The MS in Food Systems & Society is a 48 quarter credit graduate degree program. You will take a mix of required and elective courses, attend four program intensives sessions and complete a capstone project. Courses begin in fall and are year round; normal time to complete the degree is two years.

Courses will be rigorous and engaging. We want you to broaden your knowledge and pursue your areas of interest in an enjoyable and memorable way.

Courses and outcomes

Your foundation courses will focus on areas such as:

• Food systems, society and sustainability
• Food policies and politics
• Critical inquiry and research skills
• Food, culture and social change

Elective courses will focus on:

• Food, art and media
• Food in cultures
• Food security and public health
• Community food security
• Food writing and analysis
• Food systems management
• Urban agriculture and community gardening
• Strategic thinking and planning
• Organizational development, evaluation and management

Program graduates will:

• Increase their understanding of the structural and cultural factors that lead to creating sustainable food systems
• Broaden their capacity to create sustainable food systems
• Deepen their appreciation of the role of food in culture and society

There is an important interplay between practical action and long-term, systemic change, so your projects will be problem-focused and relevant to challenges prominent in the contemporary food system.

A focus on the elements of social change

The program focuses on three intersecting aspects of social change: vision, assessment and strategy:

• You'll study different visions and perspectives on the food system through inquiry, experience and reflection. You'll engage with big questions about the food system. By documenting and analyzing assumptions and practices, we'll see how food system conditions are perceived, portrayed and understood.
• You'll assess conditions in the food system and analyze how they came to be. You'll challenge yourself to determine what food system changes are desirable and possible and under what circumstances. Understanding how problems developed can help us discover possibilities and invent strategies for change.
• Through studying strategies and efforts to create change in the food system and through your own experience in internships, jobs and practica, you'll assess how to most usefully intervene and engage in change efforts. In your capstone project, you'll establish and evaluate criteria for a better food system, taking it from the abstract and general to the concrete and particular. With your faculty and fellow students, you'll continuously reflect on ways to improve our food systems.