Keene State College
AC-3: Undergraduate Program

The Sustainable Product Design and Innovation (SPDI) program educates students who are capable of leading movement toward a more sustainable future. They learn to be creative change-makers, confident and competent in their design thinking practices and grounded in a framework of sustainability principles to guide their decisions. The SPDI program was designed to integrate product design methodologies, cutting-edge technologies and hands-on model and prototype building within the context of business enterprise and the liberal arts. The Sustainable Product Design and Innovation major at Keene State College is a pre-professional four-year program offering a cross-disciplinary curriculum to give the student a solid foundation in the artistic, scientific, and technical aspects of product design and the social and scientific aspects of sustainability concerns. Product Design involves the synthesis of consumer needs and production capabilities in the creation of new products and their affiliated services. The integrated sustainability issues link the multitude of human factors, environmental, and resource depletion concerns to the decision-making process. The curriculum draws from five disciplines: art, management, mathematics, safety, and industrial/product design to build the student's capacity in design theory and practice, material sciences, production processes, digital technology, and the quantitative and qualitative issues of sustainability and business practices.

The Sustainable Product Design and Innovation major is designed to provide students with a hands-on project-based learning curriculum focusing on real-world applications grounded in a liberal arts foundation. The emphasis on innovation complemented with business management encourages creative problem-solving and entrepreneurship, providing students with the tools to adapt and evolve their career paths to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. Integrated sustainability values prepare students for engagement in the product realization arena in the "lean" and "green" global production economy. Graduates are prepared to pursue graduate study or transition directly into careers in product design/engineering, technology/evaluation, planning, supply, production, quality control, technical services, marketing, sales, or other related professions.

The Environmental Studies program at Keene State College envisions a community of environmentally-literate and actively engaged citizens, scientists and other professionals. Through its courses and co-curricular experiences, it cultivates a deep understanding and transformative awareness of the interconnections between humans and the rest of the environment. The program accomplishes this by creating a participatory learning community that generates critical thinking and problem solving through active collaboration with faculty and off-campus stakeholders.

The courses in the interdisciplinary program examine the interaction of people and our environment, incorporating natural, social, and political systems. Students acquire the ability to evaluate, analyze, and synthesize complex information relating to environmental issues and graduate with skills for careers as diverse as environmental consulting, policy making, field research, and staff positions assisting organizations in meeting goals related to sustainability.

Students intending to major in Environmental Studies are encouraged to select a faculty advisor and formally declare their major as early as possible, preferably by the end of their first year. In addition, ENST majors are strongly encouraged to undertake a disciplinary minor to develop an area of specialization, which will help with postgraduate placement.

The Architecture major at Keene State College is a pre-professional four-year program designed to give students a solid foundation in the artistic, scientific, and technical aspects of architecture. The curriculum offers a range of courses in studio design, building science, sustainable design, history/theory, digital technology, and practice.

The education of KSC architecture majors, grounded in the liberal arts, focuses on teaching students to become effective, creative problem solvers with the tools to adapt and evolve their career paths to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. Graduates in architecture are prepared to pursue graduate study or transition directly into careers in architecture, planning, building science, construction management, environmental design, design-build, or other related professions.

Safety and Occupational Health Applied Sciences: http://www.keene.edu/academics/programs/safe/

The International Studies minor is an interdisciplinary program that combines core courses in political science (emphasizing global and comparative politics) with courses offered in other social science and humanities disciplines (anthropology, economics, geography, sociology, history, and holocaust and genocide studies). Its purpose is to develop a coherent understanding of power relationships in their spatial, social, and historical contexts throughout the world, and to encourage students to seek instruction in programs that complement their major courses of study. All students who minor in International Studies must complete courses in the three content areas (International and Comparative Politics, Socio-Cultural Studies, and Historical Studies) and demonstrate to the International Studies coordinator (in the Department of Political Science) that they have had a meaningful experience in a language other than English. The minor is most valuable when students select closely related courses from each content area, and when they undertake study abroad and/or an internship that applies the content of the minor.