Sustainability Education Ph.D.
Why this program?
You want to lead the effort in designing a more ecologically sustainable and socially just and diverse world. You are a changemaker and believe in the power of good leadership and interdisciplinary approaches to solve our greatest challenges. You are curious and open-minded, you are passionate and compassionate, and you are ready to help achieve true and lasting transformation for all.
What can you do with this degree?
Graduates are regularly working in their field and connected to the community they wish to serve. Here are just a few careers where you can find our students and alumni:
- Higher Education Faculty
- Environmental or Social Justice/Social Sciences Policy
- Sustainability Director or Consultant
- Culturally Responsive Teaching
- Equity Pedagogy Consultant
- DEI Organizational Director
- Social Science Researcher
What will this program look like?
Your doctoral journey is transformative. Multi-disciplinary and diverse by design, we leverage critical systems thinking to explore both social and environmental justice in teaching, leading, and learning. Diverse in perspective, we call upon professionals from a wide range of scholarly and practical backgrounds (educational, leadership, financial, medical, artistic, scientific, and more) to collaborate on solutions to our world’s most pressing social and environmental inequities. Student-centered and supportive, your advisors and professors will guide you and help you grow personally and professionally every step of the way. Foundation courses include: Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy, Sustainability Education, Sustainability: Principles and Practice, Climate Advocacy & Praxis. In addition to knowledge and perspective gained, emerge with doctoral-level communication skills and a critical research toolkit that will benefit you in whatever career path you find.
The Ph.D. program can be completed on a full-time or part-time basis to accommodate working professionals.
Key Program Information
Delivery Method
Online*
Number of Credits
72
Cost Per Credit
$1298
Spring 2025 Application Deadline
Friday, December 20, 2024
Spring 2025 Orientation
Friday, January 10, 2025
*Online program format also requires attendance at a colloquium on the Prescott College Campus.
Admissions & Apply
- The Ph.D. in Sustainability Education emphasizes rigorous scholarship, critical thinking, and experiential, action-oriented, and community-based research.
- Based on a cohort-model of learning and scholarship, the program fosters open discourse and design of an ecologically sustainable and socially just and diverse world in the 21st century.
- Through respect for diverse perspectives and scholarly collaboration, integrated, applied and interdisciplinary thinking, the Ph.D. program promotes the evolution of ecological understanding, psychological/philosophical consciousness, and equitable learning for a humane and sustainable future.
- You’ll explore in-depth the roots and practices of sustainability education and examine its many applications in private and public settings.
Demonstrate sustained growth in their learning of the interdisciplinary field(s) of sustainability education by engaging key scholars, debates, concepts, critiques, and methods from the relevant scholarly fields and movements.
Analyze sustainability education as a social and environmental justice phenomenon, expressly employing an equity literacy lens.
Synthesize critical, innovative, and systems thinking skills as reflected in sustainability education theory, inquiry, research, and practice.
Produce and disseminate scholarly knowledge, including: written, visual, and oral products.
Build leadership skills that foster environmental and social justice values and pedagogies.
- The Sustainability Education Ph.D. Program is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. The Higher Learning Commission has approved Prescott College to offer all of its degree titles via distance education.
Click to view program requirements and academic program information in the Course Catalog.
Critical Foundations of Research and Scholarship
Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy
Sustainability Education
Sustainability: Principles and Practice
Climate Advocacy & Praxis
Advanced Research Design
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Kimi Waite ’23
Ph.D. IN SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION
Ph.D. alumna Kimi Waite was recently published in Ms. Magazine!
Kimi’s piece “I’m an Asian American Environmental Educator: White Supremacy is a Threat to me and to the Planet.”is centered around Earth Day, and calls for prioritizing racial justice and not just an ecological agenda!
Careers & Opportunities
Career Pathways
Sustainability Education Ph.D. degree leads to so many possibilities. Here are just a few:
- Higher Education Faculty
- Environmental or Social Justice/Social Sciences Policy
- Sustainability Director or Consultant
- Culturally Responsive Teaching
- Equity Pedagogy Consultant
- DEI Organizational Director
- Social Science Researcher
Career Planning
Our Career Services team works with you to map out a plan that works for your goals and your life. There are many ways to get where you’re going, and we’ve seen it all!
Are you interested in being part of our community?
One thing we all have in common is our passion – passion for helping others, passion for the environment, passion for social justice and a passion for a different kind of learning experience.