Environmental Policy, Planning & Law Option
B.S. in Environmental Studies

Coordinator:

Professor Richard Smardon
211B Marshall Hall
tel. 315.470.6576
e-mail: rsmardon@esf.edu

Advising Faculty:

Myrna Hall, Jack Manno, Sharon Moran, Brenda Nordenstam, Richard Smardon, David Sonnenfeld

 

This option is concerned with how environmental policies and plans are created, implemented and contested. It emphasizes legislative, regulatory, and collaborative approaches to solving or managing environmental problems. Policies are guidelines for action. They can be in the form of laws, regulations, treaties, agreements, prescribed practices, professional standards, corporate strategies, operating procedures and personal codes of conduct. The study of environmental policy includes how policies come to be, how they are implemented, enforced, evaluated, and affirmed, rejected or revised. Environmental planning includes plan formulation to implementation. As environmental problems grow more complex and urgent, the need grows for professionals in government, advocacy, business, education and the law to have a sound understanding of the policy process in its many dimensions and a clear grasp of the interdependencies between ecological and social systems. Policy and planning approaches increasingly involve public-private collaborations of diverse actors and stakeholders that address the unique environmental, legal, social and cultural components of the resource systems to be managed.

The Environmental Policy, Planning & Law Option promotes understanding of and develops skills for the many facets of the policy process, including:

• how policies come into being (proposed, advocated, communicated, adopted, implemented, evaluated, reformed)
• types of policies (laws, regulation, economic incentives and disincentives, education and communication),
• scale (personal, local, state, national, international, global),
• activities (industrial processes, consumer behavior, resource extraction and use, transportation, marketing and social infrastructure.)
• how society selects among competing aims (individual freedom, economic efficiency, social cohesion, safety and security and others.)
• the role of politics and political ideology in policy making (conservatism, liberalism, environmental radicalism, deep ecology, government and governance)
• the interaction between environmental policy and social justice (racism and the environment, feminism, indigenous and First Nations rights and perspectives, issues of globalism and global resource inequities).

Environmental Policy, Planning and Law graduates have career opportunities in all environmental sectors, working for federal, state and local governments, industry and consulting firms, and environmental non-government-organizations (NGOs). Many, either directly upon graduation or after a few years of work experience, go to graduate school in programs including law, public administration, planning, landscape architecture, and environmental management.

Environmental Policy, Planning & Law Option Requirements

Course		Credits
EST 550	Environmental Impact Analysis	3
	Environmental Law Course	3
	Environmental Planning Course	3
	Option Methods Course	3
	Option Methods Course	3
	Option Elective	3
	Option Elective	3
	Option Elective	3
	Option Elective	3
		27

Environmental Policy, Planning & Law Methods Courses

Methods are tool related topics that are used to analyze existing policies, to evaluate the need for new policies, and to facilitate effective collaborations. Below is a list of approved courses. Your Environmental Policy, Planning & Law advisor may substitute, without petition, other courses that they determine meet the analysis/facilitation tool intent. Students are strongly encouraged to take at least one Geographic Information Systems course.

ESF Courses:

• EFB 417 Perspectives of Interpretive Design
• ENS 519 Spatial Ecology
• ERE 310 Environmental Measurements and Spatial Information
• ESF 300 Introduction to Geospatial Information Technologies
• FEG 430 Engineering Decision Analysis
• FOR 333 Managerial Economics for Environmental Professionals
• FOR 507 Environmental Economics
• LSA 330 Landscape and Site Assessment

SU Courses:

• ANT 372 Intercultural Communication and Conflict
• ANT 484 Social Movement Research Methods
• GEO 361 Global Economic Geography
• GEO 370 Political Geography
• GEO 386 Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Geography

Environmental Policy, Planning & Law Option Courses

Many courses at ESF and SU are policy focused. The courses below are illustrative. In addition, all of the Law courses listed below may also count as Policy, Planning and Law option elective courses. Students are strongly encouraged to work with their advisor to develop a coherent set of courses that provide the breadth and depth suitable as a foundation for graduate study and/or entry-level professional positions.

Environmental Studies Courses:

• CMN 493 Environmental Communication Workshop
• EST 220 Urban Ecology
• EST 393 Environmental Discourse
• EST 426 Community Planning and Sustainability

Other ESF Courses:

• EFB 202 Ecological Monitoring and Biodiversity Assessment
• EFB 400 Toxic Health Hazards
• EFB 405 Literature of Natural History
• EFB 522 Ecology, Resources and Development
• FOR 312 Sociology of Natural Resources
• FOR 360 Soil and Water Conservation Policy
• FOR 372 Fundamentals of Outdoor Recreation
• FOR 442 Watershed Ecology and Management
• FOR 465 Natural Resources and Environmental Policy
• FOR 473 Planning and Management of Outdoor Recreation Areas
• FOR 478 Wilderness and Wildlands Management
• LSA 311 Natural Processes in Design and Planning
• LSA 451 Comprehensive Land Planning

SU Courses:

• ANT/GEO 405 Conservation and Management Protected Areas
• ANT 407 Environment and Policy in the Tropics
• ANT 414 Urban Anthropology
• ANT 475 Culture and Disputing
• ECN 203 Economic Ideas and Issues
• ECN 365 The World Economy
• GEO303 Food and Famine
• GEO 322 Globalization and Environment in Latin America
• GEO 353 Environmental Justice
• GEO 356 Environmental Ideas and Policy
• GEO 383 Geographic Information Systems
• GEO 388 Geographic Information and Society
• GEO 558 Development and Sustainability
• GEO 573 The Geography of Capital
• PAF 315 Methods of Public Policy Analysis and Presentation
• PAF 416 Community Problem Solving
• PAF 451 Environmental Policy
• PSC 305 The Legislative Process and the U.S. Congress
• PSC 308 The Politics of U.S. Public Policy
• PSC 318 Technology, Politics, and Environment
• PSC 328 American Social Movements
• PSC 355 International Political Economy
• PSC 365 International Political Economy of the Third World
• SOC 363 Urban Sociology
• SOC 410 Seminar on Social Change
• SOC 421 Population Issues
• SOC 466 Organization and Society
• SOC 487 Women and Economic Development
• WSP/NHM 555 Food, Culture and Environment

Environmental Law Courses

Legal processes play a critical role in the creation and implementation of environmental policies. In addition to the judicial court system, all governmental management and regulatory agencies have administrative processes designed to ensure fairness, provide public access, and resolve conflicts. The emerging arena of international law is beginning to address trans-boundary and global systems. All students must take at least one law course and are encouraged to take additional offerings from the recommended list below:

ESF Courses:

• EST 460 Land Use Law
• FOR 487 Environmental Law and Policy
• FOR 488 Natural Resources Administration Law

SU Courses:

• LPP 255 Introduction to Law
• LPP 458 Environmental Law [1]
• PSC 304 The Judicial Process
• PSC 324 Constitutional Law I
• PSC 325 Constitutional Law II
• PSC 352 International Law

Environmental Planning Courses

ESF Courses:

• EST 426 Community Planning and Sustainability
• EFB 417 Perspectives of Interpretive Design
• FOR 372 Fundamentals of Outdoor Recreation
• FOR 442 Watershed Ecoilogy and Management
• FOR 473 Planning and Management of Outdoor Recreation Areas
• LSA 311 Natural Processes in Design & Planning
• LSA 451 Comprehensive Land Planning

SU Courses:

• ANT/GEO 405 Conservation and Management of Protected Areas
• ANT 414 Urban Anthropology
• PAF 416 Community Problem Solving

Senior Synthesis

The Senior Synthesis is an integrative experience, intended to both connect material from previous courses and to address a current real-world issue. See below for more information about the senior synthesis. The key to successful completion of this important program component is for the student to work closely with their advisor in the junior year to investigate the many potential choices that are available. Students considering an advanced integrative course should consider CMN 493 Environmental Communication Workshop, or LSA 453 Community Land Planning Workshop.

Typical Course Sequence

This is a possible sequence for the option. In consultation with your advisor, you will probably need to adjust this sequence to suit your specific situation.

Junior - Fall		Credits
EFB 320	General Ecology	4
CLL 410	Writing for Environmental Professionals	3
EST 321	Government and the Environment	3
	Option Elective	3
	Option Elective	3
		16
Junior - Spring
EST 361	History of the American Environmental Movement	3
APM 391	Introduction to Probability and Statistics	3
	Environmental Studies Social Science	3
	Option Elective	3
	Elective	3
		15
Senior - Fall
	Upper Division Computing or Natural Science Course	3-4
	Option Methods Course (GIS recommended)	3
	Environmental Planning Course	3
	Environmental Law Course	3
	Elective	3
		15-16
Senior - Spring
EST 550	Environmental Impact Analysis	3
EST 494	Senior Seminar in Environmental Studies	1
	Option Elective	3
	Option Methods Course	3
	Elective	3
	Senior Synthesis (3)	3
		16