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2019 Online Learning Summer Classes

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Students, please note: CampusWeb is the authoritative source for class information, so please refer to CampusWeb when making final registration decisions.

2019 Online Learning Summer Classes

Term 1

ENV 5108/Introduction to the Law and Policy of Agriculture, Food and the Environment

This survey course brings together American law impacting agriculture and food and explores the traditional division between agriculture, food, and environmental regulation.  The course provides a hard look at the agriculture and food production sector and involves not only an examination of traditional farming and food safety policies but the ways in which these policies intersect with environmental law and health care policy, as well as important sectors from local land use planning to international trade.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

ENV 5112/Science for Environmental Law

Ecology is an integrative science that can provide insight into many contemporary environmental problems.  This course will explore the principles of ecology using a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach.  Course work stresses the inventorying of biotic and physical components of a landscape (pieces), examining how these pieces are distributed (patterns), and determining what forces drive these patterns (processes).  Topics will include interpreting the natural and cultural histories of a landscape, biodiversity conservation, and the scientific method, among others.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

ENV 5212/Climate Change and the Law

Climate change is the most profound social and environmental issue of the 21st century.  This course will integrate the emerging science and law of climate change along with economic and intergenerational equity aspects of the problem.  We will consider how existing federal laws such as the Clean Air Act and NEPA may be used to address climate change as well as how new more comprehensive laws may be fashioned.  Different policy instruments will be considered including carbon taxes and emissions trading.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

ENV 5220/Environmental Economics and Markets

The course introduces students to the discipline of environmental economics and exposes them to debates over the use of market-based instruments in environmental, energy, and climate policy.  It also introduces students to basic economics and finance concepts, examines key principles about market behavior and efficiency, and applies these basic elements and concepts to common environmental problems and actual case studies.

Approved for JD credit.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

ENV 5226/Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World

The energy industry is both a key to the life that billions seek and America’s most significant source of pollution.  Environmental problems are the energy industry’s most important constraint.  This course examines key issues in American energy policy, and searches for ways to resolve or ease the strains, which that policy puts upon environmental sustainability.  We will review fundamental facts about our energy demands and sample regulatory orders and legal writings that address many of those elements from the perspective of a legal review.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

REQ 7186/Legislation& Regulation Survey

This course will provide students with an introduction to the legislative process, regulatory agencies, and agency law-making.  Students will learn to navigate modern U.S. government institutions and processes, with a particular emphasis on the legislative process and the administrative state.  Key topics include the structure and animating principles of the U.S.

Approved for Master’s credit only.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

RSJ 7215/Narrative Writing Seminar

Today, being an advocate requires more than knowing how to write a brief. Fluency in a variety of written forms – memorandums, op-eds, letters, emails, blog posts – is all but required. This course will cover these forms and others. Students will be graded on regular written assignments and a final paper.

Approved for Students in Restorative Justice Program

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

WRI 7301/Advanced Writing Seminar

This seminar is designed to provide students with the opportunity to write a significant article or policy paper. Students conduct substantial and sophisticated research on a topic of their choosing. They receive extensive feedback on drafts of their paper throughout the course. Students also receive instruction on improving their writing through weekly, interactive exercises. By the end of this course, participating students will have produced a law-review worthy article or white paper. The course ends with students presenting their papers to their classmates.

Professor(s)

Greg Johnson

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 1

Term 2

ENV 5115/Environmental Law

This course is an introduction to the law of pollution control, management of hazardous materials, and preservation of natural resources, with a particular emphasis on major federal environmental statues, including the national Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Superfund.

Approved for JD credit.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

ENV 5122/Communication, Advocacy & Leadership

A successful environmental professional should possess the ability to advocate, counsel, investigate, persuade, research, and educate.  This course will develop those skills through various writing and oral advocacy projects.  In addition to other writing projects, students will compose a Freedom of Information Act request, draft a public comment letter, write a grant proposal letter of inquiry, and create an environmental communication campaign.  Different skills will be emphasized through the exploration of these diverse types of writing.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

ENV 5228/Energy Regulation and the Environment

This course builds on the course, Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World.  The course exposes students to the legal, economic, and structural issues involved in both energy regulation and energy markets, focusing on electricity.  The course examines the evolution, theory, and techniques of the monopoly regulation.  Students learn how utilities are regulated.  We examine rate setting, rate design and regulatory alternatives to traditional rates such as performance-based rates.  The course then examines evolving competitive, market-based alternatives.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

ENV 5235/Natural Resources Law

One third of the nation’s land base belongs to the American public and is managed by the United States Forest Service and agencies of the Department of Interior.  The federal lands provide significant wildlife habitat and clan water, and are important sources of timber, forage, and energy.  They also offer opportunities for recreation.  Through this course students will examine the statues and regulations governing the management of the federal lands and their resources.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

ENV 5336/Climate Change, Extinction and Adaptation

Human activities are causing a global mass extinction of plants and animals that rivals the five great extinction events over the earth’s geologic history.  Historically, habitat loss, overharvest, introduction of invasive species, and pollution have been the principal causes of this “”Sixth Great Extinction.”  There is now a strong scientific consensus that the greatest threat to global biodiversity is climate change caused by anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

ENV 5411/Federal Regulation of Food and Agriculture

This course provides an overview of the U.S. Farm Bill and other federal laws that impact growing policy, animal husbandry, and food production.  Students will examine federal farm and agriculture law with specific emphasis on the Farm Bill and its myriad of agriculture, nutrition and environmental programs.  This course will explore the ways in which the Farm Bill, the single largest funding source for everything from childhood nutrition to land trust acquisition, impacts everything from U.S.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

RSJ 7250/Global Restorative Justice

This course will consider how other places and countries have adopted and utilized restorative practices to address systemic harm.  The location or locations that form the basis of the semester will depend on the expertise of the professor. The initial time this course will be offered it will focus on “Recent Advances in Rwanda.”

Approved for Students in Restorative Justice Program

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Term 2

Full Term

LIT 7210/Evidence

Evidence deals with seeking the truth; it examines the process we use to determine the truth at trial, a particularly high-stakes context. The fundamental questions of relevance and reliability advance this goal. Evidence law considers the rules governing the admissibility of testimonial, physical, documentary, and demonstrative evidence in trials and other formal legal proceedings.

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Full Term

REQ 7265/Professional Responsibility

This course examines an attorney’s obligations under ethical codes and law related to professional conduct.  Students should acquire comprehensive knowledge of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and learn how to apply the Rules to resolve concrete ethical issues they may face in practice and on the Multi-State Professional responsibility Examination (MPRE).  Diverse areas of legal practice are covered with some special attention to issues facing environmental lawyers.  Case studies and problems are the primary vehicles for learning. 

Professor(s)

Semester

2019 Summer Online - Full Term