Animal Rights Graduate Program

Earn Your Graduate Degree Studying Animal Rights and Its Connections to Social Justice and Environmental Issues

Did you know you could earn a degree studying how to further animal rights and animal welfare causes? Do you want to learn about animals and how to help them? Do you consider animal rights an integral component of a just and humane world?

Pursue an animal-related master’s degree that’s intersectional and helps you create a world in which all animals, people, and nature can thrive!

Animal rights studies are an integral part of our online graduate programs. At the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), our unique animal rights graduate programs with Antioch University (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., and Graduate Certificate) prepare you to teach about animal issues, communicate and educate effectively, and become a solutionary who makes a difference both for animals as well as people and the environment. 

To learn more about how our graduate programs can help you with your work educating, advocating, or caring for animals, submit an inquiry to speak with our director of graduate programs, Mary Pat Champeau.

How Does Humane Education Help Animals?

While appreciation for animals and concern about animal cruelty have both grown over the decades, the extent of animal abuse has not abated. In fact, in relation to some industries like meat, dairy, and egg production, it has increased exponentially over the years. The disconnection between what we profess as humane people and what we do as typical consumers is profound. While new laws are being passed to diminish cruelty and abuse, the number of animals exploited and killed continues to rise.

Humane education asks us to consider our treatment of nonhuman animals as an integral component of creating a humane, sustainable, and just world. Covering issues such as factory farming, animal experimentation, hunting & trapping, and animals used in entertainment, humane education invites people to develop ideas for the production of foods, products, clothing, and medical treatments that do not cause animals to suffer and die.

Animal Rights Graduate Program Institute for Humane Education

Become a Humane Educator and Help Protect Animals

Learning about animal rights, animal welfare, or animal behavior is one thing; making a difference for animals is another. As you think about what you’re most passionate about, what you love to do, and what you’re good at, consider whether humane education – a field through which you’ll bring your passion for animals to others in ways that inspire positive action, compassionate choices, and solutionary thinking – is the ideal career for you.

With our online graduate programs, you don’t have to choose between getting your animal rights graduate program degree or human rights degree or sustainability degree or education degree. You can study all these issues through an intersectional lens that helps you teach others to be solutionaries who solve problems in ways that do the most good and least harm for everyone: animals, people, and the environment.

Moreover, you’ll learn within an online community full of people who also care about creating a humane world. In fact, because people come to our graduate programs from many arenas and passionate about different issues, you’ll get to learn with and from each other so that everyone is enriched and becomes a comprehensive humane educator connecting animal rights, sustainability, and social justice. Plus you’ll receive your degree from the leader in progressive education, our partner Antioch University. 

Organizations Where our Alumni Work

Logos of companies where IHE alumni work

The Humane Education Graduate Program Will Enable You To:

  • Connect animal rights issues to human rights, social justice, sustainability, and education.
  • Educate others in positive ways that inspire them to make a difference.
  • Learn from experts in animal studies, animal behavior, and animal rights.
  • Build a community of like-minded graduate students who share your commitment to a humane world.
  • Choose between an M.Ed. degree, M.A. degree, Graduate Certificate, or Ed.D. specializing in humane education – all programs that are unique in the world!

Become a Solutionary and Educate Others to Be Solutionaries

One of the most powerful ways that we can create change is to become a solutionary, a person who is able to identify inhumane, unjust, and unsustainable systems and then create solutions that do the most good and least harm for animals, people, and the environment.

In our online graduate programs, you’ll not only learn how to become a solutionary yourself, and bring a solutionary lens to animal issues that concern you, but also to educate others to be solutionaries. This kind of learning is positive, energizing, and hopeful. If you find yourself despairing about the plight of animals, we invite you to join a program that will provide powerful tools and ways of thinking to build a compassionate world. For more on how solutoinaries will help change the world, watch this TEDx Talk from Zoe Weil, the Institute for Humane Education’s President and Co-Founder.

Learn More and Apply

To learn more about the ways in which we integrate animal studies into a broader context of social justice and sustainability, visit the Graduate Programs page on our website. You can also complete this inquiry form to connect with the program director to discuss how your commitment to animals and interest in an animal rights degree can be met through our comprehensive humane education programs.

The animals need humane educators speaking and teaching on their behalf. Moreover, they need spokespeople who understand how to inspire others, instill compassion, and foster solutionary thinking on behalf of all life.