During its meeting last Friday, the Pomona College faculty unanimously approved the Environmental Analysis (EA) program. The program, which will be available next fall, will consist of both a major and a minor. The faculty also plans to hire a new professor specifically for the program.

The proposal was presented to the faculty after passing the Curriculum Committee’s standards of integrity and sustainability of the curriculum, according to Registrar Margaret Adorno. These are the two major requirements for a program to receive approval by the Curriculum Committee and they ensure that the program will be able to offer courses for many years in the future.

"The Environmental Analysis program really serves the second part of Pomona’s mission statement: to prepare students to lead lives of social responsibility," Professor of Geology Rick Hazlett commented.

"Student interest in environmental matters generally, and in environmental curricula in particular, is now substantial and growing," noted the proposal submitted by Program Coordinator and Professor of Mathematics Richard Elderkin.

"I was happy to see that the faculty and administration were finally acknowledging the value of environmental analysis at a liberal arts college of this caliber," Tom Krebs ’01 said in response to the faculty approval. Krebs, Tyler Dillavou ’01, and Doug Morrow ’01 all spoke on behalf of the proposed program at the faculty meeting.

This program will be similar in structure to other programs such as Women’s Studies. The EA program will rely heavily on existing departments for its classes. However, four exclusively environmental classes will constitute the core courses that each EA major must complete.

"The major is important to give students well planned routes to environmental literacy. We hope that some of you [students] will become strong activists on behalf of the environment, but we want you to have the power that comes from deep understanding [of] both sides of these issues," Elderkin stated.

The Environmental Analysis major, which will offer eight different tracks, will require from fifteen to sixteen courses for graduation.

The possible tracks for the major are Environmental Biology; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Ethics; Environmental Policy; Environmental Analysis in Geology; Human Behavior and the Environment; Mathematical Analysis of Environmental Issues; and Society, Development and the Environment. Each track will require the four core courses and 11 or 12 additional courses.

The faculty also approved an Environmental Analysis minor, which consists of seven courses.

"I think student interest in minoring [in Environmental Analysis] at Pomona will be really great," Hazlett said. "We’re way behind the curve in all of this [environmental programming], compared to peer institutions like Oberlin and Williams. At Williams, there are over 80 students that are taking an environmental studies minor," he added.

However, faculty and staff estimate that the popularity of the EA major will be similar to that of peer institutions.

"I imagine we will see a number of students declare the EA major," Adorno explained. "Then [they will encounter] the hard part for any interdisciplinary program: working with a group of faculty who are members of various departments and who participate in other programs as well."

To help decrease the pressure on faculty, a new professorship in Environmental Analysis will be created.

"Dr. Steve Pauley, husband of trustee Marylyn Pauley and alumnus of Pomona College, is giving the college funds which will permanently endow a professorship in EA," Elderkin said. "This person’s entire teaching load and research emphasis will be environmental." The earliest the new professor would start teaching is the 2002-3 academic year.

In addition to the new professorship, faculty involved with environmental studies are considering a variety of new initiatives.

"We’re going to move to get a newsletter that will be a clearinghouse for environmental issues and activism," Hazlett explained. "We are also trying to put together a resource center that would have articles and information about environmental issues."

The recent visibility of environmental studies comes as a result of years of effort on behalf of professors, with recent student input as well. "This [program] really represents the effort of several dozen faculty, [continuing] since 1991," explained Hazlett.

The institutionalization of this program is seen by those involved as an important step in strengthening environmental studies as well as providing the support necessary for an effective program.

An environmental studies program already exists at Pitzer College.

"[An environmental studies major] creates a space for students, faculty and staff to have a legitimate voice in campus issues with regards to environmental sustainability," Alicia Hernandez PI ’01 said of Pitzer’s environmental studies program.

An EA major "was necessary," said Adorno, "because there was a strong belief among faculty and students that we needed a curricular and administrative structure to house and define and support…the collective expertise we have to solve environmental problems and to give those problems a formal place in our consciousness and curriculum."

However, Elderkin views the Environmental Analysis program as just one important part of a larger picture.

"From a long term and more global perspective," Elderkin said, "I think that a more important goal [than the major] is a general presence of environmental thought and concern across the curriculum."