Prescott College
AC-3: Graduate Programs

MS in Resilient and Sustainable Communities

As people across the planet begin the process of adapting to the consequences of climate disruption and growing inequalities in wealth and access to vital resources, the MRSC program is designed to help students understand the interaction between various structural components of communities at all scales and to work toward developing, advocating, and implementing fundamental changes in how communities evolve in response to such challenges. This program's heart is creating resilient communities to adapt to changing conditions and be sustainable enough to reduce their impacts on other species, populations, and future generations.

MS in Sustainable Food Systems

The program views food systems as complex adaptive systems, emphasizing relationship-based and bioregional-grounded strategies that center equity, diversity, and inclusion with the ultimate goal of supporting transformative systems change. We encourage students to understand interconnectedness as an opportunity to guide the emergence of food system change strategies that positively shift all systems--environmental, economic, political, and social. Whether In the movements to establish food justice, strong regional food economies, sustainable diets, restorative agroecological approaches to food production, or food policy, students learn strategies to influence sustainable food systems change across sectors.

MBA in Sustainability Leadership

Prescott College’s Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Sustainability Leadership is designed to help students learn key management and leadership skills and successful strategies for sustainability within an organization. The program aims to support students' success in management and leadership positions in organizations of all types, including entrepreneurial/ecopreneurial ventures, local community organizations, family businesses, non-profits, and public enterprises. With a focus on organizational leadership and competitive advantage based on environmental and social performance that drive socially responsive organizations, students learn foundational management techniques that are critical for leaders of business, non-profits, and governmental organizations, covering all functional areas, including sustainable marketing and brand management, sustainability measurement and reporting, and sustainable operations management.

MS in Environmental Studies

From policy, ethics, and natural history to conservation, restoration, and adaptation, environmental issues cross many disciplinary boundaries; understanding these varied perspectives is increasingly important as we learn to live sustainably on this planet in an age of climate disruption. Our Master of Science in Environmental Studies (MSES) is ideal for those who want to help meet the challenges of our time, whether they are working professionals, career changers, or just starting. The bioregional focus of the program helps connect students to their local natural and human communities, enabling them to go beyond a conventional education and learn to identify and solve problems at multiple scales. Students will demonstrate interdisciplinary knowledge central to environmental studies (environmental science, humanities, law/policy, social sciences, and systems thinking) to empower engagement with specific environmental issues in their bioregion

Ph.D in Sustainability Education

Diverse in perspective, this program is for professionals from a wide range of scholarly and practical backgrounds (educational, leadership, financial, medical, artistic, scientific, and more) to collaborate on solutions to the world’s most pressing social and environmental inequities. Foundation courses include Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy, Sustainability Education, Sustainability: Principles and Practice, Climate Advocacy & Praxis. This PhD program emphasizes rigorous scholarship, critical thinking, and action-oriented, community-based participatory research. Based on a cohort model of learning and scholarship, the program fosters open discourse and design of an ecologically sustainable and socially just world, examining systemic memorization and climate injustices and reimagining whole, integrated, healthy futures.

MS in Sustainable Food Systems concentrations: Food Justice, Sustainable Diets, and Biodiversity Food Entrepreneurship

The Sustainable Food Systems program has a common core of courses foundational to understanding and influencing sustainable and resilient food systems across disciplines. Many students will choose to follow the core MSFS program to apply sustainable food system concepts to address food and nutrition insecurity; incentivize agroecological approaches to enhance ecosystem services like pollination, water quality and nutrition; find leverage points in policy and community planning practices; and examine sustainable business practices from farm to table. All students complete a capstone project.

MS in Environmental Studies concentrations: Conservation Biology and Environmental Communication

Graduate Certificate in Nature-Based Counseling

Designed for learners who have already attained a master's degree in mental health practice and wish to specialize in nature-based interventions. This is one of the very few academic programs to integrate ecological perspectives within the concepts and practices of mental health counseling, such as ecotherapy, deep ecology, earth-based traditional healing practices, non-US-centric nature healing practices, ritual and rites of passage, mindfulness, horticultural, or nature-based settings. Graduates will possess conventional counseling and adventure therapy competencies in residential and community-based settings.

MA in Social Justice and Community Organizing

The program combines a unique focus on theory and practice to equip students with the skills, experience, and knowledge required to participate effectively in community organizing and social and environmental justice movement building. Courses emphasize comparative critical theory with hands-on base-building, strategy, and leadership development skills. A collaborative approach to teaching and advising supports the development of powerful theoretical and applied tools for understanding the complex relations of culture, power, systems of oppression, and the history and future of movements for social and environmental justice.