Introduction to Resilience

3 units

Resilience signifies the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of disturbances whether natural (such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes) or manmade (such as civil unrest, economic downturn, aging infrastructure). This course will explore mulitiple aspects of reilience from social, environmental and infrastructure perspectives. Social resilience reinforces the role of communities in building resilience, environmental resilience examines the role of natural systems to serve as mentors for resilience, and infrastructure resilience looks at the role of built structures and systems in fostering resilience. We will examine common attributes that build resilience across different perspectives (social, environmental, infrastructure) and settings (e.g. city, neighborhood, building). Resilience and related course themes apply to a wide range of disciplines and experiences - environmental studies, history, urban planning, business, political science, design, to name a few - and students will be guided to apply course skills and strategies to their own interests and goals.