Animal Studies

Online Graduate Certificate in Animal Studies: Social Science and Humanities Perspectives

The Online Graduate Certificate in Animal Studies: Social Science and Humanities Perspectives addresses one of the most challenging questions of our time: how can humans and other animals coexist in altruistic ways so that all beings thrive within our global ecosystem? The “animal question” is increasingly vital within law, public policy, ethics, and health. The growth in the critical evaluation of human-animal relationships is due to the widespread recognition of:

• the commodification of animals in a wide variety of cultural contexts, such as the use of animals as food, labor, and objects of spectacle;
• the degradation of the natural world, a staggering loss of animal habitat and species extinction; and
• the increasing need to coexist with other animals in urban, rural, and natural contexts.

Animal studies, also known as human-animal studies and anthrozoology, is the scholarly investigation of the relationships between humans (as individuals, in communities, and in societies) and animals (as individuals, in groups and communities, and as species). The term “animal studies” refers to the social science/humanities-focused complement to the traditional bio-scientific study of animal behavior that extends scholarly examination to the cultural conditions of the relationship between humans and other animals.

The Online Graduate Certificate in Animal Studies: Social Science and Humanities Perspectives, which is administered by MSU’s Department of Sociology, is available to any person who has successfully completed a Bachelor’s degree. This certificate addresses society’s changing needs in providing individuals with a basic understanding of human relationships with other animals—including domestic and companion animals, liminal animals, and wildlife.

Graduate and professional students at institutions around the world—in programs as diverse as social sciences, humanities, biological or ecological sciences, law, medicine, and public health—may add considerable value to their degree by completing MSU’s transcriptable Online Graduate Certificate in Animal Studies: Social Science and Humanities Perspectives.

This certificate is also a particularly useful complementary learning opportunity for people with careers in a range of fields, such as:

• agriculture;
• nonprofit animal advocacy;
• animal shelters, sanctuaries, refuges, and rehabilitation centers;
• conservation criminology;
• ecotourism;
• environmental education;
• government agencies (e.g., USDA, USFWS, USFS, EPA);
• law enforcement and first responders;
• marine biology;
• public health;
• animal-assisted therapy;
• veterinary medicine;
• wildlife conservation and management; and
• zoo management and education.