2025 - 2026 | Concentration Requirements

NCSS Concentration Coordinator (first-year + sophomore):

Sage Gerson (sgerson@risd.edu)

NCSS Concentration Coordinator (junior + senior):

Markus Berger (mberger@risd.edu)

The Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies Concentration (NCSS) is a 21-credit undergraduate concentration that allows RISD students to construct a pathway for environmental education working across liberal arts and the studio departments. All RISD BFA candidates are eligible to add this concentration to their program of study. Interested students should contact the NCSS Concentration Coordinator.

The Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies Concentration (NCSS) is housed-in and administered-by the Division of Liberal Arts, and is an all-college interdisciplinary concentration. The concentration allows students to create their own pathway of study drawn from the fields of:

• sustainable design

• environmental sciences and social sciences

• environmental humanities

• social and environmental justice studies

• fine arts.

Courses that can earn NCSS credit and are open to NCSS concentrators are identified as such in the RISD course catalog with the NCSS course tag. All concentrators will complete a 3-credit core course in Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies – The NCSS Core Seminar.

Typically, concentrators meet or communicate with their concentration coordinator a minimum of once or twice a year to discuss course options and to update their records. NCSS concentrators may pre-register for a select range of Liberal Arts courses that are identified in the RISD course catalog with the NCSS course tags. The concentration coordinators will contact all concentrators with the relevant instructions shortly before the official registration period. This pre-registration option is available in fall and spring only. The NCSS concentration can be completed within a 4-or 5-year degree program.

Concentration Credit Requirements

To satisfy the requirements of this interdisciplinary undergraduate concentration, students will complete a minimum of 21 credit hours of relevant coursework with a B- or above. RISD students will be able to ‘double count’ up to 9 credits of courses they have taken in their major as NCSS courses as long as such courses are identified as fulfilling NCSS requirements.

• 9 credits electives from Liberal Arts that cover NCSS topics.

• 9 credits double counted from your major (as long as such courses are identified as fulfilling NCSS requirements).

• 3 credits from the NCSS Core Seminar. This course will receive credit as a non-major studio elective cross-listed in the Liberal Arts, Fine Arts and Architecture and Design divisions. Students may distribute their remaining credits for the concentration according to their individual needs and creative passions.

RISD students may petition their NCSS coordinator to request consideration for NCSS credit for work completed in courses that are not designated NCSS. Students need to demonstrate and document to the satisfaction of their NCSS coordinator that their work is substantively informed by the themes of the concentration.

Please visit the Nature-Culture-Sustainability Concentration website for additional information and policies.

Notes:

• Students must receive a B- or above for any RISD course they wish to count toward the NCSS concentration.

• NCSS concentrators may transfer a maximum of 6 credits from other universities to fulfill their NCSS concentration requirements; all these courses must receive at least a B- or in the case of universities where letter grades are not issued, a passing grade.

• All 4-credit courses from other universities will transfer into this concentration as 3-credit courses.

• Discretion regarding whether courses from other universities meet the standards for an NCSS course rests with the NCSS concentration coordinators.

Learning Outcomes

Concentrators in Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies are able to:

• Identify Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies as an inherently interdisciplinary pursuit by synthesizing knowledge from the humanities, sciences, social sciences and art and design to analyze a variety of environmental challenges. 

• Apply this interdisciplinary knowledge to their studio practices in order to develop and create innovative art- and design-based responses to complex environmental challenges.

• Explain, analyze, and critically evaluate a diversity of theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and making practices – and their intersections.

• Describe and apply key concepts and debates underlying theories of sustainability. 

• Formulate a critical understanding of and be able to communicate the ways aesthetics, objects, systems, and language interact with culture, power relations, and institutions to shape our perceptions of and relationships with the natural and built world.

• Demonstrate an ability to assess the ethical implications of the theories and methodologies discussed and identify, evaluate, and articulate their own socio-ecological identity and positionally within them.