Place Studies Program
Imagine ~ Sustain ~ Understand ~ Engage
Creating transformative approaches through collaboration to understand human-environment relationships and ensure thriving communities.
Where inquiry and creativity converge to explore collaborative visions for thriving communities, understand our environmental history, and foster leadership growth.
Through teaching, research, outreach, and service, the Place Studies Program provides students with hands-on experiential learning and development of core competencies to tackle the most pressing environmental and sustainability challenges of the 21st century.
Our Mission
The Place Studies program explores how we imagine, sustain, understand, and engage with place historically, in the present, and in potential futures, and brings this to life through experiential and transformative education and scholarship.
Our Vision
Through place-centered research and learning experiences, the Place Studies program fosters development of future leaders sensitive to the complexities of realizing thriving futures for human and natural communities while generating positive impacts today through collaborations with regional partners.
Our Approach
To advance our Mission, the Place Studies Program:
- Collaborates with external partners to develop unique applied transformative learning and research opportunities for students that advance partner priorities.
- Imagines pathways to thriving futures with faculty, staff, students, and partners.
- Explores the diverse mosaic of historic and present human-environment relationships and experiences that establishes a “place.”
- Supports interdisciplinary teaching, research, and outreach related to revitalization, justice, energy transitions, and environmental policy.
- Develops an ethos of care for human and natural communities.
Core Components of the Place Studies Program
The program has a four-fold mission that engages students, faculty, staff, and partners in place-based inquiry and action:
Teaching
Place Studies brings real-world examples and opportunities to the classroom by supporting faculty across all three colleges in developing unique experiential learning units, situated both on campus and in regional communities. Students learn about our surrounding communities through facilitated visits and participate in applied class projects with non-profits, local governments, and civic organizations that help foster thriving communities. This includes class collaborations on oral histories, surveys, and policy recommendations alongside our partner organizations. Students are not just learning about what it takes to make communities thrive – they are part of the process.
Research
Scholars with the Place Studies program engage in long-term in-depth explorations of applied research that align with the program’s themes. They work alongside state agencies to analyze policy, co-lead local efforts for community revitalization and planning, and present their findings to decision makers. They become trusted collaborators with external partners with their demonstration of fresh perspectives, active listening, and critical thinking. Scholar alumni work in urban planning, government policy, environmental law, and more.
Outreach
Outreach is essential to the Place Studies’ community-centric work. Through annual events both on and off campus, such as the annual Sustainability Symposium and community convenings, we connect Bucknell to the region and beyond. The program maintains relationships with over 40 community partners who collaborate with our students and faculty on local priorities. The Coal Region Field Station is one signature initiative that has reached over 700 students, more than 25 community partners, and involved over 25 Bucknell departments and offices since 2015. Student work has been leveraged for over $4 million in direct community funding.
Community Service
Connecting across campus and communities through service generates opportunities for students. By serving on local, regional, and national organization boards and committees, the program ensures integration with current issues and priorities. Much of the program’s work furthers capacity building efforts in local communities to realize their own visions for thriving futures. Research results and products are shared with practitioners and decision makers for distribution, implementation, and policy considerations, connecting students’ learning to active service for thriving communities. The program secures grant and gift funding to support faculty, student, and staff research and opportunities.
Field Sites
One way that the Place Studies program delivers on its mission is through a growing network of community-based collaborative field stations (sites of deep collaboration and place-based inquiry). They provide faculty and students opportunities to join a community of scholars in exploring and understanding places, processes, and partnerships. Established field stations provide platforms for deep inquiry, multi- and interdisciplinary collaborations with all disciplines, outreach and public education, and collaboration with a range of external partners. Place Studies field stations work to connect projects together over time and type of engagement (course, research, volunteering, events, etc) for deeper outcomes for both student learning and for partner organizations’ goals.
Coal Region Field Station
Connects Bucknell with communities in the anthracite coal region by linking together and building upon collaborative projects in community-identified needs for revitalization, explorations of local histories and heritage, and envisioning future possibilities in the common goal of developing sustainable communities.
Our most active site, see more about the Coal Region Field Station here.
Sylvan Dell Field Station
Located in South Williamsport, supports the growth and development of the Robert Porter Allen Natural Area with opportunities to explore organizational structure, design and implementation of restoration and recreation plans, developing and delivering a wide range of public programming, historical site research and storytelling, community connections, and more.
Walnut Acres Field Station
Located on the site of the first commercial organic farm in the US, partners with the Walnut Acres Foundation to enhance community sustainability, deepen awareness of organic agriculture, support and expand access to the arts, and support community-centered decision making by partnering on mutually beneficial educational, research, and volunteer opportunities.
Scholarly Framework
The program’s projects and activities fall into five scholarly themes that support the Ecology Center’s mission and strategic plan. Through place-centered research and learning experiences addressing these themes, the Place Studies program fosters development of future leaders sensitive to the complexities of realizing thriving futures for human and natural communities while generating positive impacts today.
Much of this happens through collaborations with regional partners. This includes long-standing on-going projects both through field station networks and with stand-alone partnerships as well as short-term projects that align with these themes and meet Center goals. Such projects are in partnership with faculty and/or community partners and provide rich opportunities for students to gain experience in applied research.
Community Revitalization
Advance place-specific approaches to revitalization in post-industrial communities and understanding the histories and cultures thereof
Climate and Environmental Action
Develop, employ, and evaluate local climate and environmental action and policy sensitive to local cultures and histories.
Environmental Justice and Community Planning
Examine and assess current and historic impacts of environmental degradation on human and natural communities and plan for more inclusive and accessible community amenities and infrastructure.
Human Dimensions of Renewable Energy Systems
Explore social and behavioral aspects of energy transitions, cultural aspects of energy use and identity, and energy policy impacts.
Place-Making, Nature Connections, and Sustainability
Foster a cultural and ecological connection to place with an ethos of care for the natural world.
Our Home: Bucknell Ecology Center
Educating 21st Century Environmental and Sustainability Leaders
Mission
We facilitate high impact, interdisciplinary, experiential learning and research opportunities that address local and global environmental and sustainability challenges. We enhance the academic experience through accessible, equitable, and inclusive teaching, fundamental and applied research, community outreach, and University Service.
Vision
The Bucknell Ecology Center serves as a catalyst for positive environmental, social, and economic change at local, regional, and global scales, empowering Bucknell graduates to lead efforts in creating more sustainable, resilient, equitable, and thriving communities.