Environmental Studies Mission, Values & Vision
VISION
We envision a socially and environmentally just world in which all human communities
and ecological systems thrive. This vision inspires us to train effective local, national,
and international environmental leaders and achieve excellence in our doctoral and
master’s programs and collaborative community service.
MISSION
Our mission is to educate a critical mass of visionary, effective leaders who will achieve
environmental victories for a just and thriving world. We do this in a collaborative,
interdisciplinary community founded on academic excellence and principles of justice.
VALUES
COMMUNITY SERVICE AND ACTION
Supporting positive change and experiential learning beyond the classroom are significant
values we hold. We want students, faculty, staff and alumni to actively engage in solving
complex environmental and social issues. We challenge students and ourselves to be systems
thinkers in understanding how our experiences, interests, and work connect to communities
beyond the classroom. Such communities may be professional networks, local or geographic
communities, families, friends or any number of conceptions of community. We need all
hands on deck in this work, through stewardship, innovation, excellence in practice, servant
leadership, capacity building and inspiring others to engage in ways that make sense to them,
in their lives, and in their communities. Active engagement lends itself to hope, resilience,
positive change, and excellence in teaching. As faculty, our commitment to community and
service as engaged scholars also circles back to enhance our scholarship, which becomes
another avenue for student learning.
ENVIRONMENT
The well-being of our natural environment and human communities provides the academic
and moral compass for our department and is reflected in our responsive curriculum. We
recognize the intrinsic value of the natural world and all its biotic and abiotic forms. We also
realize that “nature” has a myriad of interpretations across cultural contexts. We want
students to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of both the built and natural
environment through their studies here. To that end, we value an interdisciplinary focus on
social and natural sciences, conservation, education, resource management, humanities, and
social justice, which promotes systems thinking, environmental scholarship and stewardship
in our graduates.
INCLUSIVITY & WAYS OF KNOWING
No one disciplinary approach will solve the complex environmental and justice challenges of
today or in the future. We must challenge learners and teachers to think for themselves,
commit to exploring the messiness of seeking interdisciplinary solutions, and envisioning the
world as interconnected, holistic systems. To do so, we commit to inclusive educational
practices and realize the inherent tensions of marginalization and the privileged status of
higher education generally. Further, we contend that historically marginalized voices—
particularly of women, indigenous peoples, people of color, youth, elders, and residents of
lesser developed countries—are key contributors of innovative solutions to the world’s
environmental challenges. Engaging and learning alongside these leaders will facilitate social
change and enable us to fully embrace the lived experiences of all community members.
INTERDISCIPLINARY & EXPERIENTIAL
The Department of Environmental Studies values innovative and experiential approaches to
graduate education and the explicit integration of Natural and Social Sciences and the
Humanities.
JUSTICE, EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
Through experiences in and outside of the classroom, we actively seek ways for students,
faculty, staff, and community members to explore issues of power and privilege, enhance
their intercultural communication, and lean into cultural awareness with humility and
compassion. We pay special attention to issues of equity and justice-mindedness particularly
as environmental hazards and climate change disproportionately impact poor and
marginalized groups in societies across the globe. We believe our commitment to justice,
equity, diversity, and inclusion enhances the scope of environmental sustainability and
creates opportunities to authentically engage potential allies among a broader reach of civil
society.
We also realize that as a graduate department composed mainly of white, middle-class, well-
educated faculty, staff, and students, we have far to grow. We are aware of — and educate
our students about — the long and well-documented history of the ways in which the
environmental movement, in the United States, has marginalized cultures, peoples, and
voices. This history includes significant evidence of overt racism, anti-Semitism, sexism,
White Supremacy, and other forms of oppression. Early U.S. conservation and preservation
movements emphasized the separation between people and nature, and focused largely on
land and animals over people and health, which misrepresented the interests of many.
Similarly, a dominant focus on Western, scientific and positivistic approaches to knowledge
acquisition in environmental studies curricula marginalizes other ways of knowing and
doing, particularly indigenous ways, as well as those voices of migrants to cities coming from
agricultural backgrounds; and has prevented some groups from fully participating and
contributing to environmental issues. Our curriculum intentionally emphasizes social
justice. We seek to advance justice, equity, diversity and inclusion ourselves, and we
encourage and support our students in doing the same through engaged scholarship and
civic action.
We also recognize that for more than five hundred years, Native communities around the
world have demonstrated resilience and resistance in the face of violent efforts to separate
them from their land, culture, and each other. They remain at the forefront of movements to
protect Mother Earth and the life it sustains. Critically examining the history of the narratives
and voices present and missing from environmental agendas is essential to equity and
justice, and part of the deep work we are committed to doing in this department.
SCHOLARSHIP & PRACTICE
The world needs adept, flexible, creative, collaborative, culturally humble educators, leaders,
scientists, policy-makers, advocates, artists, philosophers and citizens. Our hope is that
together–students, faculty, staff and community members–we build our capacity to serve in
these essential and eclectic roles.
Integrating systems fundamental to sustainability requires new forms of human organization, moving away from reductionist, problem-solving strategies to interdisciplinary, holistic, solution-seeking approaches. We value rigorous applied scholarship and leverage a variety of strategies and epistemologies to make the world a better place for all. We value inquiry-based learning, research, reflection, and service learning as essential tools for engaging the environmental challenges of local, regional, and international communities.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING COMMUNITY
Our department embraces student-centered teaching excellence and we actively cultivate a
dynamic learning community. This is a learning space where you can bring your full self to
experience and we deeply value teaching and learning alongside you as a whole person. We
cannot fully separate our intellectual selves from all that makes us who we are–from our
prior life experiences to our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves, among countless other
dimensions of every learner. We want to challenge our assumptions in a supportive
environment where personal and social change can occur in both subtle and powerful,
dramatic ways. Descriptors oftentimes applied to our learning community include:
authenticity, playfulness, innovation, personal transformation, democratic processes, valuing
voices, empathy, transparency, mentorship, active listening, professionalism, peace,
reflectivity, compassion, respect, collaboration, curiosity, and solutions-focused learning for
all.