Environmental and Urban Studies

Environmental and Urban studies as a major is only open to students that entered before Fall 2022, students entering in the fall of 2024 should look to the Environmental Studies concentration.

 

Introduction to Environmental Studies

 

Professor:

Beate Liepert Monique Segarra

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 100

CRN Number:

90385

Class cap:

35

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed  Fri   8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Reem Kayden Center 103

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Humans have profoundly altered the character of the Earth’s system since the advent of agriculture and urbanization 10,000 years ago. This course explores how natural and human systems are connected, and how global problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, species extinction are linked with one another and with social problems such as financial instability, widening economic inequality, food insecurity, intensifying conflict, and public health. We review the empirical evidence of these “wicked problems”, and introduce core concepts and methodologies from natural, and social sciences perspectives, together with practical skills that are required to tackle these issues. We will contemplate alternative political and socioeconomic options (from indigenous knowledge to shared socioeconomic pathways) and will explore how impacts of these decisions on future natural and human systems can be assessed (foresight work). Issues will be considered at a variety of scales—from the level of individual responsibility to the local, regional, national, and global dimensions. The course includes a community service component, labs, and guest lectures.  It will be co-taught by instructors in the natural and social sciences.

 

Introduction to Community Sciences

 

Professor:

Elias Dueker

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 115

CRN Number:

90520

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 3:50 PM Albee 106

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

Using common sense and common science, students in this class will join the Bard Community Sciences Lab as it continues to work with communities in the Hudson Valley to ensure equitable access to clean air and clean water. This Lab Science class is appropriate for students of all academic backgrounds, and will focus on the interdisciplinary nature of complex local environmental issues. We will learn the sciences (including dominant Western science, Indigenous Sciences, and other ways of knowing) behind air and water quality issues, and the means by which we can use those sciences to take immediate action. This semester, priority projects include air quality monitoring inside and outside emergency and subsidized housing in Ulster County, tracking micropollutants (plastics, bacteria, forever chemicals) in drinking water sources, and integration and interpretation of environmental monitoring datasets to strengthen climate resilient decision making by regional municipal leaders. This course is deeply engaged with local community, so will involve some out-of-class meetings with community leaders and other community scientists addressing air and water quality issues.

 

Landscape Studies: The Hudson Valley

 

Professor:

Jana Mader

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 206

CRN Number:

90567

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 305

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being and Value

 

Crosslists:

Architecture; Experimental Humanities; Literature

For centuries, the land on which the Bard College campus is located has been inhabited and utilized by various societies and cultures. In this course, we will critically examine the existing landscape to unfold the “story” of the land we currently call our home. Specific areas of study will include the history of Native Americans in the area, colonialism and slavery in the region; the Hudson Valley in art and literature and its role in the construction of an American identity in the 19th century; native plants and trees, agriculture, the river and environmental activism in the area; green spaces and the buildings on campus. We will explore the past, present, and possible future of the Hudson Valley through a range of primary and secondary sources, including Anne Whiston Spirn’s “The Language of Landscape,” Patrick Wolfe’s “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Myra Armstead’s “From Property to Proprietor: The Exceptional Journey of Alexander Gilson,” Susan Fox Rogers’ “My Reach,” Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Julia Rosenbaum’s “Visions of Belonging: New England Art and the Making of American Identity,” Lucy Sante’s “19 Reservoirs. On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City,” and John Stilgoe’s “The River.” While some meetings will take place in the classroom, we will also spend time outside the classroom at places like Old Growth Forest, Montgomery Place, Blithewood, Bard Farm, Bard Field Station, Tivoli Bays, and the Hessel Museum to close-read the language of landscape and to explore how our current home and what we see in it has changed over time. Students choose a semester-long research project based on their interests, culminating in an exhibition. This course includes a voluntary trip to Olana in Hudson, NY.

 

Advanced Reading in the Environmental Sciences: Thermodynamics of built environments

 

Professor:

Gidon Eshel

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 240

CRN Number:

90387

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 300

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

The course is based exclusively on reading recent vintage scientific papers. Students need not understand every sentence of every paper, but you should definitely be willing to REALLY try, and raise the points that eluded you in class.

 

Environmental Law for Policy

 

Professor:

Erin Doran

 

Course Number:

ES/ EUS 312

CRN Number:

90389

Class cap:

5

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Albee 102

 

 

    Fri   9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Albee 102

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

This course provides students with an introduction to the fundamentals principles of environmental law. We begin with an overview of the US legal system and then move on to assess key federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations. Towards the end of the class, we will also study the international environmental lawmaking process, with a focus on the international climate regime that has developed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Throughout the course, we will consider the political economy of environmental regulation and the interests of different stakeholders, including environmental justice communities.

 

Social Entrepreneurship Practicum

 

Professor:

Alejandro Crawford and Eliza Edge

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 305E

CRN Number:

90575

Class cap:

30

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed         10:00 AM – 11:20 AM Reem Kayden Center 200

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

 

 

 

In this course, students work in teams to develop their own ideas for non-profit or for-profit businesses that work to solve social and environmental challenges. The course combines in-person instruction with a global classroom, where students convene each week in a common zoom space to share ideas. Participating schools include BRAC University in Bangladesh, Al Quds University in Palestine, the American Universities of Central Asia (in Kyrgyzstan) and of Bulgaria, Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, and Bard. Past certificate courses have incubated powerful social business ideas in Bangladesh, Palestine and the US.  The course culminates in a “shark tank for sustainability” among and between teams from the different universities. The course includes readings and discussion focused on social issues related to entrepreneurship: drivers of change, from decarbonization to AI; delinking growth from material throughput; urban-based innovation ecosystems; social obstacles to risk taking; working on multi-disciplinary teams; language, power and gender dynamics in entrepreneurship; deconstructing the archetypes of entrepreneurship. This is an Engaged Liberal Arts & Sciences (ELAS) class.

 

Foundations of Environmental Education

 

Professor:

Scott Kellogg

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 313

CRN Number:

90390

Class cap:

3

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Achebe House

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Faced with multiple converging “wicked” sustainability challenges, in the upcoming decades it will become increasingly critical to have a citizenry engaged, informed, and intimately familiar with the complex inter-workings and relationships of ecological and social processes.  To achieve this, it will be necessary to train a new generation of environmental educators who are proficient in explaining socio-natural entanglements, operating at the intersection of social justice and environmentalism to bring environmental education to historically marginalized populations.  This class builds on the rich tradition of environmental and experiential pedagogical theory, synthesizing it with a practical toolkit of sustainable systems’ technologies and practices and culminating in environmental educational curriculum design.

 

GIS for Environmental Justice

 

Professor:

Jordan Ayala

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 321

CRN Number:

90617

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 12:30 AM Reem Kayden Center 107

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Architecture; Historical Studies; Human Rights

Using open source QGIS and ESRI GIS software, you will learn the fundamentals of presenting spatial information, conducting spatial analysis, and producing high-quality digital cartographic products. You will engage in the collection, processing, mapping, and analysis of environmental data at sites in Dutchess County and Ulster County. We will explore how GIS can be used as a tool for identifying and assessing environmental justice issues at the local, regional and global scale. You will complete a semester-long course project which applies GIS analysis tools and knowledge of spatial thinking and human geography to analyze a problem, research question, or policy question related to environmental or spatial justice. The course culminates in a presentation workshop session and production of an interactive online story map to present your project findings. The project will allow you to apply your GIS knowledge to analyze problems discussed in your other classes or senior project, in your community, or areas of interest. You are encouraged to focus your work in such a way that allows you to meaningfully and productively engage with a community impacted by the topic of your project. This course fulfills the EUS practicum requirement.

 

Science of the Natural Environment

 

Professor:

Jennifer Phillips

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 322

CRN Number:

90388

Class cap:

5

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:00 AM - 11:30 AM Albee 102

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

This course is the first of a two-semester sequence introducing environmental policy students to basic science concepts to support policy formulation. We begin with foundational concepts on systems and getting the most out of reading the peer-reviewed science literature. We then turn to a discussion of the Planetary Boundaries concept, “safe and just” operating spaces for the planet, the importance of stakeholder participation in science research, and the role of race in vulnerability. The bulk of the semester is then spent on the topics of water, climate, and energy systems, all grounded in the context of policy applications. I will emphasize cases to illustrate the importance of stakeholder engagement in formulating and executing environmental policy. By the end of the semester you will be comfortable reading and summarizing peer-reviewed scientific articles, and will have developed skills in investigating specific questions in environmental science from a systems and justice perspective.

 

Introduction to Environmental Policy I

 

Professor:

Monique Segarra

 

Course Number:

ES/EUS 405

CRN Number:

90590

Class cap:

5

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs     1:30 PM - 13:00 PM Albee 102

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

During this course, students analyze the political forces that impact the policy making process and the legal and regulatory instruments that have been developed to protect the environment and human health. The class provides a political framework to capture the dynamic and complex relationships between these and other critical factors  scientific, economic, cultural, institutional and ethical  that influence how society responds to environmental problems from the local to international levels. In addition, this class will help us track and navigate the larger political context that has provided openings for the modern environmental movement to emerge in the United States during the 1960s, and the advancement and retrenchment of environmental law and policies over time, both at the domestic and international level. The historical context is critical for understanding how we arrived at the present moment, one with a fraught political sphere and decades of past policy choices that has structured inequality and led to severe environmental injustice in many areas of the country.

 

Cross-listed Courses:

 

Archaeology at Montgomery Place

 

Professor:

Christopher Lindner

 

Course Number:

ANTH 210

CRN Number:

90556

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue     1:30 PM - 5:20 PM Montgomery Place and Ecology Field Station Teaching Lab

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Africana Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Historical Studies

 

Archaeology Laboratory Methods

 

Professor:

Christopher Lindner

 

Course Number:

ANTH 213

CRN Number:

90557

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs     1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Hegeman 201

 

 

    Fri     1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Hegeman 201/ Ecology Field Station Teaching Lab

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

The Rift and The Nile: Nature, Culture and History in Eastern Africa

 

Professor:

John Ryle

 

Course Number:

ANTH 218

CRN Number:

90318

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Albee 106

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists:

Africana Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Historical Studies; Human Rights

 

Architecture as Media: Spatial Subjects

 

Professor:

Michael Cohen

 

Course Number:

ARCH 111 MC

CRN Number:

90505

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities

 

Architecture as Media: How to Build a Ruin

 

Professor:

Stephanie Lee

 

Course Number:

ARCH 111 TBA

CRN Number:

90506

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities

 

Architecture as Translation: At Scale

 

Professor:

Betsy Clifton

 

Course Number:

ARCH 211 BC

CRN Number:

90507

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

 

   Thurs    1:30 PM - 3:30 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities; Human Rights

 

Architecture as Translation: Drawing to Demand

 

Professor:

Michael Cohen

 

Course Number:

ARCH 211 MC

CRN Number:

90508

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

 

Fri       1:30 PM - 3:30 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities; Human Rights

 

Post-Eden: Conflicts, Coloniality and Plants

 

Professor:

Stephanie Lee

 

Course Number:

ARCH 214

CRN Number:

90624

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

 

   Thurs    10:10 AM - 12:10 PM Garcia-Renart House STUDIO

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities

 

Planetary Practice: Confronting the Architecture of Occupied Ecologies

 

 

Professor:

Farah Alkhoury

 

 

Course Number:

ARCH 221

CRN Number:

90510

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

 

Schedule/Location:

 Mon      10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Achebe Flex Space

 

 

      Wed    10:10 AM - 12:10 PM Achebe Flex Space

 

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

 

Crosslists:

Environmental Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

 

 

Sustainable Ceramics

 

Professor:

Lisa Sanditz and Lauren Anderson

 

Course Number:

ART 205 A/S

CRN Number:

90449

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    2:00 PM - 5:00 PM UBS Studio 1

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental and Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

                                    

Situating Architecture: Modernisms

 

Professor:

Ivonne Santoyo Orozco

 

Course Number:

ARTH 126

CRN Number:

90074

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed  Fri   11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 204

 

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists:

Architecture; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Wild Visions: Picturing Nature in Early Modern Northern Europe

 

Professor:

Susan Merriam

 

Course Number:

ARTH 223

CRN Number:

90071

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

 

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities; Science, Technology, Society

 

Environmental Microbiology

 

Professor:

Rob Todd

 

Course Number:

BIO 145

CRN Number:

90129

Class cap:

21

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 103

 

Laboratory:

Mon       1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Reem Kayden Center 114/115

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental Studies

 

Ecology and Evolution

 

Professor:

Bruce Robertson

 

Course Number:

BIO 202

CRN Number:

90131

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed  Fri   8:30 AM - 11:30 AM Reem Kayden Center 114/115

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Biostatistics

 

Professor:

Cathy Collins

 

Course Number:

BIO 244

CRN Number:

90133

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    8:30 AM - 11:30 AM Reem Kayden Center 115

 

Distributional Area:

MC Mathematics and Computing  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Global Public Health; Mathematics

 

The Romans and the Natural World

 

Professor:

Lauren Curtis

 

Course Number:

CLAS 363

CRN Number:

90583

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

   Tue    3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 204

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

 

Crosslistss:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Literature

 

Introduction to Data Analytics and R Programming

 

Professor:

Jordan Ayala

 

Course Number:

CMSC 121

CRN Number:

90157

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 100

 

 

Mon       1:30 PM - 3:20 PM Reem Kayden Center 100

 

Distributional Area:

MC Mathematics and Computing  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental Studies

 

Economic Development

 

Professor:

Sanjay DeSilva

 

Course Number:

ECON 221

CRN Number:

90325

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Hegeman 102

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

 

Crosslists:

Africana Studies; Asian Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Latin American/Iberian Studies; Science, Technology, Society

 

Introduction to Econometrics

 

Professor:

Youssef Ait Benasser

 

Course Number:

ECON 229

CRN Number:

90326

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Olin 201

 

Distributional Area:

MC Mathematics and Computing  

 

Crosslists:

Economics & Finance; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Global & International Studies

 

A History of New York City, 1811-2024

 

Professor:

Daniel Wortel-London

 

Course Number:

HIST 2014 A

CRN Number:

91142

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs      11:50 AM – 1:10 PM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists:

American &  Indidenous Studies; Environmental Studies

 

St. Petersburg: City, Monument, Text

 

Professor:

Olga Voronina

 

Course Number:

LIT 2311

CRN Number:

90294

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 PM - 1:10 PM Olin 308

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Russian and Eurasian Studies

 

Readings in Ecocriticism

 

Professor:

Alex Benson

 

Course Number:

LIT 339

CRN Number:

90297

Class cap:

15

Credits:

2

 

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 303

 

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Introduction to Philosophy: Other Animals

 

Professor:

Jay Elliott

 

Course Number:

PHIL 140

CRN Number:

90256

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Olin 101

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Introduction to Meteorology

 

Professor:

Beate Liepert

 

Course Number:

PHYS 112

CRN Number:

90871

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM – 2:50 PM Rose Laboratories 108

 

Distributional Area:

MC  Mathematics and Computing  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Global Warming and Climate Change

 

Professor:

Gidon Eshel

 

Course Number:

PHYS 124

CRN Number:

90386

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Hegeman 106

 

Distributional Area:

none  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Climate and Energy

 

Professor:

Beate Liepert

 

Course Number:

PHYS 215

CRN Number:

90184

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 3:50 PM Rose Laboratories 108

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Discovering Science Through Nature: Exploring the Bard Lands

 

Professor:

Emily White

 

Course Number:

SCI 113

CRN Number:

90143

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue     10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 102/114

 

 

 Thurs    10:10 AM - 12:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 102/114

 

Distributional Area:

LS Laboratory Science  

 

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies

 

Introduction to Research Methods

 

Professor:

Yuval Elmelech

 

Course Number:

SOC 205

CRN Number:

90379

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Henderson Comp. Center 106

 

Distributional Area:

MC Mathematics and Computing  

 

Crosslists:

American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights