Olivia Fitzpatrick
Intro to Writing Studies
Praxis Assignment 3: Replicate
February 11, 2019
Introduction:
This essay profiles the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University to analyze and develop the arguments for a major in Environmental Studies by using Santa Clara as an exploratory model. It takes a great deal of direction from the essay The Case for a Major in Writing Studies: The University of Minnesota Duluth by David Beard in which Beard explains the major on Writing Studies at the University he is an English professor at, and how the successful modes of pedagogy can be applied more broadly to other universities’ writing studies major as well as many other diverse majors. For the essay, I will attempt to replicate Beard’s methods of analysis but for a major of Environmental Studies at Santa Clara University.
Environmental Studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which systematically examines human interaction with the environment in the interests of solving complex problems. As such, it is a discipline structured like its sibling Environmental Science- with the environment as the object. However, Studies is a much different and equally important discipline from Science; Santa Clara describes it as having an interdisciplinary, social science focus while the Environmental Science major has a natural science focus. Environmental sciences is the combination of biological, chemical, geological, and mathematical principles as they apply to the environment, focusing on preserving and managing natural resources. Environmental studies ia able to broaden this field as it includes more emphasis on the political, economic, and social aspects related to the environment, including sustainability. The two are explicitly distinct from each other. In establishing an Environmental Studies major, universites, students, teachers, and communities are able to focus on socio-cultural, -economic, and -political features of human-environment interactions, with science and math as rounding supplements. We will analyse how and why the Environmental Studies major at SCU expresses these identities.
Methods:
I researched the core curriculum of Environmental Studies major at SCU.
I established what academic programs are housed under the Environmental Studies and Sciences department.
I described how the local context (curriculum and programs) yields specific arguments for an Environmental Studies major.
I researched arguments that located Writing Studies among its sibling discipline.
I examined the arguments that defined the proper object of study of the discipline and manifested that definition in SCU’s core curriculum.
Results:
Claims about the nature of environmental studies are manifest in the wide and diverse core curriculum of the major. The following six introductory core classes (see Part 1 of Table One below), required of all majors in Environmental Studies, represent the common core of intellectual and experiential work in the field and department. We study natural sciences in lecture and lab as it pertains to biological relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings and the physical and chemical components of earth systems (ENVS 21; ENVS 23). We examine broad and various society-nature relations, contemporary world issues, and writing from prominent environmental thinkers (ENVS 22; ENVS 50; ENVS 79). Finally, we understand microeconomics and its applications to business decisions and public policy (ECON 1). Just the introductory courses cover topics and disciplines that address a vast array of issues embedded in environmental discourse. The Intermediate and Advanced courses go further in depth and address and even wider array of disciplines in the environmental context. It is clear that the Environmental Studies major at SCU is truly inter- and multi- disciplinary that aims at solving complex environmental issues.
Table 1. Six introductory core courses in Environmental Studies at SCU.
Table 2. Four intermediate and Six Advanced core courses in Environmental Studies at SCU.
Both Environmental Studies and Sciences majors are housed under the Environmental Studies and Sciences department. Additionally, the department has three associate professors (Bacon, Stewart-Frey and Matzek), three professors (Gray, Kealhofer, and Marvier), two assistant professors (Gabbe and Mix), two lecturers (Hughes and Farnsworth), and one laboratory technician (Morales). Each specialize in various disciplines that reflect the variety of courses offered. It is interesting to note that both majors under the department are a BS, even though Studies do not mainly focus on science courses like Sciences does. As the department has grown, it has come to house:
4 thematic concentrations in Environmental Studies (Green Business, Environmental Humanities, Environmental Policy, Law, and Politics, and Sustainable Development).
2 thematic concentrations in Environmental Sciences (Applied Ecology and Water, Energy, and Technology).
An undergraduate minor in Environmental Studies.
An undergraduate minor in Sustainability.
The first BS in Environmental Studies was established at the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University in the 1950s while Middlebury College established the major in 1965 (ESF Office of Communications). It was not until 2008 that the first professional association in the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies in the United States, Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS), was founded. In 2010, the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) agreed to advise and support the Association. The Association's scholarly journal, the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (JESS), commenced publication in March 2011. Currently, over 500 colleges and universities in the United States offer environmental studies as a degree (Collegeboard). However, the majority of colleges either do not offer an Environmental studies major or only offer Environmental Sciences and as a part of another department. For example, UC Irvine only offers a BA in Environmental Science under the Department of Earth System Science. It has not been until the last few years that most colleges who do include a studies program, like other UC’s, have added them. The fact that SCU does offer and has offered an Environmental Studies major as a part of an Environmental Studies and Sciences Department is an example of where the discipline should be at in academia.
Environmental Studies is not identical with Environmental Science at SCU:
Despite their similar names, Environmental Studies and Environmental Sciences, they are fundamentally different majors reflected in their curriculum, focus, and the concentration you choose to tap your strengths and interests toward the environmental challenges of the future. Environmental Sciences is a stand-alone major that draws on fundamental scientific knowledge in chemistry, physics, biology, and mathematics coupled with specialization in a particular area of science to provide advanced scientific and quantitative understanding of contemporary environmental challenges. Environmental Studies is also a standalone major that provides a broadly integrated understanding to the social, political, economic, and historical facets of our environmental challenges with a focus on business, policy, sustainable development and humanitarian aspects of these challenges.
Conclusion:
The Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at SCU offers interdisciplinary programs of study leading to a bachelor of science in environmental science or environmental studies. A minor in environmental studies is also available. These programs provide students with the intellectual foundation they will need in addressing crucial environmental challenges of the 21st century while serving local and global communities by addressing environmental issues through education, research, and leadership. It integrates social and natural science approaches with ethics and service to promote a sustainable world. The core curriculum in Environmental Studies at SCU exemplifies the distinctness of Studies from Sciences and should serve as a point of further discussion about pedagogy of social and natural sciences centered around human-environment interactions.
Collegeboard. Major: Environmental Studies. Retrieved February 8, 2019, from https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/majors/natural-resources-conservation-environmental-studies
ESF Office of Communications. Department of Environmental Studies. Retrieved from https://www.esf.edu/es/about.htm