DURHAM, N.C. – 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû’s Arts and Sciences Council, as well as its Engineering Faculty Council, have approved a new undergraduate Certificate in Energy and the Environment.

The certificate program will be administered jointly by the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and the Pratt School of Engineering. It will allow undergraduates from all disciplines at Duke to study the energy system, including the interrelations of technology, economics, policy and the environment.

Courses offered within the program will focus on three key aspects of the energy system: markets and policy; environmental impacts; and energy resources and technology.  

Enrollment in the program will begin in Fall 2008.

Students will be required to take two introductory courses, three electives and one multidisciplinary capstone project course. In the capstone project course, groups of five to seven students with diverse backgrounds will work in collaborative teams to tackle real-world energy problems, exploring the interconnections of policy, markets, technology and the environment.

Students enrolled in the Certificate in Energy and the Environment program will take part in field trips, internships and hands-on research. Core courses will be taught by faculty members in the Nicholas School and the Pratt School, and the elective list will draw on curricular options throughout the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Guest speakers, such as visiting energy executives and practitioners, will augment course instruction.

Co-directors of the new program are Emily M. Klein, senior associate dean for academics, director of undergraduate studies and Lee Hill Snowdon Professor of Geology at the Nicholas School, and Tod A. Laursen, senior associate dean for education and professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Pratt School.

The Certificate in Energy and the Environment program is intended to provide Duke undergraduates with an understanding of the breadth of issues that confront our society in its need for clean, affordable and reliable energy, Klein and Laursen say. An expertise in energy will expand the students’ career options in the private, nonprofit, government and academic sectors.

Energy initiatives at the Pratt School and Nicholas School have received significant financial support in recent years, including a combined $10 million gift to the schools from Jeffrey and Martha Gendell of Greenwich, Conn. The Gendell gift supports five new Nicholas School and Pratt School faculty hires in energy fields; laboratory construction and equipment; facility and staffing resources; and the establishment of the Gendell Center for Engineering, Energy and the Environment at the Pratt School. 

Most courses in the new certificate program will be taught through the Gendell Center and the Nicholas School’s Energy and Environment program, which offers energy courses for Master of Environmental Management and undergraduate students.     

This marks the first time an undergraduate certificate program has been approved by both the Arts and Sciences Council and the Engineering Faculty Council, making the program available to all Duke undergraduates, regardless of major.

For more information, contact Roshena Ham-Bugge, research associate, at roshena.ham@duke.edu, (919) 668-3893 or (828) 329-8956.