Curricula
IGERT trainees will participate in specialized coursework, mini-courses (5-week modules), externships, and seminars designed to expose them to critical language, issues, and tools of watershed science and policy. Group activities will train fellows to integrate and apply knowledge by working with students in other disciplines in problem solving. The courses and activities will be the foundation for a formal unified graduate specialization in adaptive management within the participating departments. The repeated reinforcement of key concepts and skills in these activities over multiple years will develop scholars who can translate watershed science into effective policy based on a sophisticated understanding of linked social-environmental systems.
In addition to research experiences, IGERT fellows will participate in specialized coursework, mini-courses (5-week modules), externships, and seminars designed to expose them to critical language, issues, and tools of watershed science and policy. Group activities will train fellows to integrate and apply knowledge by working with students in other disciplines in problem solving. The courses and activities will be the foundation for a formal unified graduate specialization in adaptive management within the participating departments. The repeated reinforcement of key concepts and skills in these activities over multiple years will develop scholars who can translate watershed science into effective policy based on a sophisticated understanding of linked social-environmental systems.
We anticipate that most of the students pursuing the interdisciplinary adaptive management Ph.D. specialization will join the program in the first year of their graduate study and will be funded with a departmental assistantship the first year, followed by IGERT Program funding two to three years, after which they will be supported through departmental teaching assistantships, other external grants, or UNL funding. Students who take advantage of the interdisciplinary adaptive management Ph.D. specialization likely will come from UNL’s Schools of Natural Resources or Biological Sciences, or the Departments of Computer Science and Engineering, Geosciences, Political Science, Sociology, or Agricultural Economics.
As IGERT fellows, students will be required to take several common courses in addition to coursework required by their home department. Required IGERT courses and electives are identified and described further below. IGERT fellows will participate in a number of other activities, externships, and have the opportunity for an international experience.
