Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders of Environmental Equity
The mission of the Community ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ment and Environmental Justice (CEEJ) concentration is to equip environmental leaders with concepts and skills needed to understand the structural, institutional and historical bases of inequity and injustice associated with 21st-century environmental challenges. Our graduates learn to engage responsibly and effectively with communities working to enact sustainable and socially just visions for themselves and their environments.
The CEEJ concentration involves rigorous classroom and off-campus work, with students applying cutting-edge theory and methods to community-based partnership experiences. They learn to evaluate their own work and the work of others through the lens of environmental justice.
Our concentration prepares tomorrow’s leaders to promote a more just and equitable environment for everyone.
Concentration Courses
gateway course
ENVIRON 755— Introduction to Community-Based Environmental Management - required course for CEEJ concentration (3 credits, fall year one).
Complete at least one of the following Environmental Justice courses:
- ENVIRON 506—Environmental Justice: Theory and Practice (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 790—Environmental Justice Dilemma—Special Topics (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 790—Political Ecology and Resilience Thinking—Special Topics (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 860SA—Political Ecology, ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ Marine Lab (3 credits, fall)
Complete at least one of the following Applications courses:
- ENVIRON 785A - Conservation Biology and Service Learning (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 795: Practicum in Community-Based Environmental Management (3 credits, spring)—prerequisite course: ENVIRON 755
- ENVIRON 869: Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (4 credits, fall and spring)
If students have not already completed 12 credits of coursework from the list above, they may select one of the following courses to meet concentration requirements. ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s interested in proposing that a course not on the list below count toward the CEEJ concentration requirements should email their request to the program co-chairs and complete .
- MARSCI 505A—Social Impact Analysis and Indigenous Resource Management - travel (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 551DA—International Conservation and Development (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 556: Environmental Conflict Resolution (3 credits, ad hoc) 
- ENVIRON 577: Environmental Politics (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 579S—Collective Action, Environment, and Development (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 590—Evaluating Environmental Programs—Special Topics (3 credits, ad hoc) 
- ENVIRON 590—Indigenous Land and Water—Special Topics (3 credits, spring) 
- ENVIRON 590S: Narrating Nature Documentary and Environmental Studies—Special Topics (3 credits, ad hoc)
- HISTORY 591S—Environmental (Hi)stories: History, Narrative, and Writing in Practice (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 632: Environmental Education and Interpretation (3 credits, ad hoc)
- ENVIRON 646—Urban Ecology (3 credits, fall)
- ​â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹ENVIRON 658/A: Applied Qualitative Research Methods (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 687S—Complexity and Courage: Ethics for Community ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ment (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 754A: Research Design for Environmental Social Sciences (3 credits, spring)
- ENVIRON 789—Community ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ment a Participatory Research Methods (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 790—Science & Knowledge in Global Climate Governance-Special Topics (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 816—Applied Environmental Policy Analysis (3 credits, spring)
- PUBPOL 845S—Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics (3 credits, fall)
- ENVIRON 975: Community-Based Environmental Management in Mexico - travel (3 credits, every other spring) 
- ENVIRON 982—Sustainable Development in Colombia - travel (2-3 credits, every other spring)
CEEJ Primary concentration pathway
The course-based pathway will be available in a limited capacity to students matriculating in fall 2025 and will be fully available and the default pathway for students matriculating in fall 2026 and beyond. Proposed courses and requirements are subject to change. Please contact your primary concentration faculty chair with any questions.
ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s whose primary concentration is CEEJ will choose one of two pathways. Whether through advanced coursework in the course-based pathway or the Master’s Project (MP) pathway, students will gain tangible deliverables, professional growth and preparation for their next steps after graduation. Most students will follow the course-based pathway.
The CEEJ course-based pathway offers options from approved courses and requires a minimum of six additional graded credit hours. ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s whose primary concentration is CEEJ may fulfill the 6-credit requirement by choosing from among the following categories of experiential coursework that would be in addition to fulfilling the other, standard course requirements for this concentration:
- Pre-Approved CEEJ Applications Courses (e.g., Practicum in Community-Based Environmental Management; Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic) additional to the Applications coursework used to meet the standard requirements.
- Certain Pre-Approved CEEJ Electives with significant experiential components that allow students to apply what they have learned in CEEJ coursework (e.g., travel courses, client-based coursework).
- Other Experiential Coursework whose learning objectives align with CEEJ concentration goals (e.g., relevant Bass Connections, Design Climate, etc.) as proposed by the student. ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s must email program co-chairs with the request and complete in order to have a course pre-approved. Recommended for second year.
Expectations
Coming in: ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s will need to fulfill the school-wide prerequisites in calculus and statistics, which are required for all concentrations.
During the program: All CEEJ students are required to enroll in a semester-long practicum, clinic or similar experience that provides an opportunity to apply skills and knowledge in real-life situations.
I'm a firm believer in the power of communities to achieve environmental change and progress justice. The CEEJ program provides a meaningful education that you can integrate into applied practice with community-based partners. Outside of the classroom, I've found the opportunities to attend various environmental justice organizing events throughout North Carolina to be the most rewarding, where I've engaged and learned from incredible change-makers locally and beyond."
–Kai tran, MEM'25
Transferable Skills
In this concentration, students will develop expertise in:
- Theory and methods to assess community-level dynamics and capacity for collective action
- Frameworks for collaborative production of knowledge, decision-making and management
- Techniques and strategies for community organizing, facilitation and conflict management
- Promising practices in community-level communication, education and outreach
- Critical evaluation of the policies, frameworks and issues that influence inequity, injustice and the environment, and strategies for promoting environmental justice
- Data and geospatial analysis to promote justice
- Listening, empathy, humility and self-reflection
- Reciprocity, allyship and partnership with historically marginalized communities
Knowledge Gained
ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s will:
- Gain training in the development and sustainability of effective and ethical partnerships
- Acquire the methodological and theoretical foundations needed to engage with communities in ways that are ethical, reciprocal and sustainable
- Become equipped to identify the structural roots of inequities in power, access and privilege in environmental science and management
- Build knowledge and skills to facilitate the processes through which marginalized communities are empowered to manage their own environments
- Learn strategies for designing, implementing and evaluating community engagement programs that are culturally responsive, socially just and ecologically sound
Enrich Your Experience
ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½s in this concentration will find a range of opportunities to expand their academic experience and get connected to projects and people that align with their interests. We recommend exploring these programs to get started:
- (Duke Divinity School)
- (Franklin Humanities Institute)
- (student coalition)
- Just Environments Program (/)
