Centers

Center for Sustainability

The UNA Center for Sustainability is a unique interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary organization that fosters pedagogy, research and scholarship, awareness, and development initiatives in all aspects of sustainability. The Center is inclusive of the broadest range of disciplines, and draws strength and credibility through its diversity. The Center includes learning and understanding of sustainability issues at the local, state, national and global scales and seeks their solutions. We seek to learn how to learn and make decisions in our rapidly-changing world.  The Center works with all elements of the academic and surrounding community, including students, faculty, and staff to promote an understanding and awareness of sustainability issues by coordinating informational presentations and promoting energy and water conservation, waste minimization, recycling, sustainable building and landscape design, alternative transportation, and procurement of green products.

Freddie Wood Geographic Research Center

The Center, a research, teaching and public service unit of the Department of Geoscience, has a three-fold purpose.  It enhances the instructional programs of the University, creates research opportunities for students and faculty, and extends benefits of geospatial technologies and research to potential users.

Public History Center

The Public History Center serves as the consulting branch of the Public History Program at the University of North Alabama, and supervises graduate students in their fieldwork and project development. Additionally, the Public History Center staff participates in community outreach, research, content development, and historic site strategy, and maintains a close project partnership with the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area.

Laboratories

Herbarium

The focus of the Herbarium is to maintain in the Department of Biology a complete plant collection for use by students and faculty as an instructional and research resource. It also serves as a historical record of the plant species that occur in the Southeast United States, especially Alabama. The Herbarium functions in the identification and/or verification of unknown plant material, promotes public awareness of rare and/or endangered species, and conducts environmental impact studies and floristic surveys. The Herbarium is recognized by Index Herbariorum, a database of global herbaria maintained by the New York Botanical Gardens. Go to http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ for more information.

Occupational and Environmental Health Laboratory

The OEHL provides industrial hygiene consultation and other relevant health and environmental services to local industries as a public service of the Department of Engineering and Industrial Professions. Typical services include, but are not limited to, occupational air sampling, noise sampling, heat stress analysis and ergonomic assessments.  The OEHL provides opportunities for student participation in occupational and environmental health assessments under the direction of a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) faculty member.

Restorative Justice Lab

The Restorative Justice Lab, housed within the Politics, Justice, Law, and Philosophy department, is a collaborative and interdisciplinary hub for rethinking justice through community-building, mutual aid, and restorative practices that prevent, reduce, and transform harm. Our work is generated from and around prisons in Alabama. We currently offer a number of programs in Alabama prison facilities, including the following:

• Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

This program offers students in a variety of fields the opportunity to attend classes with our students at Limestone CF.

• Restorative Justice Program

This interdisciplinary undergraduate program is delivered through the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program model at Limestone CF and is credit-bearing for all students. Coursework includes six classes that span criminal justice, English, psychology, and sociology. The curriculum is designed to prepare students to contribute to conflict resolution, community-building, and transformative justice movements. Outside students are able to complete a minor in Restorative Justice. You can find the curriculum for the minor here. Inside students at Limestone CF complete a certificate in Restorative Justice.

Programs

Critical Languages Program

Under the auspices of the National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs (http://www.nasilp.net), the Department of Foreign Languages offers foundational courses in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian utilizing native-speaker language partners in the classroom and external examiners who administer the final exams. 

Certificates

Accelerated Master's Program (AMP)