty awarded $2.5 million to explore conflict in solar energy development

Community Sustainability Professor chose as author for First National Nature Assessment

Community Sustainability 2024 Undergraduate Honors Award Winners

Nationwide survey reveals fresh insights about community perceptions of large-scale solar developments

Sustainability is about choices made within specific environmental, economic, social, and cultural contexts.  Sustainability scholarship involves creating, integrating and harnessing new knowledge to protect and improve social and natural systems and their interactions.  The Department of Community Sustainability (CSUS) is an interdisciplinary department that addresses contemporary issues of sustainability in agriculture, recreation, natural resources, and the environment. The Department of Community Sustainability (CSUS) was formerly called the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies (CARRS).

Consistent with its mission to assist in the development of sustainable communities, the department offers three undergraduate majors linked by a common core in community sustainability. These three majors - Environmental Studies and Sustainability (ESS); Sustainable Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SPRT); and Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Education (AFNRE) – share a set of courses centered on community sustainability. The CSUS graduate program offers two graduate majors: Community Sustainability (MS and PhD) and Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas Management (MS and PhD). In both undergraduate and graduate programs, CSUS embraces international as well as domestic applications, engagement, and opportunities.

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