Spring 2026
Course Preview Week: January 20 - January 26, 2026
Semester Dates: January 27 - May 08, 2026
Core Courses
SMGT 700 Cultural and Historical Foundations of Sustainability
In this course, you will investigate the changing relationships of humans to the natural environment, changes in dominant scientific perspectives, and the process of scientific debate. Explore the quest for understanding, manipulating, and dominating the natural world. And learn about cultural and organizational structures, the role and impact of technology, the systems approach to problem solving, and their implications for the future.
SMGT 710 The Natural Environment
Through case studies and some pre-reading, this course explores natural cycles, climate, water, energy, biosystems, ecosystems, the role of humans in the biosphere, and the human impacts on natural systems, with the carbon cycle as a unifying theme. Additionally, it covers disturbance pollution and toxicity, carrying capacity, and natural capital.
SMGT 720 Applied Research and the Triple Bottom Line
Learn how to document and project internal and external costs resulting from the inseparability of the natural, social, and economic environments. Additionally, gain the ability to assess sustainability issues using basic modeling techniques, cause and effect, root cause analysis, regression analysis, and business-scenario-based cases.
SMGT 750 The Built Environment
This course explores how the built environment came to be, and how it intersects with human needs such as water, air, food, waste, transportation, healthcare, and education. You will evaluate community design and what a sustainable community looks like, and study related technologies while evaluating alternatives and discussing unintended consequences. This course will include case studies.
SMGT 760 Geopolitical Systems–Decision Making for Sustainability on Local, State, and National Levels
This course is an examination of decision making and public policy for sustainability at the national, state, and local levels, with emphasis on the social, economic, and political factors affecting decisions within both the public and private sectors. Attention is given to formal American policymaking processes, informal grassroots activities and consensus building, public engagement with sustainability decisions, corporate sustainability actions and reporting, the promise of public-private partnerships and collaborative decision making, and practical examples of how decision making fosters effective transitions to sustainability goals at all levels.
SMGT 770 Leading Sustainable Organizations
Get a macro-level perspective on leading sustainable organizations. Topics include organizational change and transformation processes, strategic and creative thinking, organizational structures and their impacts, conflict management and negotiation, stakeholder management, and situational leadership styles and behaviors. The course focuses on how organizational leaders develop and enable sustainable organizations, especially in times of environmental change.
Elective Courses
SMGT 780 Corporate Social Responsibility
This course will enable students to understand the rationale behind CSR and sustainability. It takes students through an evaluation of risks and potential impacts in decision making, uncovering the links between the success of an organization and the well-being of a community/society. Additionally, methods and standards of integrating CSR throughout an organization, creating metrics and communicating CSR policies internally and externally will be discussed, analyzed, and applied. Students will develop an understanding of best practices of CSR in its entire breadth within an organization as well as delve into economic structures designed to foster more responsibility and accountability.
SMGT 784 Sustainable Water Management
This course addresses practical applications of sustainability in aquatic environments. Topics covered include water and health, water quality and quantity, governance, assessing the aquatic environment, water treatment technologies, environmental mitigation, and impacts of climate change. Emphasis will be on selected areas of interest from the perspective of public health, engineering, and municipal conservation management.
SMGT 786 Climate Change
In this course, you will explore climate change through scientific, humanistic, and sustainability frameworks. After building a strong foundation in the causes, impacts, and study of climate change, you will apply this understanding to evaluate scientific communication, environmental justice and vulnerability, and environmental policy to find solutions and strategies to address anthropogenic climate change.
Capstone Experience
SMGT 790 Capstone Preparation
In this course, you will build the foundation for your capstone project through research, data analysis, and scholarly inquiry that result in a project proposal. This course is a prerequisite for SMGT 792.
SMGT 792 Capstone Project
Prerequisite: SMGT 790
The capstone project provides students with the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned and gain hands-on experience in the real world. Each student will help a real organization solve an existing sustainability problem by implementing practical knowledge to achieve a triple-bottom-line solution. Projects may focus on issues such as supply chain structures, energy efficiencies, or environmental and climate concerns. The instructor will serve as a guide throughout the experience.