Program Outcomes

Program Outcomes

Degree Programs

Master of Arts in Social Science with Emphasis in Ecological Psychology and Environmental Humanities

Doctor of Arts in Ecological Psychology and Environmental Humanities

Degree Program Objectives
• The student will implement ecological knowledge and psychological capabilities in resolving complex and contested issues.

• The student will implement ecological and psychological knowledge in transforming destructive narratives and practices into relational and cooperative solutions.

• The student will demonstrate skills of reflexivity and ecopsychological capabilities in their personal and professional lives.

Degree Program Learning Outcomes
1. Critical Thinking

Apply multiple ecological knowledge and psychology capability in evaluation and change of disparaging narratives underpinning a variety of ecological, economic, and social issues;

2. Creativity

Apply reflection, creative thought, and assessment skills in evaluating and transforming narratives and imagery into new psychological meaning that advances and sustains ethical, responsible, and collaborative relationships;

3. CommunicationAnalyze, synthesize, and articulate complex information from a variety of ecological and psychological sources and perspectives and be able to communicate findings across sophisticated platforms (written, oral, digital, artistic);

4. Ecological & Civic Literacy

Develop original approaches and applications that advance capabilities of justice, aesthetics, generosity, and inclusivism within interdependent ecological, social, and economic systems;

5. Ecopsychological Sensibility

Respond aesthetically and with a behaved intelligence to interconnected ecological and sociological problems, advance ecopsychological approaches and practices toward change in narrative, behavior, and practices underpinning these issues;

DA Outcomes Continued

6. Transdisciplinary Synthesis

Demonstrate an advanced competency to employ principles and ideas from ecological psychology across personal and professional contexts.

Institutional Learning Outcomes

Graduates of Viridis Graduate Institute will demonstrate the following Institutional Learning Outcomes & Professional Competencies:

1. Adaptive Leadership Capacity – An advanced ability to recognize the opportunities necessary to develop resilience and an ecopsychological awareness in an organization, institution or society. Exhibit the capacity to make innovative contributions and assume leadership roles that promote ecopsychological sensibilities and an intelligent application of the problem-reflection-discussion-decision-action process.

2. Aesthetic Sensibility – An advanced sensitivity to unseen behaviors and relationships in both ecology and psychology; a developed worldview imbued with ethics, justice, beauty, and generosity (aesthetics).

3. Ecopsychological Knowledge – A capacity to identify, analyze, and elucidate images, metaphors, and narratives by utilizing ecological principles and processes of decay and renewal. A developed capacity for self-reflection and engagement in intrapsychic and collaborative relationships.

4. Communication Competence – The ability to use any communication tool or resource, including listening and observing to develop and effectively convey ideas and information. Communicate an effective and purposeful message designed to increase awareness or knowledge, to foster understanding, and to promote reflection and potential change in the listeners’ attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.

5. Creative and Critical Thinking – Qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate issues from a variety of distinct thought processes that include creativity, imagination, novelty, rationality, logic, and coherence.

6. Ecopsychological Sensibility – A commitment to the art of living a psychological life; being an active participant in a responsive and relational ecological world that requires our attention, responsibility, and care. 7. Integrity and Ecological Ethics – A developed ecological ethics that continually questions and examines how one ought to live and act in relation to others and the ecological world with a conscious understanding of their consequences.

8. Motivation for Lifelong Learning – An established commitment to exploring, questioning, and deepening one’s understanding of the world, and persist in educating one’s self across contexts throughout a lifetime.

9. Personal Identity – An acquired sense of personal worth, integrity, and self-confidence that arise from the experiences of studying ecological psychology as a philosophy for life in a responsive world.

10. Professional Identity – Advanced knowledge, skill, and ecopsychological capabilities, which can be utilized in any profession; a developed professional identity that complements one’s values.

MA Capstone Project Outcomes

1. Demonstrate attainment of Program learning Outcomes and Institutional Learning Outcomes through the completion of the MA Capstone Project.

2. Conduct research into detrimental human behavior and reveal the underlying narrative(s) that can be transformed through an ecopsychological knowledge base.

3. Promote different narratives and behaviors in one’s community, organization, and/or profession that support ecological relationships.

DA Capstone Project Outcomes

1. Summarize, integrate, and apply an ecopsychological knowledge-base in order to reveal existing, damaging human narratives, behaviors, and practices, and transmute them into new narratives that recognize and enact the realities of living in a symbiotic and shared world.

2. Make an original contribution to the field of ecopsychology. This can be accomplished in several ways, such as developing different forms of community education; activism grounded in ecopsychology processes; novel and useful educational programs based in ecopsychology; using the arts to educate and inspire, etc.

3. Develop the opportunity for narratives and behaviors to be creatively implemented in one’s community, organization, and/or profession in order to support ecological and ecosystemic relationships.