Laird Christensen

Drawing on a wide range of training and field experience, Dr. Laird Christensen directs the MS in Environmental Studies and Sustainability. Before coming to Prescott College, Laird oversaw the creation of the first online graduate programs in these fields at Green Mountain College, developing a unique transdisciplinary approach to online education that provides students with specific skills and knowledge needed to find solutions to distinctive challenges of their own communities – what has become known as a bioregional approach to distance learning.

Born and raised in western Oregon, Laird spent much of his life working in the woods, from grading timber to working as a ranger, from engaging in direct action to serving as Writer-in-Residence at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. Along the way Laird earned graduate degrees from the University of Illinois and the University of Oregon, while also learning about sustainable, place-based inhabitation by living in intentional communities, building coalitions, leading workshops in consensus and nonviolent communication, and serving on the boards of non-profit organizations.

Throughout his career Laird has been writing about both the problematic and promising relationships people develop with the places they live, publishing his work in anthologies and magazines such as The Utne Reader, Northern Woodlands, Wild Earth, The Northwest Review, and Whole Terrain. He has also edited two collections of essays: Teaching about Place: Learning from the Land (University of Nevada Press, 2008) and Teaching North American Environmental Literature (Modern Language Association, 2008).