Deep Dive of Warren Wilson’s New Master in Applied Climate Studies
Ada Lambert | February 4, 2025
Keith McDade
Photo by Kai Goldstein
At the beginning of 2024, Warren Wilson College (WWC) announced the Master of Science in Applied Climate Studies, a two-year low-residency master's program designed to address the pressing challenges of climate change and teach students the necessary knowledge and skills to make an impact in the field.
Now, after a year of planning and coordinating, the program is gearing up for its first semester — by June, 20-25 applicants will have been chosen to be a part of the cohort and will travel from their respective locations to take part in the first 12-day intensive residency, which will be followed by two other residencies throughout the two years. Keith McDade, the program’s director, has a clear outline for how the program will be organized and what will be most effective for students.
“The first [residency] will prepare people for the rest of the program,” McDade said. “There'll be a whole lot of interaction. All of the pieces for the program will be introduced then. So you don't have to wait until the second semester to have an appreciation for data, and you don't have to wait until the third semester to have a framework for climate justice, which is when, and I'll talk about that in a moment, but there'll be deeper dives.”
When students are not in residency, they will be taking online courses with a requirement of six credits total per semester. This will benefit students who live far from campus as they will still be engaging with their coursework. For those who are local, there will be opportunities to participate in activities on campus throughout the year.
“At the beginning, we will focus on climate science and the interdisciplinary understanding of climate with the focus first on atmospheric science,” McDade said. “The second half of that first semester is focused on the science behind what we do about climate, in terms of trying to draw down the carbon, reduce our impacts, mitigate a little bit of resilience and adaptation and understanding.
The program will also implement long-term projects for students, starting in the first semester. Students will have the opportunity to stick with one project the entire residency or choose another at the halfway point.
“Some of them will [focused on] long-term recovery due to climate events like Helene and what are we doing in this community, and how can we be helpful in the process of engaging folks in rethinking recovery, rebuilding all the pieces that are essential there, the second semester is focused on data science,” McDade said. “The first half of that is on data analysis and data management a little bit as well.”
Hurricane Helene has brought attention to community vulnerability, pushing for a shift in focus toward resilience and recovery in climate change strategies.
“It has placed more emphasis on the resilience aspects of climate change, how we might prepare our communities to be more ready and how we might more effectively recover from what we went through this past year,” McDade said. “This is becoming more and more common and more and more intense over the years, and the program is preparing students with a skill set so that they can be helpful in a variety of contexts to be working on these issues and to help make communities and organizations more resilient.”
In its second semester, the program will focus on practical skills such as data science and analysis. Students will learn how to manage and collect data on patterns and trends in the region. The second half of the semester, they will be engaging with geographic information systems and build an understanding of how geographic phenomena affects the land spatially as it relates to climate change.
“Because we're on the ground here we'll be connected to several projects that are focused on assessing the vulnerabilities and hazards in the area, engaging planning processes to make sure voices are heard and understood as we move through the next few years and many years, actually, because this is going to be a long term recovery process,” McDade said.
Climate studies is a challenging field, with many students feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of reversing what seems irreversible. McDade, who also happened to receive his undergraduate degree in psychology, plans to make it a priority to address the emotional challenges that arise in this work.
“Some people have difficulty acting because they feel grief,” McDade said. “There's no question that we are going to attend to all the different mindsets and emotions and all the things that make this work hard, to make it more likely that we can be successful in whatever path we pursue as we're addressing climate issues. There will be a lot of attention to that and supporting and building is part of understanding it, and part of it is understanding strategies to address it. And then part of it is creating the conditions where the community supports each other.”
Although McDade has amassed extensive experience in the field over the years, this program has allowed him a renewed sense of purpose in the prospect of deepening his knowledge.
“I'm really excited about this, this deeply applied, project-oriented, low residency, deep dive with lots of really committed students coming together to build a better world, and learning a whole lot in the process of doing that,” McDade said. “I feel honored to be part of this institution.”
Though the priority deadline has already passed, there is still time to apply. The application will remain open until March 30. To learn more about the Master of Science in Applied Climate Studies, click here.