Mission

The Department of Environmental Studies promotes and builds effective environmental citizenship locally to globally. Our teaching, research, and service seek to enhance understanding, build communication skills, and provide forums and programs that:

• Facilitate linkages between environmental policy and the social/ biophysical sciences;
• Act as catalysts to integrate the social sciences, humanities, and biophysical sciences on the ESF campus;
• Engage communities outside the institution to build civic capacity and involvement;
• Address the special challenges and opportunities of the human built, urban environment;
• Provide support for productive decision making and dispute resolution processes;
• Reflect the diversity of world views and environmental philosophies;
• Facilitate better understanding of diverse interests within and beyond the institution;
• Engage and critique environmental policies and trends, e.g., environmental justice, sustainable development, global climate change, wilderness preservation; and
• Celebrate the wonder of the natural world.

Vision

A top-ranked, cutting-edge, environmental studies program that integrates the social sciences, humanities and biophysical sciences to enhance environmental policy and decision-making processes to achieve ecologically sustainable civic societies.

(Jan. 2002; Mar. 2005)