Environment & Behavior
Note: Effective Fall 2002, the Consumer Studies & Family Economics and Environment & Behavior majors have merged to form a new major called Consumer and Community Studies. Only students who have already declared CSFE or E&B as their major can follow these requirements. Any new students should look at the requirements for the Consumer and Community Studies major.
Majors learn about important home and community settings in our lives and how research on homes and communities is conducted and how the research can improve our places, policies, and general quality of life. By the study of settings in the real world, students learn to integrate perspectives across a variety of disciplines in order to understand how to make settings better. To meet these objectives, students get a broad view of human functioning through the Family and Consumer Studies Department cores classes, a conceptual orientation to processes in home and community settings, and a methodological background for improving, researching, or utilizing research on settings.
Home and Community Environments Core Courses
Environment and Behavior core courses examine ways in which everyday physical environments of homes and communities influence, and are influenced by, individuals, families, and other groups through cultural, social, and psychological processes.
Conceptual Orientation Courses:
Conceptual orientations courses examine ways of understanding home and community environments, including the following particular emphases:
- Approaches to studying environment and related artifacts, processes, and phenomena.
- Groups who use environments.
- Types and aspects of environments.
Methods Courses:
Methods courses are used to integrate different perspectives about environments and humans through research, planning, design, education, community action and policy-making. Methods courses analyze the strategies involved in collecting, researching, and disseminating information about the transactions of individuals, families, and other groups within home and community environments; including change-related matters of design, planning, and policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Students will learn how to conduct and or apply research to improve the functioning of human environments.
With these skills in hand, graduates are prepared to work with, and for, a variety of private and public organizations. Examples include the following professions:
- Community Planning and Development.
- Housing and Workspace Design.
- Government Regulation, Social Service Administration and Planning.
- Environmental and Social advocacy.
- Real Estate and Building.