Graduate supervisors are normally drawn from the membership of the Economics and International Studies programs.

 

Fiona MacPhail, Associate Professor, and Program Co-Chair

Ken Wilkening, Associate Professor, and Program Co-Chair
Paul Bowles, Professor
Don Munton, Professor

James Randall, Professor

Jacqueline Holler, Associate Professor

Chris Opio, Associate Professor 

Jalil Safaei Boroojeny, Associate Professor

Heather Smith, Associate Professor

Baotai Wang, Associate Professor

Ajit Dayanandan, Assistant Professor

Karima Fredj, Assistant Professor
Bryan Bogdanski, Adjunct Professor

Heather Myers, Adjunct Professor

 

Website: http://www.unbc.ca/internationalstudies

UNBC's innovative and interdisciplinary Master's degree in International Studies has three main streams: regional relations, international development, and global environmental policy. Students may pursue other subject areas provided the requisite faculty expertise can be identified. This program is managed jointly by the International Studies and Economics programs, with co-operation from faculty in Political Science, History, Geography, and Environmental Studies.

The regional relations stream encompasses a broad range of concerns. We have particular expertise in the Asia-Pacific, the Circumpolar North, Russia, the Americas, Canada's external relations, international institutions, and aspects of international security. (The program does not focus to any significant extent on regional relations in such other areas as the Middle East, South Asia or Africa.)

The focus of the international development stream is to provide students with an understanding of the global forces and actors affecting developing countries, of the dimensions of human well-being and the strategies for their improvement in developing countries, and of the theoretical and practical tools used in applied development analysis.

The global environmental policy stream encompasses policies and institutional arrangements to manage transboundary, regional, and global ecological problems, such as ozone depletion, acid rain, climate change, and northern and Arctic resources. Another emphasis is the harmonization of environment and economic development in the poor and industrializing nations of the South.

International language training (in languages other than English and French), internship, co-op, and study abroad experiences can be incorporated into the program. Recognizing the importance of language and culture, the International Studies program currently offers undergraduate courses in introductory and intermediate Japanese, Russian, and Mandarin, and these are open to graduate students.

Financial assistance in the form of teaching assistantships is available to some full-time students, in accordance with University regulations.

Requirements

The program includes both a thesis and a non-thesis option. The thesis option involves four courses and a thesis (maximum 20,000 words). The non-thesis option requires five courses combined with a shorter research project.

Whichever stream a student chooses, there is a requirement for a theory course, a methodology course, and two or more subject-specific courses. For the regional relations and global environmental policy streams, the theory requirement is INTS 701-3 (State of the Discipline) and the required methodology course is INTS 700-3 (Research Methods). For the international development stream, the required theory course is ECON 601-3 (Global Economy), while the methodology requirement is satisfied either by INTS 700-3 (Research Methods), ECON 611-3 (Cost-Benefit Analysis), or ENPL 405-3(Advanced Environmental Assessment). In addition, students in the international development stream are also required to take the subject-specific course ECON 604-3 (Poverty, Inequality and Development).

 

For additional information about graduate admissions or to download application materials, go to the Graduate Programs website at www.unbc.ca/graduateprograms.