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About University-wide Programs in the College of Graduate Studies at the University of Idaho
The university-wide interdisciplinary programs are housed in the College of Graduate Studies (COGS) at the University of Idaho. They include five academic programs (Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Bioregional Planning, Environmental Science, Neuroscience, and Water Resources) and three strategic initiatives (Professional Ethics, BANTech and Sustainable Idaho). Students who participate in these undertake coursework and research with nationally- and internationally-known faculty from a variety of disciplines.
Academic Programs
Environmental Science, the oldest of the academic programs established in 1993, grants undergraduates degrees (through the College of Letters and Social Sciences) and graduate degrees (through COGS) at all four UI campuses and at a distance, with emphases in the physical, biological and social sciences.
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology provides graduate-level education in the biological, mathematical, statistical, and computational concepts used to study the vast quantities of biological data that modern molecular techniques have made available.
Neuroscience offers graduate-level education in the biological, cognitive, and theoretical elements of the sciences of the brain.
 The Water of the West program includes a graduate-level Water Resources degree program (which is in the final stages of becoming another academic program) as part of its specific mission of training students to address complex water resources issues by building disciplinary depth in concert with multidisciplinary breadth to understand focused problems and communicate across disciplines.
The Building Sustainable Communities program has three components: A Bioregional Planning graduate-level program (which is in the process of becoming an academic program) and two outreach arms: a Learning and Practice Collaborative that engages UI faculty and students to assist communities with sustainable community planning and development; and a Collaborative for Effective Planning and Governance that delivers non-credit training to improve the competencies of local elected leaders and professionals to plan and manage community resources for sustainable futures.
Strategic Initiatives
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Sustainable Idaho Initiative |
The Sustainable Idaho Initiative brings sustainability to many elements at the University of Idaho and to its local communities. Our goals are to transform the academic environment and educate people to understand, practice and teach sustainable behaviors; to stimulate research to create knowledge about sustainability; to strengthen outreach by building strong university-community relationships; and to model sustainability to make the UI a leading sustainable institution of higher education. We are realizing our goals through a variety of activities, including facilitating the Palouse Project workshops, where our faculty are given tools that will enable them to incorporate sustainability components into their courses; by funding faculty- and staff-led sustainability projects through our RFP process; by hosting the GreenHows brown bags to enable discourses on sustainability topics, and by providing Green Hints to the UI campus community. Contact Darin Saul, Sustainability Coordinator, at dsaul@uidaho.edu or 208-885-0124 for more information.
The Building Sustainable Communities program has three components: A Bioregional Planning graduate-level program (which is in the process of becoming an academic program) and two outreach arms: a Learning and Practice Collaborative that engages UI faculty and students to assist communities with sustainable community planning and development; and a Collaborative for Effective Planning and Governance that delivers non-credit training to improve the competencies of local elected leaders and professionals to plan and manage community resources for sustainable futures.
The Professional Ethics Initiative leads to certificates of academic accomplishment, and coordinates a campuswide interdisciplinary program related to professional ethics, diversity and social justice.
 BANTech (Biological Applications of Nanotechnology) is a research program in bionanoscience, which is the integration of nanomaterials research with cell biology and bioscience.
Contact: Margrit von Braun, Dean, College of Graduate Studies, uigrad@uidaho.edu
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