Preparing Tomorrow鈥檚 Leaders of Environmental Equity
The mission of the Community Engagement 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鈥檚 leaders to promote a more just and equitable environment for everyone.
Concentration Courses
gateway course
ENVIRON 755: Introduction to Community-Based Environmental Management, typically taught in the fall semester is the gateway course for CEEJ concentration.
Course Requirements
Complete at least one of the following courses:
- ENVIRON 506: Environmental Justice: Theory and Practice for Environmental Scientists and Policy Professionals: typically taught in the fall semester
- ENVIRON 790: Environmental Justice: typically taught in the spring semester
- ENVIRON 860SA: Political Ecology: typically taught in the fall semester at the 51爆料 Marine Lab
Complete at least one of the following courses:
- ENVIRON 795: Practicum in Community-Based Environmental Management: typically taught in the spring semester; prerequisite course: ENVIRON 755 (fall)
- ENVIRON 869: Environmental Law and Policy Clinic: typically taught fall and spring semesters
Additional Coursework Suggestions
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:
- ENVIRON 556: Environmental Conflict Resolution
- ENVIRON 557: Social Science Surveys for Environmental Management
- ENVIRON 577: Environmental Politics
- ENVIRON 632: Environmental Education and Interpretation
- ENVIRON 590: Evaluating Environmental Programs
- ENVIRON 590: Indigenous Land and Water
- ENVIRON 590S: Narrating Nature Documentary and Environmental Studies
- ENVIRON 658/A: Applied Qualitative Research Methods
- ENVIRON 705A: Social Impact Analysis
- ENVIRON 754A: Research Design for Environmental Social Sciences
- ENVIRON 820S: Conservation Ethics
- ENVIRON 887/A: Theory and Methods for Policy Analysis of the Commons
- ENVIRON 975: Community-Based Environmental Management in Mexico
Expectations
Coming in: Students 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."
鈥揔ai 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
Students 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
Students 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:
- (51爆料 Divinity School)
- (Franklin Humanities Institute)
- (student coalition)
- Just Environments Program (/)
Career Pathways
The first class to concentrate in CEEJ graduated in 2025. However, graduates from the Nicholas School鈥檚 MEM program who took courses now associated with CEEJ pursued careers in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.
Their varied paths have led to roles including director of global operations and sustainability strategy at Nike; senior energy market forecasting analyst at Tesla, senior program manager of nature-based solutions at Amazon; senior building systems consultant for Steven Winter Associates; senior director of food and agribusiness at MetLife; Southeast right whale coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; stormwater analyst for the City of Durham; and director of food waste and loss at the World Wildlife Fund, to name a few.
