Issue #1 - March 30, 2007

THE ENVIRONMENTAL CURRICULUM TAKES SHAPE

By David Lion Rattiner

Right now, if you head off to college and want to learn about how to protect the environment and make money at the same time, your options are pretty limited. The school of thought for environmental conservation has always been something along the lines of, “the government needs to step in and prevent businesses from causing pollution and businesses need to deal with these restrictions.” In general, colleges that offer programs revolving around the environment have little to do with applying that knowledge to a lucrative career. You can’t blame them, either — the big name employers of the world are simply not in that business.

Out of the relatively new awareness that there is a need to protect the earth from further damage, big universities like Harvard now offer environmental studies programs along with recent creations like the Harvard University Center For The Environment. According to their website, “The Center seeks to provide the next generation of Harvard-educated researchers, policymakers and corporate leaders with a comprehensive interdisciplinary environmental education, while fostering linkages and partnerships amongst different parts of the University, as well as between the University and the outside world.”

I gave them a call and found that the center was originally called, “the Committee on the Environment.” It was started in 1991 and was housed in the Geological Museum on Oxford Street. In 2001, it was given the title of “Harvard University Center for the Environment.” “At that time, we were using renovated space on Church Street in Cambridge,” their representative, Jean Gauthier, explained. This space was shared by other Harvard Initiatives. In January of 2005, the Center moved into its own space at 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge.

The center is a wonderful addition to the outstanding school and Harvard has benefited from it because people from all different departments can take courses or earn fellowships there. But you still can’t get a degree in these types of things from Harvard.

And so if you want to see a sign that the world of environmental thinking is changing for the better, hop on a plane out of Boston and into La Guardia, then Jitney it out to Southampton. There, you will see a school that sees a market not only for classes about the environment, but entire majors, with a legion of students focused on just that subject. Stony Brook University at Southampton is literally creating an entirely new school of thought, with an entirely new school to go to, along with its entirely new degrees. No other school in the country is doing this.

The reason Stony Brook Southampton is creating this school is that there is a huge amount of business to be had for companies that can offer solutions to the problem of creating energy without producing large amounts of CO2. Today, clean-energy-related businesses and facets of big business related to caring for the environment are growing in America, slowly but surely. Soon, other schools will follow the lead of Stony Brook Southampton, when they realize how much interest this generation of students has in these fields. Dr. Martin Schoonen, the interim dean of Stony Brook Southampton, and Shirley Strum Kenny, the president of Stony Brook University, are looking to the future with that vision in mind.

Stony Brook is calling for the creation of five new majors, including Ecological Studies & Human Impact, Environmental Design Policy & Planning, Art, Culture & Theory and Environmental Studies. One of the most innovative of the five is called “Sustainability Studies,” and focuses on huge issues such as global warming and exponential population growth. Stony Brook should not only be applauded for being the first college to do something like this, they should be given a standing ovation. The major solution to global warming can be broken down into an incredibly simple business plan — make it more profitable to provide sustainable energy sources than it is to dig fossil fuels out of the ground and burn them. That’s exactly what Stony Brook Southampton is doing. The focus of this new major is to create business savvy students with environmental conservation in mind. Currently, majors such as “Environmental Design Policies and Planning” are going to the board at Stony Brook University and to the New York State Department of Education for approval. Each new environmental major will focus educating future business owners and political leaders who will one day help create an eco-friendly world. Students will be able to study not only how environmentally friendly solutions to energy problems work, but will be able graduate and be connected with businesses that provide solutions. Having those types of people in the world can’t be a bad thing.