Environmental Science and Policy 2007-2008
Overview
The Environmental Studies Program is designed for students with a strong interest in understanding and solving environmental problems. The program provides students the opportunity to explore areas of environmental policy and environmental science. Students will find this program useful if they enter environmental science or environmental management in the public and private sectors, teaching, business, politics, or law.
The Environmental Studies Program gives an overview of many of the diverse aspects of modern environmental issues, including science, technology, public policy, and economics. It also gives enough depth in a chosen discipline so that a graduate is reasonably accomplished and well-versed in that discipline. The Environmental Studies Program is rigorous, while being flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of interests in this complex and constantly changing field.
There are two tracks in the program: Environmental Policy and Environmental Science. Both require a number of core courses and then a specialty concentration of five courses, the senior seminar of one course, and a senior thesis or project of two courses.
The core is a series of courses in the sciences, social sciences, mathematics, and technology that are of fundamental importance for understanding environmental issues. These subjects, for which there is significant flexibility, are first-rate courses that examine the environment variously in terms of biological interaction, the forces of nature and their effect on human activities, human responses to the environment, social and economic changes and concerns related to the environment, and solutions to environmental problems. These courses are taught in several departments, including biology, geology, chemistry, economics, political science, sociology, philosophy, mechanical engineering, and mathematics. The core curriculum gives all majors a common basis for discussion in the Environmental Studies community.
The core is supplemented by in-depth study in an established department, such as sociology, biology, geology, or economics. The course of study in the area of concentration is equivalent to a minor, but is designed in cooperation with a faculty advisor in the chosen department. The area of concentration gives substantial depth of knowledge in a field that is important for understanding and solving current environmental problems. Seniors complete a two-term independent research project that applies understanding gained from the core curriculum and from the area of concentration toward an environmental topic of interest.
The culmination of the program is the Senior Seminar in Environmental Studies, in which contemporary environmental issues are discussed, debated, researched, and documented in a lively, sometimes heated, atmosphere that includes round table discussions, invited speakers, field trips, mock trials, and other means to understand the effect of the environment on modern society, and to understand how solutions to environmental problems work in the real world. Discussions include, but are not limited to, points of law, the regulatory environment and perceptions of environmental issues, analysis of simple and complex data, scientific interpretations and areas of study, mathematical models, and various types of forecasting. The senior research projects, completed in the area of concentration, are presented by their authors and opened to questions and debate.
Students have opportunities for internships during the senior year either as a required part of the Senior Seminar, or as part of a senior research project. Examples of recently completed internships include ones at Schenectady County Planning Department, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center in Delmar, New York.
For more information, visit: http://minerva.union.edu/env/ES_home.htm
PROGRAM DIRECTOR:
Donald T. Rodbell
Professor of Geology
Ph.D., University of Colorado
Paleoclimatology
FACULTY:
Barbara Boyer
Professor of Biology
Ph.D., University of Michigan
John Garver
Professor of Geology
Ph.D., University of Washington
Tectonics, evolution of mountain systems
Michael Hagerman
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Ph.D., Northwestern University
Inorganic chemistry
Kurt Hollocher
Professor of Geology
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts
Geochemistry
Leslie Hull
Professor of Chemistry
Ph.D., Harvard University
Organic chemistry
Ilene Kaplan
Professor of Sociology
Ph.D., Princeton University
Maritime policy
James Kenney
Professor of Economics
Ph.D., Stanford
Environmental economics
Bonney MacDonald
Associate Professor, English
Ph.D., Yale University
Environmental literature
Steven Rice
Associate Professor of Biology
Ph.D. Duke University
Terrestrial ecology
George Shaw
Professor of Geology
Ph.D., University of Washington
Geochemistry
Peter Tobiessen
Professor Emeritus of Biology
Ph.D., Duke University
Terrestrial and freshwater ecology
Thomas Werner
Professor of Chemistry
Ph.D., MIT
Analytical chemistry
Richard Wilk
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Ph.D., Drexel
Pollution control