Graduate Programs & Courses

3 credit course. This course is the "capstone" final project course for students in the Master's of Professional Studies in Renewable Energy and Sustainability Systems. It should be taken at or near the end of the student's degree program and may not be taken prior to enrolling in (and ideally completing) all other "core" courses in the degree.

3 credit course. Offered Summer and Fall. In the coming decades, biomass will play an increasing role in satisfying society's energy and material needs, providing a renewable alternative to fossil fuels. This course will cover the fundamental theories and applied technologies used in the production and conversion of biomass into transportation fuels, heat, power, electricity, chemicals, and other value-added products.

3 credit course. Offered Summer. This course covers biomass handling options and relevant cost analysis, engineering principles of field equipment, practical methods of evaluation and testing, field performance of machine systems for biomass harvesting and handling operations, selection and management of field machine systems with efficiency and sustainability considerations. Prerequisite: ABE 884

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course provides an understanding of conversions of raw agricultural materials into bioenergy with a focus on liquid biofuels. This course presents in-depth coverage of chemical, biochemical, and thermo-chemical conversion technologies for the production of bioenergy as well as the separation of bioenergy compounds from the mixture. Each part of this course is unique within itself and covers different aspects of conversion technologies for the production of bioenergy from biomass.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. This course provides a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics, production, and improvement of plants as feedstocks for conversion to energy. Prerequisite: ABE 884

3 credit course. Offered Fall (odd years). Lectures and exercises designed to develop student competency in plant selection to promote ecological diversity and genetically superior plants.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course will explore intentional and unintentional threats to the agriculture-food system, history and current approaches for safeguarding this key infrastructure. Prerequisite: HLS/PHP 510 or permission from the instructor.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. The goal of this course is to provide food industry professionals with information to assist them in recognizing and applying measures to prevent intentional contamination of the food supply.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course is comprised of supervised student activities on research projects identified on an individual or small-group basis.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. This course provides knowledge of veterinary diagnostic and surveillance systems used to detect infectious diseases in individual animals and animal populations, with the goal of protecting against animal agricultural biological attacks.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. This course provides knowledge of plant biosecurity, plant disease, regulations, and technologies using case study examples.

1–9 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. This course in Individual Studies in agronomy is for students who will be working on their capstone project with their adviser. It is based on creative projects, including non-thesis research, which are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. Understanding theories, concepts, and frameworks of community and economic development and community decision-making models in application to community development practice and issues.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Summer. This course introduces students to the four basic elements of leadership: personal, interpersonal, group/organization, and community.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course provides a multidimensional overview of three key aspects of community and economic development. Population—the people. Land use—the place. Municipal finance—the things they do there.

3 credit course. This course is an overview of the field of planning. It examines the history of planning and the theories behind it, and the corresponding roles that planners can play in their communities. It establishes the legal framework for planning as a profession and examines landmark legal cases involving planning and its tools. It then looks at the different types and levels of planning and examines the process of planning, what data needs to be collected, how a comprehensive plan is made and implemented, and who planners must interact with, in the course of doing their job. Finally, the course reviews the current issues in planning, such as smart growth, new urbanism, and sustainability. Throughout, the course attempts to emphasize both the positive and negative impacts of planning.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. Understanding principles and strategies of regional growth and development, focusing on challenges to theory, policy, and practice, emphasizing change in metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural areas. Prerequisites: CEDEV 430 and 500 or permission from the instructor.

3 credit course. Offered Summer. This is an optional course for the Master of Professional Studies in Community and Economic Development. It provides a foundation in the connections between communities and their local environments, the institutional barriers and boundaries that guide these relationships, and how both work together in impacting the long-term community and economic development trajectories across multiple scales.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. Typical topics include several methods and techniques in these areas: general community assessment techniques, specialized techniques for community and economic development, and leadership and process skills.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. This course provides essential information for the process of writing and developing a framework for students to apply, integrate, and practice the theories, concepts, and methods from the CEDEV curriculum in developing the topic, outline, and literature review for their required master's paper.

1, 2, 3, or 6 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. Creative projects, including non-thesis research, that are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

3 credit course. This course examines the relationship between entrepreneurs, small businesses, and local economic development. The course examines the multiple definitions of "entrepreneurship," and how these individuals affect—and are affected by—the social and economic dynamics of their community.

3 credit course. This course provides an overview of modern approaches to developing places and regions, including policy options and limitations. Fundamental reasons for the worldwide decline of some rural areas and the growth of cities are also explored.

3 credit course. This course will provide students with the knowledge needed to form innovative ideas that address social, environmental, and economic problems, put those ideas into a physical plan, get them funded, and launch them. Along the way, students will develop their own ideas for improving the world, and work them forward with fellow innovators. All the while, students will learn the techniques of social entrepreneurship and collaborative innovation, and how to apply them to everyday life.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. This course offers theoretical and practice background that provides the capacity to analyze and scrutinize some of the most chronic developmental problems of the twenty-first century and to provide participants with the practical skills to provide resolution along a wide spectrum of critical policy areas.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course provides students with an overview of ecosystem monitoring methods and analyses. Students completing the course will have the ability to apply a quantitative approach to the monitoring of ecosystems. Students will learn about monitoring planning, various sampling designs, and specific measurement methods used to accomplish particular monitoring objectives associated with ecosystem management. Students will be able to apply specific sampling, measurement, and data analysis methods for monitoring vegetation, wildlife, water quantity and quality, and soils, and they will have a statistical foundation for evaluating the various types of data that are collected. Specifically, students will be able to calculate reliability measures, trends, and indicators of ecosystem change, and apply hypothesis testing to these measures to determine their statistical significance. Specific sampling designs will be presented, such as simple random sampling, stratified random sampling, systematic sampling, and cluster sampling.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. This course provides a broad exploration of the basic legal principles, regimes, and issues related to environmental protection and natural resource management.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. Making decisions as an ecosystem manager requires knowledge of economics, planning, and finance.

3 or 6 credit course. Offered Spring. Supervised, professionally-oriented student activities that constitute the culminating experience for the program.

3 credit course. Offered Spring. The main objective of this course is to allow each student to develop the necessary data analysis skills needed for analyzing and interpreting sensory and consumer data.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course aims to allow each student to develop and apply the fundamental dimensions and value of consumer insights to product development objectives; implement key qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid approaches for consumer insights; recognize, identify, and apply key consumer biases, and examine trade-offs in research and consumer behavior.

3 credit course. Offered Spring (even years). Lectures, reading assignments, and problems designed to develop student competency in plant physiology as it relates to turfgrass management strategies.

3 credit course. Offered Spring (odd years). Lectures and exercises designed to develop student competency in solving turfgrass pest problems, as well as disease resistance in turfgrass.

3 credit course. Offered Fall (even years). This course will provide an introduction to literature search in turfgrass management, identification of most pertinent peer-reviewed journals for each area of interest/specialty in turfgrass management, and utilization of other resources.