Associated Student Government senators will vote tonight on a bill calling for an interdisciplinary environmental studies minor that focuses on policy issues.
Weinberg sophomore Lisa Zelljadt, senator from Students for Environmental and Ecological Development and author of the bill, said a policy-based minor is necessary because a lot of students who are interested in environmental issues do not want to take a year of general chemistry or organic chemistry, which are requirements for an environmental science major.
“Students who are not fans of hard science don’t want to stick around to take those classes,” Zelljadt said. “They want to learn about parts of the environment that don’t have to do with chemical reactions.”
Although the bill calls for the minor to be offered by Fall Quarter, plans for the minor are still “very preliminary,” said Robert Coen, Weinberg associate dean.
“It’s really still too early to say one way or the other (if the minor will come about),” Coen said.
Zelljadt said she plans to amend the bill to remove the time element because administrators told her it would be nearly impossible to implement it so soon.
An idea for a policy-focused environmental studies minor failed about five years ago, Coen said. Several faculty members proposed the minor to an undergraduate curricular committee, but there was a lack of interest among the faculty in teaching courses.
“It was felt at the time that we just didn’t have enough courses for a free-standing minor,” Coen said.
Anthropology Prof. John Hudson, director of the environmental sciences program, pointed out there were not enough policy-based courses in Northwestern’s curriculum for an environmental policy minor.
“That was true then and it’s true now,” he said. “(But) this proposal is substantially broader and might include aspects of environmental studies that are not even studies or policy. There are many strands of (environmental studies).”
Other parts of environmental studies could be explored, such as environmental aesthetics and the history of environmental issues, Hudson said.
But the minor would serve mostly as a venue for environmental appreciation, Hudson said. Students who want a career in environmental issues need a strong science background, he said.
“If you want to be a professional in the environmental field, it’s very difficult to do that without a strong grounding in the sciences,” he said. “If you want to have a profession, a career that is arguing in favor of or against some course of action that affects the environment, the foundation for that argument is based in science, no matter what side you’re on.”
