Environmental Studies

Environmental Studies (ES) is a field of study that explores the various and complex relationships between human beings and their environment. Because understanding these relationships requires approaching them from a variety of critical perspectives, the major is interdisciplinary; it includes courses in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. As a means of helping students develop the background and skills needed to understand and address environmental issues, the ES program includes the study of ecology and environmental systems, the impacts of aesthetic representations of the environment, the history of environmental thought, the role of public policy and ethics in environmental decision-making, the various conceptions of “environment” held by different cultures, and the global nature of environmental problems. To ensure in-depth training in a specific discipline, the ES major also includes a focus area.

All ES students complete a set of "core" courses. In addition, the ES major provides a unique opportunity for students to organize their General Education Curriculum requirements around the interdisciplinary study of a broad and multifaceted theme: the environment. Those courses that students may complete toward the General Education Curriculum requirements are marked with an asterisk (*). Students interested in the following areas may find the program particularly useful: careers in education, public policy, resource management, public health, public administration, international development, the non-profit sector, or the sciences; graduate study in environmental law or policy, economics, environmental literature, the sciences, or other related disciplines.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of environmental studies, the ES major is unusually large. Therefore, students planning to pursue an ES major should meet with an ES faculty member (listed below) and begin taking courses in the ES Core no later than the start of the sophomore year.

Faculty: Denny Clark (Religion), Peter Craig (Chemistry), Rochelle Johnson (English), Jasper LiCalzi (Politics and Economics), Don Mansfield (Biology), Michael Hitchman (Mathematics), Eric Yensen (Biology), Tim Shearon (Psychology), Kathy Seibold (Anthropology), Rob Stacy (English), Scott Truksa (Chemistry), Elizabeth Wakeman (Philosophy), Chris Walser (Biology).