Preparing students for world-changing careers
The Goodnight Family Sustainable Development Department is committed to preparing students for both thoughtful analysis of human systems and applied practice in the pursuit of transformative, community-driven development and social change. Sustainable development aims to enrich human well-being, protect and conserve healthy and productive natural systems, support shared economic prosperity, and advance an ecological worldview.
As members of a critical development studies department, our faculty and students examine the interdependent complexities and challenges of the world’s most pressing environmental, economic, and social problems, and envision and develop creative and innovative solutions to these challenges. We examine key theoretical concepts and analytical tools in order to assess what development means and how it is experienced in different places and cultures in all parts of the world, including how current development and livelihood challenges are shaped by globalization and environmental change.
Join us as we engage in understanding and advancing the social, economic, and environmental transformations necessary to create thriving, equitable, and sustainable communities within an ecologically healthy world!
News
SD Professor Researches Drivers of Human Migration in Guatemala
Aug 12, 2026
Dr. Aniseh Bro recently traveled to Guatemala as part of her ongoing research in migration drivers and sustainable development. An interdisciplinary s...
SD Student Publishes Poetry and Art in The Peel Review
May 28, 2026
Congratulations to SD student Alexis Beittel, who has recently published her poem, "For the Mountains," and her artwork, titled "Cosmology," in The Pe...
Professor Brian Burke and Two SD Students Receive Resilience Pathmaker Awards
May 28, 2026
Congratulations to Sustainable Development (SD) Professor Dr. Brian Burke and to SD students Megan Prosser and Reilly Cates, who were recently&nb...
What Our Alumni Are Saying
My degree in SD has provided me with the building blocks upon which I have begun my career with the National Park Service as an interpreter and proponent for natural, wild places.
One thing that constantly impressed my about the program was the diversity of the students within it - the range of interests we had, and what we hoped to do with everything we learned. The faculty and staff in the Sustainable Development department gave individual, personalized attention to each of us to make sure that we would be prepared for our individual goals while also ensuring that we left with broad knowledge of all branches of sustainability - environmental, economic, agricultural, and global."