State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Additional Teaching Assistant Positions for Spring 2016

teaching assistant snipThe Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development is currently accepting applications for spring 2016 teaching assistant positions.

Note: Applicants must be current full-time Columbia University students enrolled in a degree granting program. Applications will only be accepted by graduate students only.

The teaching assistants will support the following courses:

  1. SDEV W2300 Challenges of Sustainable Development
  2. SDEV W3280 Workshop in Sustainable Development (Section 1)

Teaching Assistant for SDEV W3280 Workshop in Sustainable Development (Section 2)

This course will take place on Monday and Wednesday from 10:10-12 p.m. during the spring semester and will be taught by Professor Radley Horton. The upper level undergraduate Sustainable Development Workshop will be modeled on client based graduate-level workshops, but with more time devoted to methods of applied policy analysis and issues in sustainable development. The heart of the course is the group project on an issue of sustainable development with a faculty advisor providing guidance and ultimately grading student performance. Students will receive instruction on methodology, group work, communication and the context of policy analysis. Much of the reading in the course will be project-specific and identified by the student research teams. Applicants should have strong project management skills and an interest in sustainable development.

Time commitment & responsibilities:

The teaching assistant must fulfill the responsibilities as identified by the assigned supervising instructor while maintaining conduct of the highest level of professionalism and confidentiality. The teaching assistant may be responsible for directing drills, recitations, discussions or laboratory sessions related to courses offered by an officer of higher rank. They will be responsible for meeting and coordinating with the instructor regularly and performing other course-related duties as assigned, including developing, distributing and statistically analyzing “peer review” and “self review” forms.

Applicants must be current full-time Columbia students enrolled in a degree granting program. Applications will only be accepted by graduate students.

To apply: Post your cover letter stating your interest in the position and a resume (both in PDF format) to https://fs21.formsite.com/earthinstitute/form311/index.html

The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015.

Teaching Assistant for SDEV W2300 Challenges of Sustainable Development

This course will take place on Monday and Wednesday during the spring semester from 8:40pm-9:55 am and will be taught by several faculty, including Joel E. Cohen.

This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development, drawing on the recent developments in social and natural sciences. The course describes the interactions among the demography of the human population (population size, spatial distribution, age structure, fertility, mortality, migration), the environment (physical, chemical and biological), economics (measures of wealth, well-being, sustainability, and their distribution within and among countries; trade; energy use), and culture (education, law, religion, language, politics, technologies and human values), and stresses the ways in which each affects all the others. Ecological constraints (climate, disease ecology, physical resources such as soils and energy sources, topography and transport conditions) significantly shape economic development, demography, wealth and poverty. Human activities (farming, resource use, demographic change, and energy production and consumption) change the environment. The course offers an introductory, broad survey of the field and aims to provide students with some of the fundamental concepts, vocabulary and analytical tools that will enable them to pursue further understanding of the conjoined problems of population, economics, environment and culture, all of which are fundamental to understanding the challenges of sustainable development.

Time commitment & responsibilities:

Teaching assistants must fulfill the responsibilities identified by the assigned supervising instructor while maintaining conduct of the highest level of professionalism and confidentiality. The teaching assistant(s) may be responsible for directing drills, recitations, discussions or laboratory sessions related to offerings by principal course faculty. They will be responsible for meeting and coordinating with the instructor(s) regularly and performing other course-related duties as assigned. Good quantitative skills (mathematical as well as computational), good skills in explaining scientific and social-scientific information to undergraduates, and a sympathetic, encouraging approach to students are all highly desirable.

Applicants must be current full-time Columbia University graduate students enrolled in a degree program.

To apply: Post your cover letter stating your interest in the position and a resume (both in PDF format) to https://fs21.formsite.com/earthinstitute/form311/index.html

The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015.

Science for the Planet: In these short video explainers, discover how scientists and scholars across the Columbia Climate School are working to understand the effects of climate change and help solve the crisis.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments