Environmental Studies
PASSION. SKILLS. ACTION.
The Environmental Studies Program (EVST) at the University of Montana is like an ecosystem: students, faculty, and our community partners thrive because each person plays a different role in contributing to the community’s well-being and resilience. This close-knit community, housed within the historic Jeanette Rankin Hall, contains a breadth of faculty expertise matched by the diversity of our students’ interests. EVST is a place where students follow their passions, affirm their values, get involved in the community, and are supported in a wide range of learning experiences. Recognizing that there is not one single solution to the pressing environmental challenges we all face, the Environmental Studies Program provides opportunities for students to learn about and engage with multiple approaches and perspectives needed to make positive environmental change happen.
Western Regional Graduate Program
The Environmental Studies Program is approved as a distinctive program within the Western Regional Graduate Program (WRGP) of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). This means -- if you are a legal resident of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, or Wyoming, -- you will qualify for a tuition rate of 150% of the Montana resident tuition rate. The UM Graduate School will notify you of your WRGP in-state tuition rate status upon admission. (Subject to continued UM WRGP policy.)
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Our Mission
The Environmental Studies Program provides students with the literacy, skills, and commitment needed to foster a healthy natural environment and to create a more sustainable, equitable, and peaceful world. To these ends, the Environmental Studies Program educates and challenges students to become knowledgeable, motivated and engaged in environmental affairs. Our students acquire the skills and awareness to promote positive social change, and improve the environment and communities of Montana and the world, for current and future generations.
Our Principles
- Environmental studies require an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
- Creating solutions to environmental problems requires critical thinking, enterprise and action-taking, as well as reflection on our actions; therefore, an effective environmental education generates thinkers who can do as well as doers who can think.
- Environmental Studies provide both classroom and experiential learning opportunities in democratic citizenship, including communication, collaboration, and committed civic participation.
- Creating a sustainable world requires addressing social and environmental injustices simultaneously, being actively anti-racist, and supporting tribal sovereignty.
- Students thrive in learning environments where the expression of diverse perspectives are valued and supported.
- Students are co-creators of their educational experience.