Teaching

Teaching Overview

Challenging and difficult, teaching remains an absolute joy and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with students. The classes I teach collectively assess why society remains so unsustainable, but also focus attention on alternative visions for society and examples where people and communities have charted a different course.

To tie these courses together, I created the Critical Sustainability Studies Minor at NAU. Rather than focus on the vacuous and ill-defined term ‘sustainability’ as an inherently positive term, the classes in this minor collectively put forth a different perspective and view. The courses scaffold in a way that lays the foundation for an analysis as to the root causes of unsustainability in our society. They then also interrogate social change, social movements, and alternative visions for society.

Courses taught (I am happy to share course syllabi for those interested):

Nature and Society (GSP 272)

Climate Change and Society (GSP 362)

Environment and Social Change (GSP 472/572)

Political Ecology (GSP 474/574)

Planning Sustainable Cities (GSP 514)

Social Ecological Systems (GSP 562)