History
The State University of New York College of Forestry at Syracuse University established a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies degree program in the 1950s, granting its first degree in Environmental Studies to Lowell Robinson in 1956. Since then more than 1500 students have received a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies from what has become SUNY-ESF. The College granted its first graduate degree (a Ph.D.) in Environmental Science to Robert Coler in 1961.
In the mid-1970s, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry created the Graduate Program in Environmental Science (GPES) as a response to growing need and demand for knowledge of the natural environment. GPES was established as an interdisciplinary environmental program combining both social and natural science subject matter, offering both the Masters of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. The first Master's degree in Environmental Science was granted to David Beisler in 1976. To date, more than 500 M.S., M.P.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental Science have been granted by SUNY-ESF.
In 1986, as part of overall College reorganization, the Faculty of Environmental Studies was established as one of eight academic departments of the College. To form this unit, GPES was joined with an already existing Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies degree to constitute an interdisciplinary approach to environmental education and research at three degree levels.
By 1993, two new full-time faculty had been appointed to the Faculty of Environmental Studies as a result of a national search, the first such additions to the unit. Two additional faculty appointments were made in 1995 and one more in 1996, and another two in 1998-99, bringing the unit total to ten. Currently, the Department of Environmental Studies has 12 full-time, permanent faculty members. Responsibilities of these full-time appointments include instruction, research, and service, with instructional responsibilities for core environmental policy subject matter in both undergraduate and graduate programs, and for specialized graduate-level instruction.
By 1995, the Faculty of Environmental Studies had acquired unified physical space and academic equipment in Louis Marshall Memorial Hall (Marshall Hall), on the ESF campus. According to the dedication plaque in the entranceway of this historic building, Louis Marshall (1856-1929) "was a prominent civil rights lawyer in Syracuse and New York City and summer resident of the Adirondacks.... Louis was among the early champions of the wilderness movement in New York and as a constitutional delegate and lawyer, he led the debate in favor of creating and preserving the state forest lands."
Departmental resources are augmented by a full-service library at Syracuse University and a specialized branch library on campus for environmental and natural resources materials. Computing equipment is available to students in campus public and semi-public facilities. Desk space and computing equipment were added for graduate students, with doctoral students and graduate assistants given priority.
The Faculty of Environmental Studies added two new dimensions to its palette of graduate instruction in the mid-1990s. A Certificate of Graduate Study in Environmental Decision Making commenced in Fall 1995; it is a 15 credit hour program available to Syracuse University graduate students enrolled in Law, Management, Public Administration, and Information Studies degree programs. The Master of Professional Studies (M.P.S.) in Environmental Science was approved and implemented in Fall 1996. These programs represented a more rationalized approach to graduate study, allowing degree requirements to be tailored more finely to differing educational goals.
The ESF Writing Program was created in 1990 and joined the Faculty of Environmental Studies in 1995. The Writing Program oversees a group of related activities to identify and address the literacy needs of the ESF campus and provide courses in the humanities. Core Writing Program faculty include a Director, three permanent Instructors, two full-time Visiting Instructors, and five part-time Visiting Instructors. The Writing Program offers composition, technical writing, literature, journalism, and humanities courses. In addition to addressing students' writing needs, these courses focus on rhetorical concerns, contextual analysis, critical thinking, and an ecological approach to criticism and composition. The Writing Program has been engaged in three phases of assessment (1990-2007), created the Writing Resource Center (1991), and was instrumental in establishing the ESF Learning Communities (2000). In addition, in 2002, a Service Learning section of Technical writing was established, and the Writing Program began playing an instrumental role in ESF in the High School. Currently, a Writing Program Council is being developed, and the Writing Program is in the early stages of launching a Writing in the Disciplines/ Writing Across the Curriculum program at the ESF campus.
In the summer of 2007, the Faculty of Environmental Studies was renamed the Department of Environmental Studies. The same fall, following the recommendations of an external program review, the department submitted for approval to SUNY System Administration a proposal for the establishment of two new master's degree programs (M.S. and M.P.S.) in Environmental Studies; and GPES was reestablished as an interdepartmental graduate program, with continuing participation by Department of Environmental Studies faculty and graduate students. The new degree programs have been approved, with students now applying for admission for Fall 2008. The department is currently in the process of reviewing and strengthening its core mission, related to the examination of human dimensions of environmental issues and policies, drawing on the strength of its faculty in the social sciences and humanities.
A $600,000 endowment underwrites the department's research and service organization, the Randolph G. Pack Environmental Institute, derivative of an earlier organization called the Institute for Environmental Policy and Planning. The Institute has had formal cooperative relationships with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and New York State Department of State (DOS). Formal cooperation with several academic units at Syracuse University and Cornell University strengthen the unit's instructional and research base. The Institute has formal relationships with several international institutions, most recently including CINVESTAV, in Merida, Mexico. A smaller endowment of $40,000 supports unit outreach activity.
These developments represent an upward direction for the unit, built upon a foundation of endowed funds, faculty commitments, improved staffing, dedicated physical space, rationalized programs, and the institutionalized ability to function cooperatively with numerous kindred organizations.