{"id":211485,"date":"2024-03-21T14:23:45","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T18:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=211485"},"modified":"2024-03-21T14:25:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T18:25:04","slug":"new-department-of-geography-sustainability-community-and-urban-studies-forms-in-clas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/03\/new-department-of-geography-sustainability-community-and-urban-studies-forms-in-clas\/","title":{"rendered":"New Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community and Urban Studies Forms in CLAS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The UConn Board of Trustees voted at its meeting on Feb. 29 to establish a new department merging the Department of Geography with Urban and Community Studies and providing an administrative home for Environmental Studies.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559739&quot;:80}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The new <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community and Urban Studies (GSCU)<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> will draw on existing research and teaching strengths to address interdisciplinary issues in geography, environment, and sustainability.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559739&quot;:80}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">It will also strengthen the cross-college Environmental Studies program by giving it an administrative home in which to center its advisory board, with membership of faculty across CLAS and the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, the department leaders wrote in their proposal to the Board.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559739&quot;:80}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">By conducting community-engaged research and teaching on the urgent environmental, social, and geographical challenges faced by communities around the globe, the GSCU department plans to address questions related to sustainability, resilience, health, and social inequities.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">These questions will be addressed from local to global scales under the impacts of climate change and global urbanization, the department\u2019s leaders say.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">&#8220;The new department enables problem-focused education and research, crossing boundaries between traditional disciplines,\u201d explains Anji Seth, department head and professor of geography. \u201cFor example, problems of urban environmental justice can be addressed by students and researchers through community engagement and with geospatial data analysis tools.&#8221;<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Over time, the new department will increase its current contributions to the State by training students for jobs at Connecticut government agencies, municipal planning agencies, local businesses, and non-profit organizations.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The GSCU department serves approximately 200 undergraduate student majors, 100 minors, and 25 graduate students. Geography\u2019s online and entrepreneurial graduate programs in Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) and Master\u2019s in Energy and Environmental Management also serve 100 students and professionals in Connecticut and across the country.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The department will officially form as an administrative unit on July 1, 2024.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new unit will address interdisciplinary issues in the areas of sustainability, resilience, health, and social inequities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":211486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-211485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 01:58:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211487,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211485\/revisions\/211487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/211486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211485"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=211485"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=211485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}