Certificate in Food Justice and Resilient Communities

Champion access to nutritional meals and increase food security.

Through community, workplace and campus gardens, make healthy food accessible in every community to increase food security, mitigate climate change, and build community resistance. While this passionate and growing movement is gaining momentum, we still have a lot of work to do until every citizen has equal access to the fresh fruits and vegetables that should be a staple of their diets. We’re here to help you empower people to connect with the sources of their food, practice healthy eating, and build communities with a high degree of food security, to strengthen personal, communal, and environmental resiliency and health.

This certificate is offered by AU New England.

Program Overview

Keene, New Hampshire, is committed to becoming the “healthiest community in America” by 2020 (Healthy Monadnock, http://www.healthymonadnock.org). The “Farm to School” movement is reshaping school lunch programs across the U.S. And various efforts are improving access to healthy food and reducing food insecurity across the globe.

AUNE’s Community Garden Connections (CGC) has several robust food justice and garden education programs to complement this certificate, including community-based gardens, workplace gardens, and campus gardens. Over 500 community members participate in CGC programming annually.

Degree Requirements

Program Length:

The certificate can be completed within 32 weeks. Food Justice and Resilient Communities certificate courses meet one day/week or as intensives, aligned with our current Environmental Studies’ delivery models.

Requirements

The Environmental Studies Department offers this 9-credit certificate to matriculated and non-matriculated students. Matriculated students who fulfill the requirements of a certificate will earn a dual credential along with their Master of Science. We believe that each of these certificates will add tremendous value to our students’ professional development and career opportunities.

Students complete the required courses from the Environmental Studies MS curriculum, a minimum of  one course from each of the following areas:

1. Certificate Core Requirement (choose one):
   • Community & School-based Sustainable Food Systems
   • Program Planning & Design
   • Citizen Participation & Sustainable Communities
2. Conservation & Climate Science (choose one):
   • Climate Change Resilience, Adaptation and Mitigation
   • Civic Ecology Practices and Community Resilience
   • Field Techniques or related topics by permission
3. Application (choose one):
   • Program Evaluation for Environmental and Conservation Educators
   • Soil Ecology
   • Principles of Sustainability
   • Advanced Topics or related topics by permission