Certificate in Social and Environmental Justice

This 15 credit certificate in social and environmental justice studies is geared to students interested in pursuing careers in law, medicine, government, human services, education, nonprofit start up and management, community organizing, and sustainable business. The certificate program provides an academically rigorous course of studies that enables students to critically scrutinize the root causes of social inequality, the assumptions that underlie various approaches to social change, and to envision and initiate alternative institutional and organizational approaches to social and environmental justice.

Degree Requirements

Course work for the certificate includes:
A semester long practicum in community development and organizing designed to enhance professional preparation through direct involvement in the students' chosen area of social & environmental justice. The practicum includes 6-7 three-hour seminar meetings over the course of the semester and 100 hours in an approved internship in community organizing and development.

Past internships have included placements with:

  • American Friends Service Committee
  • Cascade AIDS Project
  • Center for Intercultural Organizing
  • Crossroads Project of Sisters of Road CafĂ©
  • Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
  • Environmental Justice Action Group
  • Jobs with Justice
  • OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon
  • Partnership for Safety and Justice
  • Portland Central America Solidarity Committee
  • Street Roots
  • Vancouver Council for the Homeless
  • Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition
  • World Pulse Magazine
  • YWCA Clark County

In addition, students must choose one course from each of the following four areas:

Environmental Justice: Introduction to theories of environmental justice; explores the relationship between environmental problems and sociopolitical inequality.

Global Politics and Justice: Introduction to historical and contemporary global political and economic institutions and their implications.

Inequality and Social Justice: Explores theories and examples of social stratification and resistance, with particular attention to the intersections of race, class and gender.

Peace and Justice Issues: Introduction to theories and tools of social change and conflict resolution and to historical and contemporary movements for social change.