Graduate Academics

The IDCE programs link a participatory approach with a holistic understanding of the social, ecological, and economic aspects of contemporary development and environmental sustainability.

IDCE focuses on the human and ecological dimensions of managing resources for sustainable development. Graduate programs build a solid theoretical base and an interdisciplinary skill set including: project design and management, risk analysis, geographic information sciences, conflict mediation, environmental and social impacts assessment, development in conflict and post-conflict situations, and local-level institution building. This training emphasizes not only how but also why and when to use these interdisciplinary skills. IDCE graduates therefore acquire both the practical skills and the theory-based understanding required for informed, thoughtful action.

Clark University's Department of International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE) includes four programs:

IDCE has four main goals:

Understanding Power Relationships
IDCE builds an understanding of how power relationships give rise to social injustice and inequity. It examines how they affect exploitation of the environment, limit options for marginal populations, shape relationships among and within communities, and constrain development. Faculty and students explore how power relations work and how social groups organize in response.

Sustaining the Environment
The Earth's present economic and resource management systems are at risk. Rich nations indulge in excessive consumption while 60 percent of the world's people struggle to survive with diminishing resources. To encourage creative solutions, IDCE teaches tools such as GIS methods, risk analysis, hazards management, environmental impact assessment, watershed stewardship, gender and social impact analysis, participatory planning, and management of natural resources. Equipped with these methods, IDCE graduates build connections between industrial and developing nations by working with institutions to seek development options that are socially desirable, economically rational, and ecologically responsible.

Building Community
IDCE programs emphasize local action and planning so that communities can begin to address their own environment and development problems. Community institutions, domestic and overseas, can become vital links between local people and policy makers at national and transnational levels. By emphasizing gender analysis, grassroots participation, and capacity building, IDCE fosters an inclusive process of development planning and action.

Adapting Tools for Social Change
The interdisciplinary approach of IDCE produces individuals with a broad skill set as well as in-depth knowledge in a specific area. Their tool kit includes skills to influence local, regional, and national decision-making through conflict mediation, participatory rural appraisal, mapping and remote sensing, environmental modeling, financial planning, and project design, implementation and evaluation. Through classes and collaborative research with faculty, students gain a sound theoretical base to put into perspective the contemporary challenges confronting the environment and development. With IDCE's interdisciplinary focus, graduates gain a working appreciation of how they can make significant contributions to a more sustainable future.

In Clark's IDCE Programs, students benefit from:

* a diverse faculty that incorporates research and teaching into their deep commitment to improve local and global conditions

* a personalized program tailored to student priorities

* linkages between human and ecological dimensions of development

* a world-wide reputation for addressing environmental change

* visible accomplishment in participation and gender analysis for development

* world leadership in geographic information sciences, including Idrisi, Clark's own GIS software

* a century-long tradition of research on issues of natural resource management and its impact on society

* research and training partnerships with government and non-government development agencies throughout the world

* close working relationships between faculty and graduate students, in the classroom and in the field

* attention to career-building skills.