Guidebooks

A resource for Arts & Sciences students, the guidebook focuses on policies, the majors, experiential education, the core curriculum and major requirements. Copies are available in the dean's office, or as PDFs, below.

Environmental Studies

The Environmental Studies program is an interdisciplinary program designed for students who wish to apply an understanding of both social and scientific issues to the solution of environmental problems. The goal of the major is to enable students to conceptualize and to attack "unstructured problems" (problems with many more variables than equations or problems for which there may be no obvious single best solution). This type of problem dominates natural environmental systems; the solutions to environmental problems may require balancing scientific and societal concerns. By the time they graduate, students should be able to identify an environmental problem, develop a plan to address the problem, identify and organize the resources they would need to solve the problem, and know how to put a plan to solve the problem into action.

The program is structured to provide a progressive development in skills and knowledge. It is flexible in that it allows latitude in upper-level course choices, selected with the approval of a faculty advisor, to suit individual student interests. Students are strongly encouraged to complete a dual major combining Environmental Studies and another major.