Admissions | UW Medicine | News | Sports | Alumni | Visit the UW
College of the Environment - Office of the Provost initiative

Update from Phyllis Wise, Provost and Executive Vice President

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to provide an update on planning for the UW College of the Environment, and to provide you with a sense of the roadmap.  For the past several months, I have been meeting with as many people as possible, in small groups, in departmental, college-wide, and school-wide meetings, at the Provost Town Meeting, the Faculty Senate, the Board of Deans and Chancellors, the Council of Environmental Deans, and GPSS to inform and get input on the why’s and how’s of a UW College of the Environment.  We have scheduled meetings with ASUW, the chairs of the faculty councils and several internal and external other groups.  Some of you may feel that you already know all that you need to know, others may feel that you would like more information.  In this message, my goal is to let you know about the major steps that are being taken and a timetable of how we plan to proceed.

I want to take a moment to remind us why this College is important.  Our vision is to create a college that leverages the unique capabilities of a great research university to address the immense challenges that we face in understanding our environment, developing solutions, and applying those solutions to sustain, steward and improve the environment.  Higher education has a huge role to play, and the UW has the potential to create a premier College of the Environment. Through the powerful mechanisms of education, scholarship, and partnerships, we intend to catalyze high impact research, develop innovative solutions, prepare effective leaders and an environmentally literate citizenry, informing policy and social thinking.  It's a big agenda.  But the problems are highly complex, and the solutions must be informed by many voices.  This college will cross borders, linking academic disciplines and partnering outside higher education.

Our research will be even better and more accessible because of this College and more useful to the community; its impact will be immediate and powerful. Our educational efforts will consist of more coordinated, rigorous learning experiences in many aspects of environmental work--science, social science, policy, law, economics, business--and environmental literacy will be embedded in the University's curricula.

During this academic year we have taken great strides in the development of the College.  During fall quarter, after a summer of stimulating meetings with small groups of faculty and administrators that began with a charrette, I created several internal working groups.  These groups of faculty and staff are doing the work that will make the college a reality--organization, curriculum, business plan, vision and communication and marketing.  We have also had several excellent meetings with external organizations working on environmental issues, who are interested in our plans and with whom we hope to partner in this College.

In November I made an informational presentation to the UW Board of Regents.  A number of Regents spoke to express keen enthusiasm for the College, and several asked focused questions that have propelled us to the next steps of developing a business case.  I will return to the Regents in the spring with a much more detailed information item, including a business case or plan and an outline of an implementation plan.  We hope for their approval by the end of the academic year to proceed with plans to establish the College of the Environment.

Just recently, the Working Group on Organization finished a draft set of recommendations that are being vetted by the wider university community.  In essence, they consider the following elements to be essential:  a mandate for broader environmental education; core degree-granting units; a central interdisciplinary institute that catalyzes new interactions and collaborations; and facilitation of better engagement with the external community, driving the translation of research and scholarship into practical solutions.  They also addressed the question of what existing academic units might become part of the College, and what new units might be desirable. I am following up this report by meeting with the chairs and directors of each of the units that were discussed in the report, and will possibly meet with these departments and units to discuss their joining the College as inaugural units.

Education: Environmental literacy for UW students can be accomplished both through coursework offered by the College and through embedded environmental awareness in multiple disciplines.  With respect to College majors, there are a number of terrific value-added degree ideas under discussion, including a five-year master's degree, where undergraduates would complete a combined bachelor's and master's degree in five years.  Such students will contribute to research-based solutions even as they are learning, going out into the world as leaders and problem-solvers.  Graduate students and a strong postdoctoral presence will be central to the College.

The Working Group on Curriculum and Learning Goals is just getting underway. This too is very exciting and involves people who are interested in building on existing educational and degree-granting programs to enlarge and deepen our educational offerings.  Along with faculty and administrators are the academic advisors in existing environmental programs across the University, who have the on-the-ground experience with what students want and need.  They've been working on their own for years to guide students who are interested in the environment to find what they need at the University.

Interdisciplinary institute: One of the unique ideas for the College, which has been inspiring, is a central interdisciplinary institute.  Of course the various units would continue to carry out their critical disciplinary research and scholarship, but the institute would be an enabling space that would bring together faculty from the UW and other universities, leaders in businesses, government, and NGOs with undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for intense analysis of specific challenges.   We envision it to be a place where people think boldly, creatively, and practically about issues that may be outside their normal range of activity.  It would become a problem-oriented hotbed of ideas as well as partnerships with external groups such as nongovernmental organizations, business, and government.

Academic units:  Together we are looking closely at which existing academic units would most appropriately form the inaugural "core" of the College.  These are likely to be in areas of the natural sciences whose mission is most directly environmental.  Other, composite, units may be formed as a way to bring in critical competencies in areas such as the social sciences, policy, and design.  We have many faculty who work specifically in environmental issues within their current academic units in such areas as public affairs, public health, engineering, architecture, history, and anthropology, who may become part of this College through joint appointments and involvement with the institute.

I have stated that we will add faculty and staff positions to this new College and are looking for space.  In addition to faculty, I am excited by the idea of having senior "practitioner" staff who can connect the University and the world beyond, facilitating conversation and action.

Of course, a change of this magnitude does create a certain amount of angst, but I am convinced this is the right thing to do and that now is the time to do it.  I believe the institutional resolve exists to make it happen.

I would love to receive your reactions and input.  Your guidance and counsel are invaluable.  I would be happy to meet with small groups of you who would like to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Phyllis M. Wise
Provost and Executive Vice President
University of Washington

Posted February 5, 2008

arrowTop of Page