Report of the President's Task Force on Environmental Education University of Washington ___________________________________________ I. INTRODUCTION A. Charge to the Task Force On October 12, 1995, University of Washington President Richard L. McCormick appointed 21 faculty, students, and staff to a Task Force on Environmental Education (TFEE). His letter (see Appendix A) constitutes the charge to the Task Force and poses questions in five areas. Generally: How can the UW best organize its efforts to serve students and faculty who wish to study and learn about the environment? Undergraduate Education: How best should the UW organize and combine opportunities for undergraduate education in environmental studies in a flexible and interdisciplinary way? Graduate Education: At the Master's level, are we offering appropriate training in environmental studies? At the Ph.D. level, what gaps exist between the departmental-based programs and how can they best be filled? How can the University best respond to all challenges related to the employment prospects of its graduates in environmental studies? Research: How can UW eliminate barriers to effective interdisciplinary research [and teaching] and instead promote such relationships? What combination of structures and policies would be optimal in this respect? Public Service: (UW's contribution to solving environmental problems) How best can the University produce an integrated effort in responding to national need, problems of the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Rim, and the planet as a whole on environmental issues? B. Proceedings of the Task Force The Task Force held its first meeting on November 28, 1995. Since November, the Task Force has met weekly with the exception of the winter quarter break. Several of the meetings consisted of internal discussions, while others were devoted to listening to, and questioning, representatives of units throughout the University that have been or are presently involved with interdisciplinary environmental studies efforts. In addition, the TFEE received input from concerned groups off campus and from representatives of environmental studies programs at other academic institutions. (A list of the programs and people with whom the TFEE met is presented in Appendix B.) In addition, the Task Force sponsored two open meetings for the entire campus community for the purpose of encouraging a dialog between its members and faculty, students and staff at the UW. These open meetings were held on April 12 and April 19, 1996, and they were preceded by a Status Report circulated by the Task Force on April 10, 1996. The Status Report and transcripts of the open meetings are included as Appendix C. A special symposium entitled "Enhancing the University of Washington's Contribution to Environmental Problem-Solving" was held on May 14-15, 1996 to address the potential for greater involvement by the UW in public discourse regarding environmental issues. The report is included as Appendix D. II. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK A. Articulating a Vision Environmental Studies seeks knowledge of the world and the place of humans in it. Developing this knowledge requires understanding the links among Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere, and how humans are linked within these systems. Understanding how human cultures and values, social organizations, economic activities, and history interact with physical and biological systems to affect human health and ecological systems is the essence of environmental studies. Given the unprecedented advance in human capabilities during the last two centuries, the primary challenge for those who study the environment is to identify and understand the consequences of human activities. The aim of environmental education is to provide an integrated, interdisciplinary perspective on the environment, most broadly construed, and to prepare students, both majors and nonmajors, to make important societal decisions. Questions that need to be asked and answered include the following: What are the relationships among humans and their natural and cultural surroundings? How have these relationships changed throughout evolutionary and cultural history? What are the consequences of human activities, especially for living systems, humans included? How can natural resources be used most wisely? What ethical principles and values should guide the search for answers? What scientific principles should underpin the search? Scholarship in environmental studies necessarily integrates all academic disciplines and professions, from art through engineering and law to sociology and zoology. It depends on the deep intellectual involvement of a multidisciplinary community of scholars--faculty, students, and staff--from across the University. On graduating from environmental studies, students should be equipped to think clearly about environmental challenges; they should know which questions to ask; they should grasp the complexity of environmental problems; and they should recognize the continuum of knowledge across all disciplines that is required to deal with those problems. Future programs need to be conceived and implemented in the context of a vision of the University as it will develop over the next few decades. The TFEE's vision of environmental problems and of the University of Washington in the foreseeable future has the following basic components: Environmental problems and challenges will continue to be of major importance locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. Indeed, the continued growth of the human population, its expanding demands on natural resources, and the inevitable increase in waste discharges to the environment, guarantee that environmental problems will become more severe. The most serious environmental problems will not be solved by technology alone: changes in human behavior will be required. The information explosion will continue. A tendency to specialization of university faculties will continue, driven by the complex demands of modern research. Therefore, interdisciplinary activities will require conscious nurturing. The number of years required to receive a Bachelor's degree will remain roughly constant, requiring ongoing review of the core curriculum. B. Identifying the Problem Long discussions with many members of the University community, both within and outside the Task Force, identified a striking, virtual unanimity of opinion with respect to the status and the key problem of environmental studies (ES) at the University of Washington: although this University has great strengths in a wide variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary programs bearing upon environmental studies broadly defined, the whole of environmental studies at the UW is consistently less than the sum of the parts. We believe that the core reason for this situation is the absence of any integrative University-wide program that links the on-going activities into a coherently defined whole and identifies major gaps. We believe that establishment of such a program is essential if environmental studies at the University of Washington is to realize its potential. Time and again, the barriers to integrative programs on a University-wide basis were identified as follows: In primarily discipline-based units, low priority is assigned to interdisciplinary work. In some units, these barriers have repercussions with respect to hiring, promotion, tenure, and other aspects of faculty career advancement. Declining budgets make it difficult for teaching units to service their courses in the face of increasing student loads, making it all the more difficult to respond to interdisciplinary demands. This gives added prominence to the issue of compensation for released time of faculty. There is no encouragement or incentive for disciplinary units to incorporate environmental concerns systematically into their curricula. Value conflicts, which abound in real life over environmental issues, tend to blur the distinctions between science, policy, and advocacy. This blurring of issues makes many academic departments wary of the entire package of environmental studies. There has been insufficient UW support for nurturing innovative, interdisciplinary research and teaching efforts. Both inside and outside the University, there is pent-up demand for the University of Washington to offer a coherent approach to environmental studies. Within the University, this demand is most urgent and intense among undergraduates who feel seriously inconvenienced, if not betrayed, by the termination of the Institute of Environmental Studies (IES) in 1995. But demand is also intense among graduate students and faculty in a wide variety of units, and outside the University in State and Federal agencies, private industry and environmentalist organizations. C. Formulating the Objectives Having agreed on the dimensions of the problem and seeing the high expectations for rapid action created by the establishment of the TFEE, the Task Force embraced the overall objective of designing an Environmental Studies Program which would make the whole of environmental studies at the University of Washington greater than the sum of the parts. To this end, we established the following specific objectives: to establish an institutional framework for environmental studies that is flexible and interdisciplinary1 and that includes research and teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels; to help diffuse the awareness of "the environmental dimension" throughout curricula in all departments such that discipline-based departments would provide a pathway and an endpoint for students wishing to take an environmental-focused degree in that discipline; to encourage a change in the culture of the University of Washington to facilitate development of interdisciplinary research and teaching to a level which would lead to broad program integration and faculty recruitment across the University; to create a University-wide Environmental Studies Program that would foster integrative, interdisciplinary teaching and research in environmental studies and would focus on the links among the various components of environmental studies; and to draw the expertise of the outside community into the educational and research agenda; in turn to contribute our talent and knowledge to help society address essential environmental issues in the external world. The Task Force considers that three conditions are necessary for the achievement of these objectives: (a) there must be sustained and demonstrated commitment of the highest levels of the University Administration to this enterprise; (b) institutional safeguards must be developed to protect both junior and senior faculty against penalties for engaging in interdisciplinary activities; and (c) the University administration must commit resources adequate to support the core educational effort, compensate departments for released time of faculty, and provide incentives for departments to compete for funds to support innovative, collaborative efforts in environmental studies. To this end, the Task Force recommends that the President and Provost of the University declare an institutional commitment to environmental studies. Because interdisciplinary cooperation depends on mutual respect, the President and the Provost must require leaders of existing academic units to assume responsibility for implementing these programs. The key challenge is to achieve cooperation and coordination among existing academic units without being divisive and threatening to ongoing activities. At the same time, it needs to be clear that the academic leadership within the University must provide a nurturing context for environmental programs and that leadership will be evaluated in part on their effectiveness in doing so. D. Inclusiveness Environmentally oriented faculty, their research, and their courses are widely distributed across the campus. Recognizing and taking advantage of this richness means that we must be both inclusive and flexible. Everyone must be "in," no one should be "out." The Environmental Studies Program will weave together the multifarious strands of environment-related academic activities that already exist at the University of Washington. The environmental studies initiative should be innovative, should target not only environmental studies majors but all students, and should emphasize quality in teaching and research, scholarly productivity, and outreach to a wider societal audience than has been the case in the past. E. Community and Environmental Education Community was identified again and again in the testimony and visions of faculty, students, staff and others as an important component of an environmental studies program. The UW's Marine Bioremediation Program and the new Community and Environmental Planning major are two examples of successful environmental programs on campus where community is an important ingredient. Community-building requires deliberate and active engagement on the part of a program's leadership and cannot be expected to happen of its own accord. The following statements of goals and approaches are intended to support the development of a sense of community on the part of ESP students, faculty, advisers and other participants. It is very difficult to feel that one belongs to a community that does not have a particular location, therefore we stress the importance of a suitable, designated space for the Environmental Studies Program. We envision that the academic programs of ES majors will be largely student-initiated, therefore it will be extremely important to have a strong advising system. This system should include both professional advisers and faculty, and it may be desirable to develop a peer advising component as well. Both students and the members of ESP need to feel involved in the academic and career trajectories of the students, not only individually but as a community. It is traditional on the campuses of research universities for faculty to be very private about the courses they teach. The Task Force urges the faculty participants in the Environmental Studies Program to break this mold and to seek to develop collaborative approaches to teaching. This might mean discussing forthcoming courses with colleagues, the deliberate cross-visitation of each others' courses, the shared development of new courses, the involvement of students in course development, the adoption of collaborative learning or service-learning strategies, or any of a broad variety of steps that would simultaneously serve the goals of promoting interdisciplinarity and supporting the growth of community. The Environmental Studies Program should provide a platform for discussion among those employing various disciplinary languages and modes of thought, sharing common interests and commitments though not necessarily common viewpoints. It should support events ranging from discussions over coffee to full-fledged symposia. Because of the major and pressing social dimensions of ES, it will be very important to involve a wide off-campus constituency in the activities of the Environmental Studies Program. This can be done through formal structures such as the External Advisory Board described below, but it should also be reflected in the daily activities of ESP students, staff and faculty. Community-building in this sense means consciously interacting with our off-campus constituency. To summarize: It is very important for Environmental Studies Program students and participants to feel that they belong to a vibrant community. Lists of courses and public lecture series are not enough! Within this context, the challenges are to: Offer an alternative to the high degree of specialization that currently dominates degree programs. Development of such an alternative, which would have more broad-based, synthetic offerings than in most current departmental curricula, is the curricular reform with the highest priority. It also has the potential to provide educational opportunities that are unattainable, or at least poorly attainable, by other means. Similar expansion of focus would enhance the attractiveness and productivity of research. Devise an incentive structure at the university that appropriately rewards faculty members for participation in interdisciplinary education, especially at the undergraduate level. The challenge to restructure undergraduate education presents itself to all disciplines, not just Environmental Studies. Nonetheless, the very nature of environmental problems and challenges makes the field especially suited to become a major model of integrative undergraduate education. III. Organization of the Environmental Studies Program A. Principles of Design The vision elaborated above, in the view of the Task Force, translates into the following design principles. The Environmental Studies Program would be a community of faculty and students (at both undergraduate and graduate levels) with interests in environmental issues that transcend the confines of the existing college/ department structure and hence require innovative approaches to education, research and service. The Program would seek to expose students to both the human and the scientific dimensions of environmental issues. By linking environmental change with human activities, impacts, and perceptions, the Environmental Studies Program curriculum would provide a broad contextual framework for the many existing departmental offerings and degree programs that touch upon various aspects of environmental issues. In contrast (and complementary) to department programs, in which environmental issues are analyzed within the confines of a disciplinary framework, the Program would: foster coordination among course offerings in different academic units, with regard to course content, prerequisites, and scheduling; foster the development of courses designed to fill major gaps in the existing environmentally related curricula, to provide synthesis of disciplinary knowledge, and to provide "hands-on" experiences (e.g., seminar courses focusing on specific environmental issues, problem-solving group projects requiring collaboration between natural and social scientists, internships, etc.); strive to increase the flexibility of departmental curricula to accommodate the needs of students desiring training for environmentally related professions; foster the establishment of new interdisciplinary degree programs in the social and environmental sciences, engineering, environmental design, management or policy in response to needs of students that cannot be met by existing programs. Important elements in the Environmental Studies Program curriculum would be team-taught introductory core courses and capstone experiences such as internships and group projects in the senior year. 3. The Environmental Studies Program would foster and coordinate environmentally focused BS/BA degree options including: * double ES/departmental degrees or majors; * ES major; * ES major with departmental minor; and a * departmental major with ES minor. Initially, undergraduate degrees in ES would be offered through existing undergraduate programs in colleges and schools at the University. If this arrangement does not prove satisfactory, the Environmental Studies Program would seek degree-granting authority. The Environmental Studies Program advising would provide academic advising encompassing the full spectrum of environmental course offerings at the UW.* The advising would be conducted by professional staff and faculty mentors and tailored to meet the needs of students in ES degree programs, as well as students in interdisciplinary, environmentally related programs that are too small to have advising offices of their own. It would be available to the broader student community. The Environmental Studies Program would strive to make the broad range of environmental expertise on this campus more visible and accessible, not only to students, but to private citizens, businesses and public agencies of this State. The Environmental Studies Program would provide the impetus, if needed, for hiring a limited number of faculty in interdisciplinary areas considered vital to the understanding of environmental issues, but not necessarily of high priority in terms of individual departmental recruitments. The Environmental Studies Program would foster good citizenship by developing environmental literacy among students, faculty, and the broader community. B. Administrative Structure and Governance In an attempt to learn from the experience of others, the Task Force sponsored a study of the structure, requirements, and offerings of environmental studies programs of 19 U.S. Colleges and Universities (see Appendix E). This study showed that environmental studies programs could be grouped into four main types: (a) traditional departmental structures; (b) programs housed within existing departments; (c) interdepartmental programs; and (d) facilitating structures. The idea of a University-wide facilitating structure seems best to fit the objectives of the Task Force and the particular context of the University of Washington. Based on the information available to it, the Task Force developed the following general principles of governance which it believes are essential to the effective, long-term functioning of environmental studies on this campus. The governance of an environmental education program must recognize that the major strengths of environmental education at the University of Washington are already in place in existing programs and faculties and that considerable initiative for innovation of new programs resides among faculty and students across the campus. The strength of an environmental education program will grow from facilitating and coordinating dispersed faculty and student initiatives. Centralized administration and teaching in environmental education should emphasize integrative teaching and research that would not otherwise occur. The Environmental Studies Program must reflect an over-arching commitment to ensuring inclusiveness and fostering diversity (disciplinary, philosophical, cultural, gender, and ethnic). The Environmental Studies Program must embody rigorous scholarship and teaching, and must create a forum in which all points of view are welcome and are incorporated in on-going discussion and dialogue. Key elements of a structure for realizing these principles are described next. 1. The Governing Board The Environmental Studies Program should be governed by a Board whose membership reflects the stakeholders in environmental education at the University of Washington. We envision the Board to consist of between 12 and 15 faculty members directly involved in environmental education, plus representatives of the graduate and undergraduate students and the staff of the University of Washington. The faculty membership would have broad representation from the disciplines and administrative units involved in environmental studies. Staff members might include permanent administrators or advisers associated with the Environmental Studies Program. Terms of Board members would normally be three years. In order to ensure rotation, no individual would be eligible to serve on the Board for more than two consecutive three-year terms without a lapse of at least two years. Student representatives would serve renewable one-year terms. Initial appointments to the Board would be made by a committee consisting of the Deans of Undergraduate Education and the Graduate School and the Chair of the TFEE, taking into account departmental nominations as well as opinions of the community of faculty, students and staff associated with the ESP. (In subsequent years the Chair of the TFEE would be replaced by the Environmental Studies Program Director.) The undergraduate and graduate student representatives would be appointed from a list of nominees chosen by the respective ASUW and GPSS. It is envisioned that membership on the Board would require a substantial time commitment. In conformity with procedures in the Faculty Code, Board meetings would be open to the public (except for discussions of confidential personnel matters) and stakeholders would be encouraged to take part. The functions of the Board: primary responsibility for program oversight; primary responsibility for curriculum development, staffing, budget and program planning; shared responsibility, with Departments and other teaching units, for appointing and reviewing core and participating faculty; primary responsibility for promoting new interdisciplinary programs, fostering flexibility in environmentally oriented departmental curricula, and coordinating outreach activities addressing environmental problems; and participating in the quinquennial review of the Director according to the Faculty Code. The Board would elect its Chair for a renewable term of three years. The Director of the Program would serve as Secretary to the Board. One member of the External Advisory Committee would be elected to serve ex officio as a member of the Board. Because of its large size, the Board might wish to delegate some of the routine day-to-day decision making to an executive committee. 2. The Director The Environmental Studies Program should be led by a Director to be appointed by the Deans of Undergraduate Education and the Graduate School. A search committee consisting of administrators, faculty (including members of the Governing Board) and undergraduate and graduate students would invite candidates and make recommendations to the Deans. The Governing Board would review these candidates and issue independent recommendations to the Deans. The Director would serve a renewable five-year term and would serve as Secretary to the Governing Board. Commitment to the guiding principles should be a primary criterion in the selection and renewal of the Director. 3. The Faculty In consultation with the Board of Deans, the Task Force has developed the following proposal for faculty involvement in the Environmental Studies Program. Most of the teaching in ES would be carried out by faculty holding regular appointments in cooperating departments, and such faculty would play a dominant role in the governance of the Environmental Studies Program. It is considered essential that individuals of junior as well as senior rank be included among the faculty. In addition, the continuing involvement of a small group of "core faculty" (of both senior and junior rank) is vital to the vision, coherence and continuity of the Program. Among these core faculty, the Task Force sees a need for individuals in interdisciplinary areas of great importance to the University as a whole, but not necessarily of highest priority for any individual departmental unit. The ability to attract and retain outstanding faculty members in such areas is considered a prerequisite for the development of a strong, coherent Environmental Studies Program. Such faculty would reside in Departments and Schools, but the Environmental Studies Program would have a permanent operating budget sufficient to purchase much of the time they devote to Program functions. Such an arrangement is necessary to build and maintain a viable Program and to enable the University to benefit from the presence of scholars who would not readily fit solely into pre-existing departmental frameworks. Undue emphasis on the hiring of core faculty would not be in the best long-term interests of the Environmental Studies Program: by obligating a large fraction of the operating budget, such an emphasis would compromise the flexibility and adaptability of the Program and would place it in competition, rather than in partnership, with departments and colleges. The appointments of faculty members participating in the Environmental Studies Program would be administered in accordance with the following set of guidelines: Colleges and departments would be strongly encouraged to donate faculty time to the teaching of environmental studies courses. (Student credit hours accruing from such teaching would be credited to the faculty members' home departments.) In cases in which such donations are insufficient to meet the needs of the Program, the Environmental Studies Program Director would be authorized to negotiate with deans and departmental chairs to purchase the full or part-time efforts of faculty members who wish to be involved in the Program, using funds provided in the operating budget. The duration of such appointments would not be limited, and budgetary commitments made for time periods up to 5 years would not be irregular. A faculty member devoting a substantial fraction of his/her time to environmental studies teaching could elect to have the Environmental Studies Program Board participate in his/her evaluation for promotion and tenure. In addition to conferring with the faculty member's home department, the Board could, if it wished, conduct its own review of the faculty member's record, with emphasis on environmental education and research, and submit its recommendation to the Department and the appropriate Dean and College Council/Promotion and Tenure Committee. The Environmental Studies Program Director would be authorized to negotiate with deans and departmental chairs to implement the hiring of tenure-track faculty members in areas in which the strength of the current faculty is insufficient to meet the needs of the Program. In order to underwrite the Environmental Studies Program share of such positions, the Director would need to be able to commit funding that would be available in some form as long as the faculty member remained in the position. If a faculty member holding such a position were to leave the University or cease to be involved in the Environmental Studies Program, his/her fractional position in the Program would revert to the Provost. For those faculty members anticipating making a major commitment to the Program, including all those whose salaries will be partly paid from Environmental Studies Program funds, a letter of understanding between the Environmental Studies Program Director and the Chair of the faculty member's department must be drafted specifying the expected contribution of the faculty member to the Program and the expectation that that contribution will be evaluated on equal footing with others that the individual makes, to the home department, the University, the professional community, etc. The Task Force has considered whether, in the interests of maximizing flexibility and cooperation with departmental units, all Environmental Studies Program appointments should be limited to five years. Upon reflection, the Task Force decided against such formal "term limits" for the following reasons: if departmental units were required to assume full fiscal responsibility for all ES-related faculty hires within some prescribed period of time, they would be less likely to consider hiring individuals whose scholarly interests did not fit with their own departmental priorities; departmentally dominated teaching responsibilities are clearly inappropriate for those few exceptional individuals whose vocation it is to build the connections between disciplines, rather than to advance a particular discipline. 4. The External Advisory Committee To facilitate the exchange of ideas, information, and opportunities for development of the ESP between the University and the community, an external committee, advisory to the Governing Board, should be appointed by the Governing Board and should meet at least annually. A commitment to the guiding principles would be a primary criterion in selecting advisory committee members. Membership should be inclusive of environmental advocacy groups, environmental industries, natural resource industries, public regulatory agencies, public land management agencies, and Tribal organizations, and would to the extent possible represent societal diversity. 5. Space Adequate space is essential for the success of the Environmental Studies Program. The Program will need centrally located space sufficient to house a Director and support staff, an advising office, and academic faculty devoting significant fractions of their time to environmental studies activities during any particular quarter. The space provided to the Environmental Studies Program should be consolidated in one location, visible and centrally located so as to stimulate intellectual exchange. Space should be adequate to provide a "home base" for students who regard the Environmental Studies Program as their primary academic unit. IV. UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION Major contributions toward integrated education and research in environmental studies have already been made by various units at the UW, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. For example, the Institute for Environmental Studies (IES) initiated programs which have had important spin-off effects in environmental toxicology, global environmental geochemistry, environmental policy, and conservation biology. This year alone has seen a flurry of new activity, some of it undoubtedly stimulated by the creation of the Task Force itself, including the following: a proposal for a graduate program in Environmental Anthropology; a proposal for an undergraduate Geoscience degree program by Professor Dean A. McManus of the School of Oceanography; the emergence of the global environmental geochemistry focus as a Group under the auspices of the Graduate School; a curriculum initiated in environmental earth science, by Professor Mark S. Ghiorso, Chair, Department of Geological Sciences; agreement between the Deans of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Ocean and Fishery Sciences for coordinated recruitment of 7 faculty positions in earth surficial processes; and proposals for a major expansion in degrees or options in environmental/ecological engineering, including the proposal to change the name of the Department of Civil Engineering to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. No doubt, there are many more such examples to point to, but all of these are noteworthy and all are moving in the right direction. Nevertheless, there are urgent, unmet needs for undergraduate and graduate education on this campus that provide a coherent and integrated approach to understanding environmental issues and problems. These needs run the gamut from ensuring that the curriculum provides some minimal level of "environmental literacy" which is available to all students, to the provision of multiple pathways through which students can obtain in-depth understanding of environmental issues, through encouraging the development of a variety of department- and program-based minors, to the development of specific environmental studies majors and graduate degrees. The Task Force has identified several components which must be incorporated into the Environmental Studies Program. A. Environmental Literacy All students at the University of Washington should have the opportunity to achieve environmental literacy. We define "environmental literacy" as understanding the interconnectedness of natural systems and natural variability, their interactions with human activities mediated through human values and perceptions, and the cascade of human impacts on living and non-living natural systems. There are several routes to providing such literacy as part of the undergraduate experience at the University of Washington: an introductory environmental studies course (ES 101) should be designed according to the criteria specified above which would fulfill either "Natural World" or "Individual and Society" general education requirements; the "Natural World" offerings should be used more effectively to provide a coherent structure of courses in environmental education;* existing undergraduate courses should be modified or new ones developed that move away from specialization toward more synthetic offerings which encourage problem-centered learning; distance learning materials to facilitate environmental literacy beyond the UW campus should be developed; summer workshops to assist faculty to develop their environmental studies expertise should be offered. B. Undergraduate Degrees in Environmental Studies The curriculum leading to an undergraduate degree in ES should be flexible yet rigorous and should take advantage of existing courses in many departments and programs on campus. While it is the job of the Environmental Studies Program Board to fill out the detailed requirements of an Environmental Studies major, the following guidelines for accomplishing that task are proposed. True interdisciplinarity is absolutely central to environmental studies. For this reason, we reject the artificial separation of ES majors into separate discipline-based tracks. Instead, we seek to replace the objective of specialization with that of problem-oriented/contextually based teaching and learning as the central goal for ES majors and minors. We envision development of interdisciplinary, team-taught courses in which colleagues from different disciplines address the same issues in the same classrooms, so that students become familiar with different approaches to the same set of problems. This implies that all faculty will be present at each class session rather than attending class on a rotating basis. The Environmental Studies Program should offer a major and minor in environmental studies. These degree options should be offered through the Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Program or through appropriate schools and colleges. 1. Environmental Studies Major For the student, being in the major is more than simply fulfilling credit requirements in specified categories. The major is envisioned as an academic community in which the student must take several active roles. Students will shape and fulfill individual curriculum plans, mentor and challenge one another in scholarship, research and service, and participate with faculty and staff in developing the Environmental Studies Program to meet new challenges. For the major in the Environmental Studies Program, all students must complete the following requirements by choosing, in collaboration with their adviser: The introductory core curriculum. We envision this core to have three areas of emphasis: Human Dimensions in the Environment (ES 201), Natural Sciences and the Environment (ES 202), and Environmental Design, Policy and Management (ES 203). Each core course is a 5-credit course without prerequisites. Six approved courses (minimum of 3-credits each as a breadth requirement in environmental studies above the introductory level). These must include at least two courses in Human Dimensions in the Environment,* two courses in Natural Sciences and the Environment, and two courses in Environmental Design, Policy and Management. In order to provide depth, thirty-five additional credits above the introductory level in approved environmental studies courses, of which 20 credits must be selected from one of the three areas of emphasis. A senior seminar, thesis, internship, and/or practicum, to total 10 credits. This is intended to be the integrative and applied capstone experience. In most cases, the senior experience will include a major writing component. At least one QSR course above the introductory level from a list of courses approved by the ESP** In addition to the above requirements, we recommend that the UW requirement of ten credits of "W" courses (courses with a significant writing component) be satisfied in an ESP-approved senior seminar, thesis, and/or practicum. 2. Environmental Studies Minors For the minor in environmental studies, students would complete the following requirements: The introductory core curriculum, consisting of Human Dimensions in the Environment (ES 201), Natural Sciences and the Environment (ES 202), and Environmental Policy and Management (ES 203). The completion of 15 additional credits in approved environmental studies courses above the introductory level. 3. A New Degree in Environmental Engineering Environmental Engineering is distinct from other components of environmental studies because of the importance of providing graduating students the opportunity to become professionally certified. Such certification is offered by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). ABET accreditation is sought by virtually all engineering departments at major universities nationwide; all engineering departments at the UW are accredited. ABET will accredit Environmental Engineering programs at either the B.S. or M.S. level. At the B.S. level, a program can be accredited only if it offers an Environmental Engineering B.S. degree. B.S. Environmental Studies degrees or Environmental Studies minors do not meet the criteria to allow accreditation. In addition to a demonstration that a coherent Environmental Engineering curriculum exists, accreditation requires that all students graduating from the program meet certain stringent requirements with respect to general engineering training. For these reasons, the options being recommended by the Task Force for non-engineering students wishing to focus on environmental studies in their undergraduate studies are not particularly applicable to students wishing to become environmental engineers. As a practical matter, undergraduate students at the UW who wish to become professionals in environmental engineering, must take extensive disciplinary course work in Civil or Chemical Engineering that is unrelated to environmental engineering, at the cost of lost opportunities to take other courses that might be more valuable to them. Traditionally, Environmental Engineering programs have emphasized urban environmental quality and public health issues. The University of Washington has the expertise and the student and faculty interest to expand the range of issues addressed in an undergraduate environmental engineering program to include resource management, pollution prevention, life cycle analysis, "green" engineering, ecological engineering, and other related topics. In light of the current needs and opportunities, we recommend that a B.S. Environmental Engineering degree be established in the College of Engineering. The structure of such a degree (e.g., whether it is housed in an existing department, new department, or is extra-departmental) should be defined by the participating departments and colleges. To the extent possible, environmental engineering courses should be open to non-engineering students, and environmental engineers should be strongly advised to participate in the non-engineering components of the Environmental Studies Program. C. Graduate Programs The University has failed to optimize opportunities for interdisciplinary graduate education in environmental studies. 1. Master's Level Programs Most Master's programs are ancillary to Ph.D. programs. There are a few professionally targeted Master's programs (such as those in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the College of Engineering, the College of Forest Resources, and the School of Public Health and Community Medicine) that have been designed with the career goals and needs of the environmentally oriented student in mind, but such a focus is not typical of Master's programs in most departments, even if the environment is an area of departmental emphasis. In our discussions with federal agencies, industry representatives, and environmental policy organizations, which account for most of the hirings in the environmental field, the skills identified as most desirable were, without exception: the ability to communicate, the ability to solve problems, the ability to work in teams, the ability to learn new fields of specialization on the job and quickly adapt to new circumstances, and breadth balanced with substantive knowledge within a specialty. The traditional Master's research thesis on a single very focused problem with some associated course work is not the optimal way to train students in these skills. At the Master's level, new environmental studies initiatives within Departments should promote student-oriented programs that may consist of "professional" one-year programs, Certificate Programs, or environmental-career targeted, non-thesis Master's options. Such programs tend to have tenuous long-term stability because of their interdisciplinary nature. It is unlikely that such programs will survive within a departmental structure without proper incentives. We recommend the establishment of a cooperative M.S./M.A./Ph.D. program in Social and Environmental Science/Engineering/Management/Policy spanning as many departments as wish to participate. Students would enter from any of the cooperating units among whom guaranteed access to a suite of courses would be a condition of participation. Programs would be shaped for each student in consultation with faculty committees from participating units. Quality control would be maintained via contracts which would be negotiated among the student, the faculty committee, and the Graduate Program Coordinator of the home unit. Such an approach would move initial oversight of these degrees from the Graduate School to a consortium of operating units. 2. Teacher Preparation at the Master's Level Increasingly, the University of Washington must serve as a source for mid-career retraining and provide access to continuing professional education for K-12 teachers. The State's goal is to introduce environmental studies at all levels, K-12, as articulated in the State Mandate for K-12 Education, cited below. WAC 180-50-115 Mandatory areas of study in the common school "(6) ..... instruction about conservation, natural resources, and the environment shall be provided at all grade levels in an interdisciplinary manner through science, the social studies, the humanities and other appropriate areas with an emphasis on solving the problems of human adaptation to the environment." In the last two years, only approximately 5% of the students admitted to the certification program in the College of Education were science majors. Since a grounding in natural sciences is essential to understanding environmental issues, there is likely to be an enormous need for programs that develop expertise in teaching environmental studies at the K-12 levels. In addition to promoting environmental literacy among those UW students who go on to obtain a teaching certificate, the Environmental Studies Program can take at least five specific actions to support the teaching of environmental studies at the K-12 level. First, State teachers find the extension program an accessible means for continuing education; therefore, the Environmental Studies Program should work closely with UW Extension to develop certification programs in environmental studies. Second, the Environmental Studies Program should sponsor annual summer workshops targeted at assisting teachers to integrate environmental studies into the K-12 curricula. Third, the Environmental Studies Program should support the development of an undergraduate natural science minor with emphasis in environmental studies which would be especially appropriate for prospective elementary and middle school teachers. Fourth, the Program can be a resource point to provide or refer K-12 teachers to sources of quality information on environmental studies. Innovative outreach and distance learning programs to meet the State's needs in continuing education in Environmental Studies should be a high priority of the University. Fifth, the Task Force encourages the Board and the Director to develop resources to assist environmental studies students who wish to pursue a career in education. 3. Doctoral Programs Since the 1980s, financial and political forces have changed the market for, and expectations of, Ph.D. students (as documented in studies such as the National Academy of Sciences report on "Reshaping the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers"). The primary role of the Environmental Studies Program at the Ph.D. level should be to facilitate and promote interdisciplinary research. The fundamental control and quality assurance must reside within specific units. However, new policies can help ensure or even increase quality, and reduce the obstacles faced by students who wish to pursue the interdisciplinary environmental studies path. For instance, the Environmental Studies Program should reserve funds for TA and RA support of graduate students so that they do not appear as a liability to departments, but are in fact an asset. The University of Washington's present mechanism for bridging gaps at the Ph.D. level is primarily via collaboration among individual faculty and a student, through the Special Individual Ph.D. (SIPhD) program. While this theoretically provides a structure for interdisciplinary Ph.D. research, in practice there are major impediments to the use of this route. Some of the problems with the SIPhD experience include: SIPhD students tend to be a lower priority for funding, space and attention within departments in comparison to traditional graduate students; SIPhD students are more likely to be isolated from the collaboration, interaction and competition one should have with fellow graduate students; and, the existing SIPhD program does not inherently promote breadth of scholarship but may permit narrowness of focus that is termed "interdisciplinary" simply because it does not fall neatly into an existing program. These issues will need to be resolved in order to promote the kind of interdisciplinary experience that will be demanded of new Ph.D.s, while maintaining academic quality and rigor. In cases where a departmentally based interdisciplinary environmental doctoral program is not possible, the Environmental Studies Program should facilitate the student's development and pursuit of a SIPhD by providing guidance through the process, brokering the identification and composition of the student's committee, and if necessary, providing support for the student's research. 4. Responding to challenges related to the employment prospects of graduates in Environmental Studies. It is not possible to forecast accurately career demand in specific specialties for environmentally oriented Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. students. It is quite likely, however, that the demand will increase as the environmental problems society faces become more severe, complex and immediate. To improve the quality and accessibility of education in environmental studies and to provide support for starting and developing careers of the graduates, we recommend: 1) establishing an information and counseling database for environmental studies. Besides obvious services such as cross-listing and advertising courses related to environmental studies, and developing and publicizing employment opportunities, the center and advisers would provide a hub for communication among ES-related students, researchers and faculty that would develop the sense of community necessary for an effective program. 2) that the ESP seek to provide opportunities for environmental studies undergraduate and graduate students to participate in internship/practicum exercises external to the University. In this connection, the center and advisers should consider the External Advisory Committee a particularly valuable resource. D. Specific Faculty Needs and Other Requirements for a UW Environmental Studies Program The University of Washington currently offers a strong curriculum in many areas of environmental studies, especially in those areas that take advantage of the tremendous strengths of the University in the natural sciences and professions. However, there are also many important areas of ES in which faculty expertise is currently absent or inadequate. The Task Force made no attempt to identify or prioritize the needs for new ES faculty with specific areas of expertise; this is best done by individual departments, groups of departments, and the Governing Board, after a more comprehensive review of the existing faculty resources and in light of a more fully developed strategic plan for the Environmental Studies Program. Nevertheless, we offer an assessment that one of the critical needs is for a philosopher of science, with a focus on the philosophy of environmental protection, bioethics, environmental values, and similar topics. This assessment is based on the fact that one crucial component of any comprehensive environmental studies program involves the scholarly treatment of how individuals, societies, and cultures value the natural world. The Task Force has been encouraged to emphasize the importance of this area, both by outside consultants and members of the University community. Since the University of Washington does not have a philosopher of science on its faculty (indeed, the University has never had a philosopher of science), it is strongly recommended that such a position be created. By assisting in the creation of a new position in philosophy, the Environmental Studies Program will send a strong message of support and inclusion to the humanities and social sciences, while simultaneously filling an important need on campus. This is the part of the University community which would find it most difficult to obtain resources to collaborate with the Environmental Science Program, a problem presented to the Task Force on numerous occasions. The Task Force also heard testimony about proposed or recently implemented changes in the Schools of Law and of Business Administration that appear to have the effect of diminishing the opportunities for students to integrate ES with coursework in those Schools. The School of Law typically teaches students who are pursuing a law degree after completing their undergraduate degrees. As a result, there is little involvement of its faculty with undergraduate education, although there is a growing interest among its faculty to do so. One area that has attracted much attention from undergraduates in environmental studies has been environmental law. The Task Force underscores the need to teach environmental law in any first-rate environmental studies program. We urge the School of Law to consider these campus-wide needs, as well as the specific demands for a curriculum in environmental law within the Law School, in its programmatic planning, and we urge the Governing Board to assist in this process, to the extent possible. The Environmental Management (EM) Program in the School of Business Administration is an interdisciplinary program which covers not only the functional areas of business, but also legal and policy issues that relate to the environment. Thus, it is of great potential benefit to the Environmental Studies Program. However, the EM Program is not housed within a department, and it has no independent resources which could be used to benefit environmental education, e.g., hiring of new faculty with environmental interests, devoting research funds to environmental business issues, and assisting students in their career searches. The Task Force urges the School of Business Administration, in coordination with the Environmental Studies Program, to support the study and practice of environmental management, for this represents a crucial element in a comprehensive environmental studies program at the University of Washington. V. RESEARCH Four sub-committees of the Task Force were formed to review various aspects of interdisciplinary, environment-focused research at the University of Washington. Each group attempted to identify and offer recommendations to overcome barriers to such research. The discussions inevitably extended to broader issues of existing faculty expertise, ongoing research, and the general state of graduate education in environmental studies at the UW. In addition, the Graduate Environmental Policy Forum provided an opportunity for graduate students to present their perspectives on opportunities for and barriers to interdisciplinary research. The full reports of the sub-committees are provided in Appendix F, and that of the Graduate Environmental Policy Forum is in Appendix G. The four sub-committees were chosen to represent four different areas of study and to characterize a range of scales of possible collaborations from a small, strongly focused, and relatively new group that has received substantial external research funding (Marine Bioremediation) to much broader groups with numerous loose collaborations and sources of significant potential external funding (Earth Systems Science and Ecology/ Conservation Biology/ Natural Resources) to a very broad group with few ongoing research projects in interdisciplinary environmental research and very constrained opportunities for significant external funding (Human Dimensions). Many other sub-committees or combinations of sub-committees might have been chosen. The ones that were chosen represent a cross-section of activities, but they were not intended to be comprehensive of environmental studies activities at the University of Washington, nor were they identified as having higher priority or greater importance than other groups. Each sub-committee made recommendations for overcoming barriers that it identified. In some cases the recommendations were widely applicable, and in others they were quite specific to the interests and expertise of the sub-committee members. The Task Force considered all the recommendations and has adopted many. Of those adopted, several are not specific to research activities and have been incorporated into other parts of the report. Also, recommendations to support a very specific sub-sector of the University were neither formally endorsed nor rejected; rather, the Task Force encourages the appropriate group to put those recommendations forward for support at a later time, when they can be evaluated on equal footing with recommendations from other sectors of the University who were not as well represented in the sub-committees. The Earth Systems Science and Ecology/Conservation Biology/Natural Resources sub-committees' reports bear remarkable similarities, given that they were developed completely independently. The similarities support the notion that the nature of the barriers to interdisciplinary research are fairly universal among the natural sciences at the University of Washington. The barriers identified by the Human Dimensions sub-committee are, in many ways, different because of the nature of research tools and the relatively minimal availability of external support. A. Research Support Allocation The question of how Research Support Allocation (RSA) funds (formerly referred to as ICR funds) are allocated among units for interdisciplinary research is important and, as currently dealt with, often undermines the collegiality of the involved programs. To our knowledge, no University-wide guidelines exist for dealing with this issue consistently and equitably. According to the Vice Provost for Research, the total of such funds that involve interdisciplinary research is less than $1M annually. To encourage academic units to participate in interdisciplinary research, to provide essential operating funds to those units, and to overcome the antagonism engendered by the current competition for such funds between departments and the interdisciplinary units, we recommend that a double portion of RSA funds be allocated for proposals that have substantial interdisciplinary content. One portion of these funds would be split among the participating departments and a second, full portion would be allocated to the interdisciplinary center. B. Support of Nascent Interdisciplinary Research Efforts Small-scale interdisciplinary research efforts often work rather well at the University of Washington. However, the critical incubation period during which a nascent interdisciplinary activity grows from a small collaborative effort to a more established and visible entity (e.g., a Center) is often not adequately supported by the University: the funding commitment is often too small, and the time frame over which the entity is expected to become self-supporting is unrealistically short. The intellectual atmosphere of the University supports collaborative research efforts of the faculty, and more than 100 Centers exist that are, to at least some extent, interdisciplinary; the number of personal collaborations must exceed that by far. Given the clear impossibility that the University could support all such prospective entities adequately, mechanisms should be established so that those that do receive support are of exceptional merit; once chosen, those entities should be supported at a level that makes success likely. We recommend that a pool of funds be established to support startup Environmental Studies initiatives, specifically activities like lecture series, graduate student and post-doctoral fellowships, visiting professorships, teaching by research faculty, and paying basic support staff. The funds should not be used to support UW teaching faculty. Funds should be allocated competitively for relatively short blocks of time, e.g., less than 1 to 5 years. Special priority should be assigned to proposals that integrate efforts in natural science with those in social science and humanities. A proposal-based award favors the best initiatives on campus and provides the opportunity, through renewals, to keep vibrant programs going. Eligibility should be campus wide and should require a commitment of matching funds (on the order of 50%), preferably from non-University sources. Restructuring University support for new research programs in this manner provides an alternative to the traditional method of creating "centers" of research which result in long-term funding commitments. The recommended mechanism should foster interdisciplinary research and remain flexible to the inevitable changes in research direction that will occur in environmental studies. VI. PUBLIC SERVICE A. Environmental Service Opportunities and the UW: A Two-way Street Service is one of the defining dimensions of the University's academic mission. It generates knowledge by inquiry and investigation. It transmits knowledge by discussion and education. It applies knowledge by technical assistance. It preserves knowledge by developing accessible data bases. Through service, the University can apply its knowledge resources to help society confront complex interdisciplinary environmental issues and problems. Service is a two-way street: while the focus of service is often on ways that the University assists the broader community, interactions with concerned citizens and professionals can and should also enhance the way we teach and conduct research on environmental problems. For instance, outside partnerships can bring at least three types of advantages to the environmental studies program. They would: provide supplemental talent to the teaching base; provide opportunities for real world training for students; and create a bond between the University and many of our graduates' prospective employers. Given these mutually beneficial outcomes of a strong service or outreach program, the Environmental Studies Program should strive to become a central vehicle for service-learning and for forging partnerships with Federal, State, and local agencies and private industry active in the environmental arena. By acting in concert with natural resource agencies and other organizations, the University could create opportunities for students to work on a wide range of practical problems, ranging from exercises adapted for the classroom, to fieldwork carried out in conjunction with agency investigations, to internships with agencies or other organizations. The addition of well-qualified practicing professionals to the University of Washington teaching staff would help the new Environmental Studies Program provide appropriate training of our graduates for the job market, in addition to providing an intellectually rich education. Until now, we have tended to train our undergraduates for graduate school, and our graduate students for academic careers. The reality is that most of our graduates will find employment far from academia; we can better provide the training they need by becoming more closely allied with the prospective employers and understanding their requirements. By working with outside institutions, the University would enhance the capabilities of our graduates as well as make more visible the University's contributions to the people of the State. Task Force Perspective on Problem Resolution Examples of service include: (1) collaborative problem-solving with external clientele, (2) technical assistance involving the transmission or communication of specialized knowledge or research, (3) seminars for education of public sector and private sector professionals, (4) consultations for government officials and business executives, and (5) many forms of assistance rendered throughout the University. The Task Force views service as vital to the other core dimensions of the University's academic mission - research and teaching. Service is particularly significant in environmental matters because it creates the opportunity for faculty and students to gain additional understanding of critical interdisciplinary knowledge and issues that invigorate the intellectual qualities of environmental research and teaching. For that reason, service for environmental matters continually molds the essential character of both and presents a unique opportunity to further the overall objectives of undergraduate and graduate environmental education. In other words, service has significant undergraduate and graduate educational spin-offs. The Task Force recognizes, as a practical matter, that service fashions an unequivocal connection between the University and the body politic and the public on which it depends for legitimacy and support. The contributions that the University makes to society through service are recognizable as they offer approaches and strategies to confront major current societal problems. Environmental issues and problems have high salience to the body politic and the public and thus provide the important linkage with the University and society. Principles for Integrative Efforts Responding to Environmental Issues A strategy for University service involving environmental matters should be developed to focus at the junction of faculty expertise and interests and high priority societal needs. A close match ensures a robust consideration of issues and a likely satisfaction of the interests of the participating parties. Because problems, needs and opportunities are not always objective facts but social and intellectual constructions, developing a service strategy can be difficult. Public sector or private sector needs assessments should be conducted to provide neutral foundational information for the design of service strategies, which will be based on thematic priorities and value to research and teaching. Maximum responsiveness and productivity are the underlying standards that drive the design of a service strategy. Consequently, an integrated decentralized process for the design of the service strategy should be adopted by a partnership of participants to negotiate an agenda which enables each participant to contribute the maximum to the productivity of the total service effort. This level of negotiation provides the potential for the best possible mix and integration of interdisciplinary efforts that must address the demands and opportunities for service activity. The structure of the Environmental Studies Consortium [Program] offers the most effective way to bring to bear the knowledge from across the University to design an appropriate service strategy to meet the challenge of being responsive to the environmental needs of society. Inasmuch as service is a major dimension of the University's academic mission, the University should promote, support and reward service for environmental matters according to explicit policies. This view reflects the Task Force's recognition that service in environmental matters is rooted in scholarship in that knowledge is skillfully and thoughtfully constructed and applied to address problems and issues. Examples of promotion, support and reward include: recognition and reward of opportunities for the expression of faculty interests through service, offering the normal forms of administration and technical support for service activities, and support of service for environmental matters at all levels of the University leadership. A continuing, collaborative process should be developed wherein faculty and prospective clients maintain direct communications and discussions to identify the most critical issues and problems to be addressed and opportunities to be exploited in environmental matters. From these exchanges, integrative strategies will be developed to comprehensively and systematically guide the direction and focus of the University's environmental service planning and activities. This process provides for the vital coordination and integration of knowledge resources across the University and throughout the external private and public communities. It affords the opportunity to engage environmental problems in partnership with state, regional and Federal agencies, and private industry. The process also makes the University more user-friendly in the manner by which it offers itself to the non-academic community. It provides a welcoming channel for needs to be presented and evaluated as well as a circumstance for the non-academic community to assess the University's environmental service skills and products. B. Focusing the University of Washington's Service Contribution Resource use issues provide an appropriate framework for applying University capabilities to environmental problems in a number of fields. For example, two areas in the Pacific Northwest in which such a framework fits well are the management of forest and water resources in the Columbia River Basin and the Olympic Peninsula and the management of competing uses and water quality/habitats in Puget Sound. Other examples include remediation of areas of toxic contamination in Puget Sound, and response to oil spills and operational discharges which threaten the area. In addition, the Hanford cleanup, the most extensive public risk management endeavor ever undertaken, provides a particular opportunity for a broadly based service effort with major implications for research and teaching. There are also many local and regional opportunities developing from the State's Growth Management Act. Although opportunities for service in the environmental arena abound, and individuals or groups at the UW should be encouraged to continue to become involved in any of these, it would be useful for the University to choose a limited number of areas of service (we recommend one or two) in which faculty, students, and staff would be particularly encouraged to participate. These areas should be chosen based on their potential utility to the State and the broader community. A comprehensive, concerted University-wide effort involving the broad capabilities available on this campus, in concert with those of our public and private partners is highly desirable. The University could invest a significant amount of resources in this (these) areas and commit to work with the State of Washington on a partnership basis for at least 2-3 biennia, before moving on to another problem. (This approach is applicable to areas beyond environmental issues and problems.) C. Enhancing Environmental Problem-Solving A symposium entitled "Enhancing the University of Washington's Contribution to Environmental Problem-Solving" was held at the University of Washington on May 14-15, 1996 to explore two questions that address the potential for greater involvement by the UW in public discourse regarding environmental issues. The first was a question posed in the President's charge: "How can the University of Washington best produce an integrated effort in response to national need, problems of the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific Rim, and the planet on environmental issues?" The second was: "Can integrated University of Washington teams be derived from a combination of expertise in substantive problems or substance area clusters and expertise in relevant sets of analytical frameworks or methods?" The symposium focused on selected problem areas in which the University has substantial interdisciplinary expertise to address problems in an integrative way: biodiversity and ecosystems, resource use, environmental contamination and toxic substances, and the built environment. It also examined risk assessment and management as an integrating theme for directing attention to a broad spectrum of environmental problems. While quickly organized and dealing only with a limited set of issues, the symposium demonstrated both the promise and potential effectiveness of using similar symposia to begin the discussions necessary for the University of Washington to make significant contributions to environmental problem-solving. A report of the symposium is included as Appendix D. VII. CONCLUSIONS The University of Washington possesses an internationally acclaimed core of environmentally focused programs weighted particularly toward the natural sciences. The full teaching and research potential of this core, however, remains under-exploited due to a lack of interconnectedness between departments, especially across boundaries between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities. The keys to crafting a world-class program in Environmental Studies at the University of Washington are: developing well-supported, highly visible, and rigorous course offerings and sequences for undergraduates that integrate material from a wide variety of disciplines; supplementing the integrative courses with focused coursework in more traditional disciplines, while simultaneously bringing environmental components into those traditional courses; building upon the UW's very robust graduate educational and research programs. Excellence in teaching and research fostered at the graduate level will naturally extend to the undergraduate level to build a strong University-wide program; and establishing a broad spectrum of opportunities for undergraduates to participate in research. Environmental studies encompass a sweeping array of problems. A Pacific Rim regional environmental focus (described in Appendix D) could unify many elements of a more comprehensive environmental studies initiative. Alternative unifying concepts are possible, and it is not anticipated that all environmental studies activities will fit into this concept. Nevertheless, as an approach for organizing many environmental studies activities and for the purpose of "carving out a niche" to distinguish the University of Washington's Environmental Studies Program from others (while maintaining enormous breadth in the niche), the identification of a unifying framework is appealing. Educated citizens and professional practitioners in environmental fields require a level of breadth and rigor in analytical thinking, critical writing and speaking, and familiarity with the human and societal dimensions of environmental studies that is commensurate with the requisite breadth and rigor in the natural and social sciences. The establishment of an Environmental Studies Program presents an opportunity to develop new and innovative curricula for undergraduate and graduate education that meet these needs. Operational characteristics of such curricula should include interdisciplinary sponsorship, an orientation toward problem-solving by application of knowledge from multiple perspectives rather than toward acquisition of disciplinary knowledge, and collaborative and team teaching. Few existing curricula at the University of Washington systematically couple these dimensions of the educational experience. Interdisciplinary research programs involving both undergraduate and graduate students are a key component of a strong Environmental Studies Program. Several examples of such programs that already exist on campus are identified in the sub-committee reports. These programs integrate strengths from disparate disciplinary units and attract extremely high quality students. They also enhance the educational experience by broadening the student cohort, and they foster cooperative teaching and research among different units. A comparable range of research opportunities for undergraduates exists at few other institutions and at no others in the Northwest. Intellectual pursuits across boundaries develop best when stimulated by positive day-to-day contacts over extended periods. Therefore, a common "home" location for interdisciplinary education and research in environmental studies is essential for viability and fostering communication among students, researchers and faculty. No such space currently exists. Faculty who become involved in multidisciplinary environmental research and teaching often do so at risk of compromising their chances for career advancement. Protection of faculty from penalties associated with their devotion of time and effort to activities different from the discipline-based priorities of their home unit is essential to the success of an Environmental Studies Program. A strong Environmental Studies Program requires both financial and non-tangible support from the University Administration. The tangible support must pay for the faculty, advising, and administrative requirements of the program. Support for environmental studies in the humanities and some social sciences (e.g., political science, sociology) is particularly important, because financial support for research in those fields from sources such as competitive government-funded grants and contracts is less available than for research in natural and other social sciences (e.g., economics, public health). The non-tangible support must demonstrate that interdisciplinary environmental study is a valuable contribution to the teaching, research, and service missions of the University. Even with the best of intentions, the University's contribution to environmental studies will always fall short of the potential needs/goals for support. Major supporters of environmental studies programs at other universities include the private sector and philanthropic foundations, and development of funding from such sources is likely to be important in the growth of an Environmental Studies Program at the University of Washington as well. While some academic units at the UW operate with an interdisciplinary outlook with respect to environmental studies, others do not. A change in academic culture that will encourage other units to adopt this perspective must be supported at all levels of the University. VIII. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS* The UW President's Task Force on Environmental Education recommends the following: Organizational Design The President and Provost declare an institutional commitment to environmental studies. A campus-wide Environmental Studies Program (ESP) be created and be assigned a permanent budget. The Environmental Studies Program provide broad intellectual leadership, design undergraduate educational pathways, and facilitate graduate education, research, and public service. The Environmental Studies Program function as a consortium of existing environmentally oriented faculty dispersed across the University. The Environmental Studies Program have the capability to foster the hiring of a small number of faculty in interdisciplinary fields considered vital to understanding environmental issues, but not considered high priority in individual departments. Faculty Participation Faculty participants in the ESP include a small number whose primary commitment is to the Environmental Studies Program, as well as a much larger number whose level of involvement is lower. Written understandings regarding expected contributions and evaluation criteria be negotiated between the Department and the Environmental Studies Program for faculty who participate in teaching in the centralized Environmental Studies curriculum. Faculty Governance The organization of the Environmental Studies Program foster existing institutional strengths in Environmental Studies and promote coordination, integration, inclusiveness, academic rigor and dialogue. Faculty governance of the Environmental Studies Program be exercised through a representative governing board. The Environmental Studies Program governing board have the authority and responsibility to review participating faculty, exercise program oversight, promote new interdisciplinary programs, foster flexibility in environmentally oriented departmental curricula, and coordinate outreach activities addressing environmental problems. An ESP Director be appointed by the Deans of Undergraduate Education and the Graduate School to serve a renewable five-year term. An External Advisory Committee be appointed to provide the governing board with guidance from employers and others concerned with environmental issues. The Environmental Studies Program be allocated adequate centrally located space to provide a "home base" for students, program administration, advising, and faculty interaction. Education The Environmental Studies Program provide academic advising and internship/job placement services for undergraduate and graduate students. The ESP enhance the environmental literacy of the whole University community. Undergraduate Education The Environmental Studies Program offer several curricular pathways, including: an Environmental Studies major; Departmental majors with an Environmental Studies minor; Environmental Studies major with departmental minors; and, double Environmental Studies/Departmental degrees or majors. The undergraduate Environmental Studies curriculum be rigorous and develop advanced analytic skills, problem-solving capabilities, and integrative thinking. The Environmental Studies Program governing board work with the College of Engineering to support the development of an undergraduate degree in Environmental Engineering and involve cooperating colleges in a joint effort to integrate inter-college teaching and research initiatives in the application of engineering to ecological and environmental problems. Graduate Program The Environmental Studies Program facilitate development of environmentally oriented masters programs through existing departmental graduate programs. The Environmental Studies Program foster new interdisciplinary masters and doctoral programs through existing departmental and interdepartmental mechanisms. The Environmental Studies Program facilitate development of effective K-12 certification and education programs for teachers of environmental science. Research The University create incentives to encourage interdisciplinary research, including providing a full share of RSA funds to both a parent department and an interdisciplinary unit (such as the Environmental Studies Program) that support such research. The University establish a pool of funds to support start-up environmental research initiatives, especially in areas with high potential for creating distinctive programs. The Environmental Studies Program seek endowments and other external funding to support on-going integrative programs unlikely to be funded by research grants. Service The Environmental Studies Program coordinate University-wide participation in addressing environmental issues of concern to the region. The Environmental Studies Program collaborate with external partners to acquire knowledge of current environmental problems, discover employment and internship opportunities for students, and focus research on problems of regional significance. 1 The criteria of "flexible and interdisciplinary" are interpreted to mean that students will be able to cross disciplines and combine elements of many different programs; and faculty will maintain their home departments, but will join with others in the creation of interdisciplinary majors and in teaching environmental studies to non-majors, i.e., providing education for citizenship and responsibility. These criteria also encompass problem-centered or contextually-defined knowledge as well as discipline-defined knowledge, all subject to the highest standards of quality. * A list of environmental course offerings is available on the official graduate school website: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~ies. While every attempt was made to provide a complete list, some units have not yet reported and additional courses should be included. * New courses should be added to provide a structured grouping of offerings to permit non-majors to become scientifically literate and socially responsible in discussing environmental challenges and choices. * The TFEE recognizes the need to develop new courses in Human Dimensions in the Environment, primarily those related to the "Visual, Literary, and Performing Arts" Area of Knowledge. ** The Task Force has struggled with the issue of minimal proficiency requirements in mathematics and statistics (quantitative reasoning). We are not satisfied that we have found the best solution and recommend that the Governing Board re-examine this question. * Readers should consult the full report for discussion of these issues in context. final6.txt 9/3/96 9:52:09 AM http://www.washington.edu/tfee/index.txt