PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
Associate Professor
Dr. Hunt has taught a variety of in-residence, education abroad, adult education, and online courses as lead instructor at Penn State, Stanford University, and Texas A&M. In 2017, he was awarded the Penn State Emerging Faculty Outreach Award for Engaged Scholarship from the Office of the Vice President for Outreach and Vice Provost for Online Education and the Office of Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs. Below are brief descriptions of courses he has taught.
Transdisciplinary Research on Environment and Society: in-residence graduate course work that incorporate systems and design thinking to frame ethical, transdisciplinary solutions at the landscape scale
Sustainability, Society, & Well-being: an in-residence undergraduate overview of sustainability thinking and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. An online version of this course was also developed for delivery via the Penn State World Campus.
Social and Environmental Sustainability: Applications in the Tourism Industry: an in-residence upper-level course focusing impacts of tourism on destination communities and environments, climate, and post-trip traveler behavior
Collection & Analysis of Qualitative Data: a graduate training course for MS and PhD students from multiple programs that provides a foundation for carrying out interpretivist/humanist research involving qualitative data collection techniques and largely inductive analysis techniques.
Ethical Issues in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and the Environment: a graduate course for students in the dual-doctoral degree program in Human Dimensions of natural Resources and the Environment. The course focuses on understanding diverse worldviews regarding the environment and natural resource management, emphasizing the relative prioritization of human vs. non-human interests.
The Tourism System: an undergraduate course that provides students with an overview of the tourism system, as well as the scale, scope, organization, and impacts of travel and tourism. It addresses travel and tourism at local, regional, national, and international levels.
Sustainable Tourism & the Environment in Small Island Developing Nations: a 10-day field course in Fiji provide in the Maymester as an embedded component of the in-residence course Social and Environmental Sustainability: Applications in the Tourism Industry.
Parks & People: Conservation of Nature and Community at Udzungwa Mountains National Park: a 6-week summer field course in south-central Tanzania linked to ongoing field research related to resource flows in and out of communities at the fringe of Udzungwa Mountains National Park. The program consists of three distinct courses — People and Protected Areas, Community Design in the Vicinity of Udzungwa Mountains National Park, and Contributions of Service Learning to Students and Community. It has attracted students from over 20 majors at Penn State.
Conservation & Development Dilemmas in Latin America: Advanced undergraduate and MS seminar focused on an overview of environmental history of Latin America, current biodiversity and sustainable development challenges across the region, and more in-depth analysis of these contemporary issues in the context of the Galápagos Islands.
Social & Environmental Sustainability: Advanced undergraduate and MS seminar to first establish the principles of sustainability and sustainable development and to then analyze them in the context of the Costa Rican context, emphasizing the Osa Peninsula and ongoing research there.
Anthropology of Tourism/Ecotourism: an undergraduate and graduate seminar reviewing the foundational scholarship on tourism, its socio-cultural impacts, the diverse forms of tourism and distinct consequences of each form, and the characteristics of tourism most associated with improved social and environmental wellbeing.
Indigenous People & Env. Problems: an undergraduate and graduate seminar that closely analyzes several instances of social and environmental disruption of Indigenous ways of being as a result of nearby extractive industry, hydroelectric infrastructure, and tourism development. Communal and common property management schemes related to forestry and tourism are also assessed to demonstrate alternate outcomes in favor of Indigenous communities.
People & Parks: an undergraduate seminar the reviews the origins of the national park idea, its early history in Western contexts, challenges faced as this model was exported abroad, and contemporary conflicts around conservation, displacement and dispossession of original inhabitants, and various prioritization schemes of influential international environmental NGOs.
Outdoor Recreation and American Culture: an examination of the influence of the growth of the park an protected area movement, conspicuous leisure, mobility-related technologies, service-based economy, and market-driven consumerism on trends in outdoor recreation and its influence on society and culture in the US.