ANTHROPOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY MASTERS PROGRAM
Minimum number of credits required to graduate: 30
Minimum cumulative GPA required to graduate: 3.0
Application deadline for fall admission: January 1st. For prospective students, more information can be found on the Graduate School website.
Graduate Coordinator: Gregory Zaro, Associate Professor of Anthropology, 5773 South Stevens Hall, Room 242, (207) 581-1857, gregory.zaro@maine.edu
Overview
A variety of environmental specters threaten Earth’s populations. Greenhouse-gas emissions are changing earth systems, global ecology, species distributions, disease patterns, and land-use. Ocean fisheries and forests in many parts of the world, including Maine, are in precipitous decline. Loss of agricultural land in combination with ineffective governance and population increases may result in widespread famines in the near future. There are also growing problems associated with nutrient pollution, loss of wildlife and biodiversity, soil erosion, the depletion of non-renewable resources, and environmental degradation. These problems affect people, but people also cause them. Many, moreover, are global in origin but local in their effects. Demands on forests and fisheries are international, for example, but the environmental consequences are felt locally in over-cut woodlands and wiped-out fisheries. Climate is affected by human activity at a global level, but climate changes will have very different effects in different regions of the globe. Since Maine is a natural resource state, the global origins of these threats are particularly relevant to the people of Maine, their culture, and their society.
Special Resources and Programs
Anthropology faculty hold joint appoints or cooperating status with a number of units across the University of Maine campus. These include the Climate Change Institute, the School of Marine Sciences, the School of Economics, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, Native American Programs, the Maine Folklife Center, the Canadian-American Center and the Hudson Museum. As members of this program, graduate students are able to take advantage of these interdisciplinary connections.
Graduate Teaching Assistantships and Work Study positions are available on a competitive basis for qualified students.
Career Opportunities
Graduates of this program are able to understand the intricacies and implications of human-environment interactions at multiple scales in ways that may inform policy decisions at local, national, and international levels. Graduates of this program generally seek positions in public and private sectors, including state, national, and international institutions that deal with policy decisions related to the human dimensions of environmental change, environmental management, and resource conservation. Graduates have also entered the PhD program in Anthropology and Environmental Policy or a related degree.
The Master of Arts in Anthropology and Environmental Policy (AEP)
The non-thesis MA program in Anthropology and Environmental Policy centers on understanding human society and culture in cross-cultural perspective and their pivotal role in implementing successful environmental policy. The program engages students in a multi-disciplinary framework bridging environmental sciences and policy while focusing on the sociocultural impacts of, and responses to, local and global environmental change.
Students engage with faculty in cutting-edge research on the way social relations, human organization, cultural perceptions, and ecological behavior affect both the causes and consequences of local, national, and global environmental change. Students analyze social and cultural dimensions of policy that mitigate negative environmental consequences of this change while safeguarding or promoting human well-being. Areas of environmental policy and research include global climate change, energy resources, marine resources, eco-tourism, forestry resources, land-use, water management, environmental justice, and pollution control.
The program core is a firm grounding in anthropological social and cultural theory, qualitative and/or quantitative methodology, and policy development and analysis. Students engage in methodological and specialized courses tailored to their specific environmental interests at the local, national, or international scale.
Students may enter the program with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, Biology, Climate Change, Economics, Marine Sciences, Forestry, or any other related field. All students complete the core curriculum courses in cross-cultural human dimensions, with the remaining curriculum individually tailored depending on each student’s background, environmental focus area, and national or international environmental policy interest. Courses in policy and basic methodology will be dependent on courses students have taken previously.
For additional information, please see the Graduate Handbook (coming soon).
Program Requirements
The non-thesis MA program requires completion of 30 credit hours of graduate coursework. All students must complete 12 hours of core requirements, with the remaining courses tailored to each student’s background, environmental focus area, and national or international environmental policy interest. Students enrolled in the PhD program can apply to have their MA degree conferred once coursework requirements for the Master’s degree are completed. For a detailed look at course requirements and other program information, please see the “AEP Handbook” linked above.