The Sustainable Natural Resources graduate certificate is an 18-credit interdisciplinary program offered online through OSU Extended Campus. Students have a choice among 12 courses designed to build personal and organizational capacity to examine the many aspects of natural resource problems–environmental, economic, and social–in the search for innovative solutions.
Traditional university training provides rigor in individual disciplines. However, natural resource problems require synthesis of multiple perspectives and fields of knowledge. In addition, natural resource problems can be international in scope. Globalization clearly reveals how decisions and practices in any part of the world affect natural resources elsewhere, and highlights a need for natural resource professionals who can apply multidisciplinary systems-thinking to address these complex issues. The SNR graduate certificate program is designed to meet that need.
The courses are organized into three main sections: integration, human dimensions, and ecology and management of sustainable natural resources. All courses in the certificate program are integrated through an independent capstone project that addresses a specific sustainability problem in the student's own organization or region. Throughout the program, students will work with faculty members and other students, and under the guidance of an assigned mentor to design and complete the project's work plan.