Pratt Institute
AC-3: Undergraduate Program

A Minor in Sustainability Studies at Pratt deepens the understanding of the interdisciplinary approach to sustainable environmental, economic, and social practices, providing students with a broad understanding of the complex interrelationships between humans and ecosystems and the best practices for protecting environmental quality and fostering social equity.

Courses designated as sustainability-related or sustainability-focused may contain the following elements:

Integration of basic and applied knowledge from multiple disciplines, including the natural and social sciences, to analyze human-environment interactions;
Analysis of the tradeoffs or co-benefits involved in managing resources for the social, economic, and environmental welfare of current and future generations;
Development of alternative strategies for the use of natural, human, and fiscal resources that are compatible with the constraints on these resources;
Implementation of practical solutions to socioeconomic and environmental challenges, including those that relate to energy, technology, ecosystems, social transformations, food systems, policy, and governance.
Students that successfully complete sustainability-related or sustainability-focused courses develop the ability to:

Demonstrate familiarity with how multiple disciplines (within the social sciences and across schools at Pratt, including but not limited to history, philosophy, anthropology, ecology, chemistry, design, architecture, and literature) define and apply sustainability, and the historical context of their development.
Apply the interdisciplinary methods of inquiry and analysis relevant to sustainability (including but not limited to history, philosophy, anthropology, ecology, chemistry, design, architecture, and literature) to address problems, answer questions, and construct arguments.
Explore the ways in which ecosystems are self-sustaining, how human activities have disrupted those ecosystems, and consider the effects of human changes on ecosystems and the humans who depend on those ecosystems.
Understand the global, ethical, behavioral, legal, economic, and political contexts to sustainable and unsustainable habitation on Earth.
Engage the theoretical approaches to sustainability presented with students’ professional and personal goals as creative professionals and responsible contributors to society.

The Social Justice/Social Practice Minor gives Pratt students the opportunity to bring their studio and design practice into dialogue with critical and transformative perspectives related to equity and justice. Encompassing issues from racism to the environment, economic inequality to immigration rights, gender justice to the prison industrial complex, the minor is interdisciplinary.

It draws from courses across the Institute, including architecture, photography, fashion, communication design, and film/video. Students can prepare themselves to address social justice in their everyday lives and communities, and through their artistic and design practices.