University of Florida

Administered jointly by the Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida, the Master of Sustainable Development Practice (MDP) is a program of five semesters comprising ten core courses and four electives plus retreats and field training. In entering the Global MDP Network, the University of Florida builds on the reputation it established through the work of the internationally recognized Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) program.

Over the past thirty years, faculty at the University of Florida have developed a niche in using grassroots participatory approaches to development and research and in working with resource-rich communities in Africa and Latin America. Faculty teaching in the MDP program are involved in various cross-national collaborative projects, including Community Based Natural Resource Management Project and African Power and Politics.

The UF MDP curriculum is designed to link scholarship and practice. Students take ten core classes in four core disciplines: health sciences, natural and biological sciences, social sciences, and integrated skills for sustainable development practice.  Four elective courses provide students with the possibility of developing a specialization in an area of interest. Classroom learning is integrated with regular interactions with development practitioners through a seminar series supported by the Centers for Africa Studies (CAS) and Latin American Studies (CLAS).

A field practicum introduces students to a wide range of skills needed by development practitioners. Students will produce a final project based on this field practicum. The project can take multiple formats such as a donor, policy or practice report, a funding proposal, a manual or a documentary. This project is assessed by the student’s advisory committee and forms the basis for passing the MDP degree.

Students in their first year take courses that are distributed across the four core competencies—health, natural, social, and management sciences—as well as some that span those categories and integrate them into broader approaches to issues in sustainable development practice. In their summer field-training practicum and internship, students work with key partners in Africa and Latin America.

The University of Florida, established in 1853, has an enrollment of approximately 50,000 students, about one third of them in graduate programs, and is one of the leading public universities in the United States.