Explore the newly created Environmental Studies and Science Program at DePauw University

Curriculum
“A primary function of colleges and universities is to educate students. By training and educating future leaders, scholars, workers, and professionals, higher education institutions are positioned uniquely to prepare students to understand and address sustainability challenges. Institutions that hold courses relevant to sustainability issues help equip their students to lead society to a sustainable future.” AASHE STARS 0.5, p. 23

Learn about the Focus the Nation Annual Teach-In at DePauw University.

Course Offerings
A preliminary review of DePauw’s curriculum reveals a number of courses that directly address environmental issues and/or the intersections of environmental, economic, and social systems. These courses probably constitute “sustainability-focused” courses by AASHE’s STARS 0.5 criteria.

For example:
Anthropology 253. Environmental Anthropology (Darrell LaLone)
Biology 345. Conservation Biology (Dana Dudle)
Chemistry 197. First year seminar: Green Chemistry (Jeff Hansen)
Economics 335. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (Michele Villinski)
Geoscience 109. Environmental Geology (Jeanette Pope)
Geoscience 125. Introduction to Environmental Science (Jeanette Pope)
Geoscience 197. Modern Environmental Problems (Jeanette Pope)
German 314. Grünes Deutschland: Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Kultur (Howard Pollack-Milgate)
History 197. First year seminar: The Meat We Eat (Carl Weinberg)
History 290. Topics: Global Migration (Glen Kuecker)
History 300. Topics: Catastrophic Systems Collapse (Glen Kuecker)
Philosophy 209. Environmental Ethics (Jennifer Everett)
Political Science 382. Global Issues (Nafhat Nasr)
Political Science 450B. Senior seminar: Causes of War and Conditions for Peace (Nafhat Nasr)
Univ. Studies 170. Environmental Science Introductory Seminar (Jeanette Pope)
Univ. Studies 290. Environmental Policy (Jen Everett and Kelsey Kauffman) – Phase 2 of three phase internship/curricular/co-curricular DePauw Environmental Policy Project (DEPP)

Among these, two (but perhaps not the only two) that attempt to integrate experiential pedagogies beyond the classroom as well as interdisciplinary approaches within the course content are Philosophy 209 and University Studies 290.

Everett’s Environmental Ethics course makes a concerted effort not only to address the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability challenges but also to integrate academic studies of environmental ethics with the operational challenge of putting an institution’s ethical commitments into effect. A summary of recent sustainability service learning projects conducted by Environmental Ethics students, a syllabus describing the experiential learning pedagogy of this course, and excerpts pertaining to the course from Everett’s annual report are attached as Appendix G. Demonstrating the potential for synergy between academic, operational, and administrative sustainability efforts, many of the co-curricular, operational, and even administrative efforts described in later sections of this report grew directly out of this course. Student groups in this course have focused on improving recycling on campus, incorporating sustainability into new student programming, outreach to Greencastle schools, establishing an Energy Wars competition, recycled paper procurement, a campus
LEED building policy, civic education curricular reform, local food procurement, sustainable living in campus housing, and a campus carbon footprint analysis. In each and every case it is fair to say that 8 tangible changes have taken place at DePauw as a result of these groups’ studies. More importantly, the experience has provided fertile ground for conceptual and personal grappling with the disciplinary subject matter of moral philosophy. Students in this course frequently cite it as a transformative learning experience.

Kelsey’s and Everett’s Environmental Policy course ramps up the pedagogical integration of academic study and practical engagement in institutional change by extending the period of activity over summer, fall, and winter term, and by moving the locus of students’ experiential learning from the campus level to that of state public policy. The DePauw Environmental Policy Project (DEPP) began with a co-curricular paid summer internship (described below in Section 3.A.2)(b) ‘Internships and Programs of Distinction’), continues in Fall 2008 with a student-driven academic course on pending Indiana environmental legislation, and concludes with a Winter Term 2009 co-curricular course at the Statehouse, where students will use what they’ve learned to testify on environmental bills assigned to committees in both legislative chambers. A summary report on the project, reviewing activities undertaken by summer DEPP interns, is attached as Appendix N. Because many of the courses above are one-off topics courses rather than regular offerings as part of a stable sustainability curriculum, it is not clear whether DePauw would score highly by the STARS 0.5 measure of “sustainability-focused” courses. Likewise, we do not yet know how many “sustainability related”
courses DePauw offers according to the STARS 0.5 criteria – i.e., courses that discuss sustainability issues as a component or module. We know there have been a few. For example:
• Vanessa Artman’s Biology 225 Biostatistics course has included assignments in which
students gather data on campus recycling practices in order to study the design of biological experiments and the interpretation of statistical data.
• John Caraher’s Physics 110 Physics for Poets assigns George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning and requires students to analyze Monbiot’s proposed global warming mitigation strategies for scientific rigor.

(Sustainability Status Report, pg 9-10)