Faith, Food, and Environmental Justice Certificate
Program Code: D-FFEJ-C
Degree Designation: Certificate
Department: Divinity School
Website: divinity.duke.edu/academics/certificates/food-faith
Program Summary
The certificate is for students seeking training in and preparation for engaging faithfully in environmental justice work, agricultural production, healthy food access and food systems, creation care ministries, land use issues, policy advocacy, and environmental management. The context of such work might be congregational ministry, working in not-for-profit organizations, farming, triple-bottom-line enterprises, or governmental agencies. Or it may be that students have a more general interest in addressing the array of urgent challenges related to the ecological crisis, rural precariousness, resource conflicts, the anthropocene, animal suffering, climate change, environmental racism, and industrial agriculture.
Alongside access to some of the leading environmental theologians in the world, the certificate provides opportunities for learning from and engaging with the broader university and the surrounding community. The certificate provides opportunities to take courses at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, Duke Farm, and the World Food Policy Center (Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke). North Carolina is an ideal location to undertake this kind of formation: Not only is it a vibrant center of the food and faith movement, with numerous farms connected to the Divinity School, but it is also the birthplace of the environmental justice movement, with its roots in the rural Black Church.
Academic Requirements
The certificate can be earned as part of the residential MDiv and MTS degrees.
2 courses in the Divinity School from list of approved courses.
1 elective course outside the Divinity School, which should draw from the Nicholas School of the Environment, Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke Campus Farm, Sanford World Food Policy Center, Cultural Anthropology, or other subject areas that have a clear and identifiable focus on some aspect of environmental, food, or political-ecological theory, policy, and practice and be taught at a master’s level.
Attendance at approved off-campus conference on topics related to the certificate, such as the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network’s annual EJ Summit or the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference at least once over the duration of the student’s program, or an equivalent gathering to be agreed on in advance; as well as participation in at least one action organized by the North Carolina Chapter of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee or other organization to be agreed on in advance.
MDivR only: Independent environmental engagement/action project or appropriate field education placement that involves some aspect of environmental or socio-ecological witness.
MTS only: Thesis on a topic related to the certificate as negotiated with faculty directors.