Master of Science in Environmental and Sustainability Studies


The College of Charleston Environmental and Sustainability Studies (EVSS) program equips graduate students to drive positive change through policy innovation and scientific ingenuity.

Work across disciplines to gain a holistic perspective into complex environmental issues from climate change to social justice to urban resilience. Build a deep understanding of the interconnected policy, society, and science dynamics underpinning sustainability challenges.

Work alongside exceptional faculty tackling local and global environmental issues through impactful research and community partnerships. You'll tailor your studies and specialize in areas aligned with your interests from policy and planning to public health to coastal and marine management and more.

Our program graduates become interdisciplinary thinkers and change agents addressing the critical environmental needs in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Interdisciplinary Advantage


This interdisciplinary focus provides students with a wide variety of the resource, development, and planning pressures that currently face society. Through our core and elective course curriculum, faculty expertise, and specialization development (the clustering of courses in areas such as coastal and wetlands management, environmental planning, and environmental hazards), the EVSS Program provides training that addresses each of these challenges. Our alumni are finding employment in a wide variety of fields, where their training in both Science and Policy serves them well.

As an interdisciplinary program, the EVSS Program is not housed in a single academic department at the College of Charleston. Instead, six departments (Biology, Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, Political Science, and Economics) contribute core and elective coursework and faculty time to the program. Faculty from many other departments and off-campus institutes and agencies are an invaluable part of the EVSS Program as well.