Faculty approves program of study
by Anna McCormally
At last week’s faculty meeting, the Curricular Policy Committee’s recommendation that Environmental Studies be implemented as a major at Earlham was approved. This decision ends a long struggle by both students and faculty to secure the major, and marks the beginning of what will hopefully be the program’s expansion over time.
“For the last 12 years, really, we’ve had several working groups trying to come up with what would be an environmental major of some kind,” said Jay Roberts, assistant professor of education and director of wilderness programs. “Unquestionably, this was ground up: there were faculty that have been interested in doing this for the last 12 years, but it was student demand that placed this in the urgent category for the college.”
Earlham College President Doug Bennett expressed excitement that Earlham has added this program.
“On the one hand, Earlham has been doing for a very long while a superb job in environmental programs. I don’t believe any college has produced on a per capita more well-informed people in the world of environmental activity than Earlham College has,” he said — but went on to add that a prospective student flipping through Earlham’s curriculum guide might have been disappointed at a lack of environmental programs at the college. Bennett characterized that gap between Earlham’s values and course offerings as misleading.
“That’s a place I’ve been uncomfortable with for a long while,” he said. “I’m delighted we’re going to have an environmental studies major and I hope soon we’re also gong to have an environmental science major.”
It is true that adding an environmental science major is on the college’s to-do list; Roberts expects it to happen soon. The big picture behind it all is that the two new majors would complement each other under the broad umbrella department of Environmental Programs.
“The broad goal we have is that under environmental programs there will be two tracks, environmental studies and environmental science,” he said. ”We’ve tentatively planned ways in which those two majors interact and work with each other.”
According to sophomore Katrina Cohoe, the environmental studies major will involve introductory environmental colloquiums, and students will choose between focuses in chemistry, geosciences and biology with an additional focus in either policy or the humanities aspect of environmental studies. Cohoe, who worked with Roberts this last year to spread the word about the program and advocate support on a student level, is planning on majoring in environmental studies with focuses in biology and humanities.
“I’m really excited. I’m excited for the opportunities it’s going to give to students,” Cohoe said. ”Students who are really excited about the environment will have a space to study those issues.”
What allowed the environmental science major to finally become a reality after 12 long years? Roberts credits the Cargill Foundation Grant, awarded this year to Earlham, that made the major financially viable. The grant, which was applied for by Academic Dean Greg Mahler, is worth $10,000 every year for four years.
“It’s on thing to pick a bunch of courses that are already being offered and say, that’s a major,” Roberts said. ”What [the grant] allowed us to do was make infrastructural changes to support the adding of an intro course and a capstone course such that we could start to now think of a major.”
But having an environmental studies major is just the first step in a series of changes that some see as critical to Earlham as an institution. Cohoe, for one, sees a lot of green progress still to be made on campus.
According to Cohoe, those changes are both critical and hard to define: concepts about how the campus interacts with the community and its surroundings, global perspectives and how different countries think about the environment and issues with the environment. One key issue for Cohoe is educating everyone on campus about environmental issues, not just environmental studies or science majors.
“There’s got to be more than just the environmental studies program. There’s got to be more happening,” she said. ”I think Earlham is pretty behind other institutions in terms of environmental practices.”
Roberts, who attended the Association of Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHES)’s conference in Indianapolis this past fall, along with several Earlham students also commented on Earlham’s lack of environmental initiative.
“What I was struck with is that Earlham is no longer behind in these issues, it’s been left behind,” he said. ”With the infrastructure we have in place we are doing all we can; we need to change those structures such that we can do more.”
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