Students Learn "Think Globally, Act Locally" Is More Than a Slogan

As an ever-shrinking planet and growing environmental challenges force changes in global priorities, more students are coming to college desiring to make the world a better place. Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has responded by offering a new major that prepares students to have a hand in the process—in other countries or in their own neighborhood.

The Community, Environment and Development (CED) major in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology is designed to meet the needs of students who are interested in environmental studies, personal activism, and community development. Students in the curriculum learn to design and implement programs that actively build and strengthen communities, according to Megan Sinasky, undergraduate coordinator for the department.

“A lot of changes have occurred as academic institutions opt for a more community-based approach to solving global concerns,” she says. “This major is about working with people in their own neighborhoods to create positive change, whether it’s in a Costa Rican jungle or rural Pennsylvania. Our students may be preparing for a job with the Peace Corps, with a local not-for-profit, as an international environmental advocate with a nongovernmental organization, or in local government for a borough or township.”

Sinasky explains that the CED major is a permutation of the college’s Environmental and Renewable Resource Economics (ERRE) major, which stresses analyzing environmental and resource problems and evaluating solutions using the methods, concepts, and techniques of environmental and natural resource economics.

“In the last few years, along with an increased interest in environmental studies, students also are looking for ways to make a difference,” she says. “They want their activism to be effective, so we rewired ERRE into CED. Students still study economics and the environment, but it’s seen in an international or local setting. There are not a lot of programs like it in the country. There are community development programs and environmental programs, but not many that combine international studies, community development, and environmental economics.”

The major is customized into three options. The International Development option teaches students to work within an underdeveloped country, helping its citizens to improve their subsistence-level food systems through a sustainable economic model while preserving that nation’s natural resources.