Environmental Studies Portfolio

Department of Environmental Studies

Self-Study

(Updated Fall 2001)

Introduction (Note: For the sake of clarity and logical development of the narrative as best suited to our uniquely designed interdisciplinary program, we have rearranged some of the topics as outlined in the Self-Study guide, but we have covered all of the topics.)

Major Challenges for the Environmental Studies Program

Environmental Studies is going through a rapid transition due to turnover in the small core faculty. This transition will challenge all involved to maintain the strength of the program. The unavoidable changes involved also represent opportunities to improve the curriculum and administration of the department. The challenges are particularly notable in a program with few core faculty. By the end of the Environmental Studies program review process, there will be only one, and quite possibly none, among the full-time faculty who is tenured or has more than three year’s experience in the program. One, and possibly two, faculty members with more than twenty-five years experience in the department will be teaching half-time as participants in the Faculty Early Retirement Program. The strong support for the program expressed in words and action by the office of the Dean for Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies and by central administration gives us confidence that the transition can be carried out successfully. We hired a new tenure-track faculty member who began service in the 1998-1999 year and another who began in 2000-2001; the program is currently undertaking a search for a third tenure track faculty member who will begin service in Fall 2002. Following the retirement of the present Chair of the program, the university has authorized the hiring of a new Chair of the department to be brought in with tenure beginning in the 2001-2002 year. [The search has been completed and the new Chair will come on board in January 2002.] A faculty member from the CSUS Geography department will serve as interim Chair in 2000-2001. The possible retirement of an additional faculty member may require a request for a further hire. We have recently revised our curriculum, introduced new assessment tools and reformed old ones, and begun to modestly increase the number of our majors from a strong base. We addressed the concerns and recommendations from the last review process as thoroughly as possible.

We have increased the diversity of our faculty

Our graduates continue to be successful in pursuing careers and further education, and our majors and alumni are, on the whole, positive in their assessments of the program. For the present faculty of Environmental Studies, the key issue is clearly successful transition through a program of rapid faculty turnover, and all of the other issues addressed in the review should be considered within that context; History, character, and vision of the Environmental Studies program. Faculty and students at CSUS began to design an Environmental Studies program in 1969, and the Environmental Studies major was approved in 1972. It was one of many such programs arising at this time in American universities in response to the widespread idea that interdisciplinary education was essential to improve understanding of complex environmental problems. CSUS hired a director of Environmental Studies in 1971, who quickly moved to create a small core faculty complemented by faculty in various disciplines offering courses taken by E.S. students. Since that time, the core faculty has been made up of three to five full-time people from a variety of disciplines. At present, the core faculty consists of an ecologist, a biologist, a political scientist, and a historian. The historian is going into half-time retirement. As a department housed in the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies, Environmental Studies offers a major, a minor, service courses to other departments, and courses in the University General Education program.

The Environmental Studies faculty at CSUS has chosen in its major to emphasize the integration of scientific knowledge with concepts from the social sciences and humanities towards a broad understanding of environmental problems. In order to achieve this, students must acquire basic science literacy, a basic understanding of the nature of culture, politics, and the legal system, writing proficiency, analytical skills, and statistical competence. Student electives, particularly the choice of a mandatory minor in another discipline, complement the basic core requirements for the major. While some universities have tended to create environmental studies curricula that rely much more heavily on a menu of science courses, with relatively little integrative work from the social sciences and humanities, others have created curricula with relatively little science, focused on policy or individual attitudinal and behavior issues. At CSUS, we have traveled the middle road between these two other models, insisting on the integration of knowledge from science, social science, and the humanities, while allowing students to shape their education further through their choice of the mandatory minor. (See catalog copy, Attachment A) The chief strength of our curriculum is its breadth and integrative nature. This not only provides broad knowledge, but also challenges students to develop the skills to succeed in both the sciences and the social sciences and humanities, rather than graduate through a strategy of concentrating on individual strengths alone. The chief weakness of the curriculum is that it cannot possibly provide disciplinary depth while emphasizing breadth so strongly. The requirement of a complementary minor for E.S. majors ensures a degree of disciplinary work that to a degree compensates for this weakness. Students are advised very clearly about the choice represented by the major, and are made aware of the variety of alternative approaches to environmental education available in other degree programs on campus.

The CSUS catalog describes our major as "designed to help students understand environmental problems in their political, social and scientific context. Because dealing with environmental problems requires an interdisciplinary approach, we emphasize the development of strong writing, research, and quantitative skills and a broad liberal arts perspective." In so far as possible, we attempt to teach this integrative perspective in the minor, General Education, and service courses, as well as in the major.

It is the Environmental Studies faculty position that it is impossible to equip a student with the enormous amount of information and skills commonly exercised in the various environmental professions or required by the large variety of related graduate and professional schools. What we can do is work to give the students the ability to be readily educated or trained beyond the major curriculum itself for particular job requirements or professional schools. In advising, we frequently tell students that the curriculum is in many ways an old-fashioned liberal arts degree with a serious science component and a broad overview of environmental issues.

To the extent that we succeed in our job, the Environmental Studies graduate should be:

good writer, a good speaker

effective in working with others

able to use relevant scientific and technical concepts in analyzing problems

able to use quantitative reasoning and information, able to analyze problems from a broad social

political and economic perspective, able and eager to learn new information and concepts and perform ordinary research tasks

able to identify and make good judgments about the ethical component of decisions

good at recognizing personal responsibilities and following up on them

generally well-informed on environmental matters

a good problem-solver

overall, a responsible person and citizen and a competent environmental professional able to contribute positively to the field and improve knowledge, skills, and judgment throughout a lifetime.

As seen in Attachment D, Environmental Studies has now developed an assessment outcomes plan to help students achieve these educational goals and to help the department evaluate the overall success of the program in these terms. The Assessment Plan consists of making some changes in the capstone requirement for a senior thesis, and the addition of a portfolio requirement for students. These changes reflect our experience over more than a decade with the senior thesis and new ideas brought forward by the University's promotion of assessment programs.

Service and other relationships with other programs on campus

The Environmental Studies program has ongoing and significant relationships with a number of specific departments on campus. Our majors must take courses from the departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geology, and Economics, with elective choices in Geography. Environmental Studies cooperates with Biological Sciences in offering annual speakers series. Ongoing consultation with other departments results in periodic reevaluation and changes in major and minor requirements, e.g., the institution of a new upper-division economic course called Public Economics (Econ. 110) to improve the level of usable economic skills for the majors; and the more rigorous lower-division biology requirements for our majors. Environmental Studies cross-lists courses with History and Government, and has agreements for future offerings in the graduate programs in Public Policy Administration, International Affairs, and Liberal Arts (through the Humanities Department).

Participation in General Education

The Environmental Studies faculty offers three general education courses. "Introduction to Environmental Science” serves as a lower-division science course, "Contemporary Environmental Issues" offers an upper-division social science-based introductory treatment in the category of "Major Social Issues of the Contemporary Era," and "International Environmental Issues" offers upper division credit in the Major Social Issues category while also serving as an "Advanced Study" course based on special requirements for student work on writing skills.

Faculty participation in university governance

Environmental Studies faculty plays a very active role in university governance. Two of our faculty has served recently on the Academic Senate Executive Committee. Other recent faculty service includes the University Curriculum Committee, the College Secondary ARTP Committee, the College Faculty Council, the California Faculty Association state-wide collective bargaining team, the Campus Educational Equity Committee, the Academic Policies Committee, the General Education Review Task Force, and the Review Teams for the Economics and Sociology Department Program Reviews, among others, as seen in the attached faculty vita. The outgoing Chair of the department was a member of the transitional team that carried out the reorganization of the former School of Arts and Sciences into three schools, now termed colleges. More complete information may be seen in the attached faculty vitae, Attachment I.

Faculty participation in the community

Environmental Studies faculty is active in a large number of off-campus programs and organizations not affiliated with CSUS. As recent examples, these include the National Council for Responsible Genetics, the Sacramento Lung Association, The Institute for Food and Policy Development, and the Independent Investigative Mechanism panel of the Inter-American Development Bank. They carry out research on topics as diverse as Sacramento regional air pollution, restoration of West Coast salmon populations, international bio-safety regulation related to genetic engineering and intellectual property issues, informal housing in Asia, pesticide use and biodiversity conservation in Latin America, and comparative work on property issues between the United States and Latin America. (See Faculty Vita in Attachment I)

Student employment and community participation

As seen in Attachment G, the employment survey as updated since the last Program Review as a supporting document to the Alumni Survey, Environmental Studies graduates find employment in an extraordinary variety of occupations, the overwhelming majority in the environmental field. Due partly to the location of CSUS, most of our graduates work for state agencies or for federal agencies located in Sacramento because it is the state capital. Many others work for private consulting firms whose work is related to state or federal government regulatory functions, or to growth in the Sacramento region. We encourage students to develop experience in the field before graduation with internships, cooperative education, student assistantships, and volunteer work. We are able to offer far more such possibilities than we have students ready to pursue them, but many students follow such paths into employment and community involvement.

The employer survey conducted by CSUS Institutional Studies indicates that employers rate our graduates highly. (Attachment G). The alumni survey Attachment F, also conducted by CSUS Institutional Studies, indicates that alumni are mostly pleased with the preparation they received for professional careers. However, alumni do express a desire for more technical skills as part of their preparation. We take up this question below.

At present, among our graduates are the Director of Sacramento County Planning, the Director of the Sacramento County Office of Environmental Review and Assessment, several staff people in the California Legislature, including the staff of the Senate Budget Committee, the owner and manager of a successful environmental consulting firm, the head of the pollution prevention program of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, the chair of the local California Native Plant Society, the secretary of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, the chair of the board of the Sacramento Natural Foods Cooperative, a member of the board of the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, and the 2000 Democratic nominee for governor of Montana, to name a few examples of successful careers and community involvement of our graduates. Diversity.

Environmental Studies at CSUS has from the beginning emphasized the importance of understanding the implications of diversity in working with environmental problems. Gender, ethnicity, and social class considerations are deeply embedded in the curriculum in many ways. Most of our majors and minors are working people facing in very direct ways the dilemmas of livelihood, family, education, and work responsibility such that it very easy to incorporate larger social considerations into the study of environmental problems, as we have always done. The age diversity of our majors is striking, with many single parents, armed service veterans, students returning from long absences from higher education, and other complications of the ordinary lives of California adults. The majority of both students and faculty in our program are women. The ethnic diversity of our majors is still narrower than the general population of the Sacramento region, as can be seen in Attachment B, with particularly small relative numbers of African-Americans. However, in this category as in others, the diversity of our majors is growing and can be expected to continue to do so.

The figures given in the Attachment do not fully reflect, in our opinion, the diversity we encounter in the classroom, for various reasons (students who do not wish to report their ethnicity, students enrolled in the class who have not yet chosen a major or are taking the course for other majors, and the complexity of ethnic identity in today's California). For example a Spring, 1999 Environmental Law class included, out of a total of nineteen students, three Filippinos, two Asians, and three Mexican-Americans, all of them Environmental Studies majors. We were also pleased that our outstanding senior in 1999 was a Puerto Rican woman on her way to law school, interning with Sacramento's preeminent environmental law firm. The number of African-Americans in the program is small but rising. We are not complacent on the issue of student diversity, but believe that we are doing better.

Our new faculty member, Dr. Mary Brentwood, developed a proposal, "Healing the Earth and Lives," "Project HEAL, for CSUS students to serve as mentors to junior and senior high students in less-advantaged areas of Sacramento. The project "will especially target diverse student populations in lower socio-economic groups who do not have advantages that enable them to go to college." In addition to the immediate advantages of the project, it is hoped that it will be an activity attractive to CSUS students interested in work in diverse communities, that it will attract students who otherwise might not do so to consider going to college, and, perhaps, pursue education relevant to environmental problems. Although she has applied for institutional financial assistance, Dr. Brentwood has not yet achieved university support for the project, but she and the Environmental Studies program will continue to explore means for implementation.

The Environmental Studies program also continues to develop specific links between the interests of minority communities and environmental enhancement and protection. One example is the day-long appearance of architect and city planner, Carl Anthony, co-sponsored with Ethnic Studies, addressing these issues in terms particularly relevant to the African-American community. In most of our courses, the relationships between race, ethnicity, gender, and social class are examined throughout the analysis of environmental issues.

As discussed below in terms of our responses to the last Program Review, we made a major effort to hire a diversity candidate in the next to the last round of hiring, including extensive advertising and direct phone calls to traditionally African-American colleges, and succeeded in recruiting a Latina woman and an African-American woman into our short-list of six candidates. Both of them, unfortunately, removed themselves from consideration at that point for personal reasons. In our most recent hiring round, we have brought to the full-time tenure-track faculty an ecologist whose ethnic background is a combination of Mexican-American and Jewish, who speaks Spanish fluently, and who has a long record of working on issues of diversity in academia and on issues of wage inequalities in the American economy. Relationship of the program to the Strategic Plan:

As can be seen from the preceding discussion, the Environmental Studies program conforms closely to the University's Strategic Plan. Referring in italics or quotation to the Values (p. 14. University Strategic Plan, 2nd ed. ) laid out in that document, our curriculum places primary emphasis on student learning and in particular on developing in the student the desire and tools for learning as "a life-long endeavor....(that is tailored) to individual needs." The involvement of the faculty and students in the community in close relationship to the curriculum and educational experiences at CSUS, along with career placement in the local community, achieve an intimate relationship between the community and the program curriculum. Although, as noted, there remain some deficiencies in this area, our program emphasizes pluralism, not as an overlay on the essential content of the curriculum, but as integral to it. The inherent interdisciplinary nature of the program and collaboration with many other departments across various colleges in the university make the program a model of interdisciplinary education and collegiality.

Our ongoing reconsideration of the curriculum, our early institution of a capstone course before the last Program Review, and our recent adoption of a new assessment plan represent our commitment to excellence and accountability. The notoriously outspoken activities of our faculty on campus and off, the involvement of the faculty in university governance and the faculty association, and the wide array of community and research activities undertaken by the faculty fully demonstrate our commitment to academic freedom, creativity and innovation. These same characteristics of our program make it consistent with the planning tasks and objectives laid out in the Strategic Plan in accordance with the values stated.

Historical Placement of the Program in the University's Academic Plan

The Environmental Studies placement in the Academic Plan puts us among a group of "Programs central to the mission where student enrollment should be decreased relative to the overall head count of students in the University." We consider that we are indeed central to the University's mission. With the help of the Dean and central administration, we have now dealt with the overall enrollment problem by adding a faculty position and decreasing enrollments. We are now in recruitment mode. Responses to the last program review.

Replacement of retired faculty member. This was accomplished with the hiring of Dr. Doreen Stabinsky, who, after six years of service, has taken a job elsewhere. We have also hired Dr. Mary Brentwood and Dr. Carlos Davidson as tenure-track faculty members and are authorized to hire a tenured Chair to begin work in 2001-2002. [Hiring completed chair will begin work in 2002] We are in the process of conducting a search for a new tenure track faculty member to begin in Fall 2002.

Hiring of an additional, fifth faculty member. As a result of resignations and retirements, as mentioned earlier, we expect to need to hire one or two additional faculty members soon in order to bring Departmental strength up to five. The context of this comment on the last program review had to do with the extreme overload experienced by faculty that had not been met by Administration action at the time. The present supportive posture of the Dean of SSIS and central Administration have changed that context and made the issue one of ongoing response to the transition discussed at the beginning of this Review.

Increase of clerical support. This has been accomplished by conversion of the Department Secretary position to a permanent 10/12 position. Ms. Atzmiller's work and cooperation with the chair were essential to achieving this.

Updating computer and printing equipment. With the help of our Dean's office, we have been able to greatly improve our computing equipment and are reasonably satisfied with where we stand at the moment. The aggressiveness of Drs. Ostiguy and Stabinsky as innovators in computer-based instruction was an enormous help in achieving this.

Consider restricting minor options. We have considered this at length and have decided not to do it. The diversity of our student body, the high number of units required of every student, and the diversity of career paths argues strongly for minor choice as the product of faculty--student consultation.

Designation of key advisors in other departments from minor fields. We attempted to do this in collaboration with other departments, but due to the constantly changing needs of the other departments, the effort did not work over time. We might be able to revisit this issue and figure out ways to improve the situation.

Ordering and sequencing of curriculum. We have taken several steps in this regard. We have produced a recommended course sequence handout, currently under revision, for use with students. We made ENVS 10, 110 or equivalent a prerequisite to ENVS 111, ENVS 111 a pre-requisite to ENVS 128, and have tightened up our enforcement of pre-requisites for ENVS 121.

Development of a pre-thesis seminar. We are currently working on related ideas. We have not been able to envision just how to find a place for a pre-thesis seminar in the crowded curriculum. What we are not doing is making explicit assignments in other courses, particularly ENVS 111, to get students thinking about thesis topics. We are also building in more explicit research assignments throughout the curriculum.

Controlling the number of students in the program. We have been doing this for several years, primarily by limiting the number of offerings in major courses. With numbers having fallen to a more manageable level, we are now turning to a strategy of modest recruitment efforts combined with more sections of required major courses.

Clarify goals, objectives, and methods for internship experience. We have developed a new package of materials for interns that require more extensive reporting on the experience and we now require that the intern consult with the supervising faculty member at least three times during the semesters, reviewing the material by which the student reports on the experience. These include a "mid-term" that amounts to a research paper on the size, responsibilities, structure, budget, and other aspects of the organization the student is working for, a journal, and a "final" in which the student is required to assess various aspects of the experience.

Formalize methods of student feedback about the program. We have been greatly increasing our efforts to get continual feedback from alumni. We continue to use student evaluations of courses. We have done a student questionnaire again, associated with the self-study. We will revisit this issue to see what more we might be able to do.

Update Affirmative Action Plan and make all possible efforts to hire diversity candidates. We did update the plan, and made very serious efforts, working with the Dean, to make a diversity hire of a minority candidate in the second to last hiring process. An African-American and Latina woman on our short list removed themselves from consideration at the last phase of the process for personal reasons. Our most recent tenure-track hire is a person of Mexican-American and Jewish background with a strong history of work on issues of diversity and inequality in American society. Our last three hires, Brentwood, Davidson, and Walker, all have been involved in serving under-represented communities.

Concentrate on recruiting more minority students. We have attempted to do this, but without remarkable results. We have been reasonably successful at recruiting Asian and Hispanic students, but much less so with African-Americans. The department needs to renew its efforts in this regard. As discussed above, Dr. Mary Brentwood is especially determined to address this issue and has formulated plans for doing so.

The University should provide the Department with a computer lab meeting Department specifications. The efforts of Drs. Stabinsky and Ostiguy, as mentioned above (Item 4) have moved us in this direction. The installation of a computer and printer in a student room has helped. The College has recently opened a BATS lab in Amador Hall in which we now schedule sections of ENVS 120 and ENVS 198.

Students

Overall numbers

As noted in the last Program Review, at the time of that Review everyone involved in the Review process agreed that Environmental Studies needed to reduce the numbers of majors or increase resources. Until 1998, no new faculty resources were available, and the department carried out a strategy of reducing the numbers of majors. This was done by abandoning most active recruitment tactics, minimizing advertising for courses, offering few sections of required major’s courses, and becoming a bit more rigorous on judgment calls that had effects on retention. The number of majors dropped from more than 260 to fewer than 130. The impact of these strategies may also be seen in the retention figure for our majors over the last ten years. In Fall, 1998, with the addition of a new faculty member, we have attempted to reverse these trends and adopt more welcoming strategies. We have agreed with the Dean of the School on a target of approximately 150 majors. We now stand twenty to twenty-five below that number, but the Dean's office has shown that the number of new majors recruited into the department rose from twenty to thirty in the last year. It would appear that we are on the way towards the target.

We have also simplified the minor, which because of pre-requisites, was nearly as demanding as the major. We expect to see a rise in the numbers of minors as a result.

Our overall FTES per faculty member is also down, due primarily to one clear and significant factor. A faculty member now on leave has been teaching our general education lower division science course as a television and web-based class. It is not clear that this faculty member will return to CSUS. No other faculty member has been willing to teach that course in distance learning formats. We are experimenting with the scheduling of courses to attempt to reduce the impact of the reduced FTES. In addition, two of our General Education classes, ENVS 110 and EnvS112, are suffering somewhat declining enrollment. Students tell us that they are eager to find courses in this Major Social Issues category of General Education that also meet the Race and Ethnicity supervening requirement. Attempts to qualify ENVS 112 under the Race and Ethnicity requirement failed because the requirement is clearly limited to domestic United States issues, while ENVS 112 is a course titled International Environmental Issues, with the issues of race and ethnicity dealt with in international context.

In addition, preliminary reports from the General Education Committees study of Advanced Studies course indicate that many Advanced Studies courses are consistently requiring far less than the mandated minimum amount of writing, while our Environmental Studies offering in Advanced Studies consistently requires far more than that minimum. We ask the university to insist on enforcing the minimum so that departments who do so on their own will not be penalized in terms of enrollment.

Diversity:

Discussed above under the section on Faculty and the section on Students.

Grades:

University data reveal that the grades given by our faculty are in rough conformance to university and college patterns. There is a tendency towards a slightly higher number of A's and B's, a smaller number of C's, and a larger number of F's. We believe that these slight variations from the school and university norm are consistent with our educational philosophy, which is to be very nurturing and supportive of students whenever possible, making success possible for those who make a serious effort, but, on the other hand, to be firm with students who consistently show themselves to be unwilling or unable to perform to minimum standards.

Academic support:

Advising

Our department makes every attempt to ensure that students are well and frequently advised. In initial interviews with students when they indicate interest or sign up as majors, we urge them to come in once a semester or more, and once a year as an absolute minimum. We further urge advising through the semester's department newsletter mailed to majors. We keep statistics indicating the number of students who have seen a faculty member through an appointment made by the departmental secretary, but this, of course, does not reflect drop-ins and more informal appointment processes. The numbers we have indicate that students come for advising frequently, primarily to the department chair, who handles roughly 75% of all students advising for which we can account. It is our perception that students are seeing advisors somewhat more regularly than in the past.

In the past, we attempted to enforce advising through threats to withhold student records. We found that strategy difficult to enforce and also a bit intimidating, even perhaps counter-productive. What we can say with certainty is that no student who seriously seeks advising is denied it. While students are not universally happy with our advising, we have never found it possible to satisfy them completely. For example, the greatest frustration expressed by students regarding advising is the need for more career information and advising; however, when we have offered, two semesters in a row, excellent courses explicitly addressing these concerns, they enrolled five and nine students, respectively, in spite of extensive advertising. Those who took the courses were very happy with them, but it is difficult to continue to offer courses with such low enrollments, even when students commonly express a desire for them. Our departmental secretary has been pursuing a graduate degree in counseling, and has taken it upon herself in pursuit of experience in that program to do career advising for our students. She has worked with them in developing job-search strategies, including writing resumes, and offering other relevant advice. Many students have benefited significantly from this service. She offered one of the career courses mentioned above and received a nearly perfect student evaluation score.

Departmental retention strategies, student organizations, and tutorial support. The department's retention strategies have been affected by the matter of previous overcrowding of the program, as discussed above. However, faculty works closely with all students in the courses to assist students towards academic success. We work with Student Health and Financial Aid to help students overcome personal and financial problems as we become aware of them. In a metropolitan university such as CSUS, active assistance of students is a major part of our classroom and advising work, woven through everything we do. The Chair and department secretary work closely with faculty and students in this regard.

To give one of many examples, a foreign student in our program reported that she was suffering from periodic and severe depression. At several points, she contemplated dropping out of the program and returning to her home country. We directed her to student medical services for counseling and made sure that she was taking advantage of these services, including appropriate medication. In addition, the Chair spoke with other faculty members to alert them to the problem. One of these faculty members took it upon herself to have a searching discussion with the young woman, and developed a close and supportive relationship with her, including eventually a long visit to her family in Asia. The department secretary gave essential aid and comfort at some times of severe stress for the student. The student was able to perform a very valuable summer internship in her home country, used her experience to write an exceptionally original senior thesis, directed the student organization for a semester, and graduated with a very respectable GPA. Her family was able to travel the thousands of miles to attend her graduation. She now works for an environmental organization in Japan.

Environmental Studies faculty has often been able to provide this kind of support to our students, as we believe, do other faculty at CSUS. What this example illustrates, we believe, is that our faculty, and our very supportive departmental secretary, go out of their way to provide what is necessary to our students, often far beyond the call of duty. We do not have a systematic way of ensuring that we always reach students in need, but we believe we do have a largely deserved reputation for responding fully to student problems as far as possible.

The Environmental Students Organization, ESO, has been active in most recent years, providing students with a direct way to meet and work with other students with common interests. In most of the years under review, ESO has sponsored an annual one to three day program called Global Healing, emphasizing the close link between the need for social justice and peace among diverse groups and nations and environmental quality. ESO has been essential in maintaining a community garden on campus, started the campus recycling center, and continues to work with the recycling director. In the Spring of 2000, the ESO worked with the sponsors of Earth Day 2000 to stage an event that brought about 7000 people to campus. Students also worked to support the California Wilderness Conference 2000, co-sponsored by the Department, and attended by about 800 people over a three day period. Environmental Studies students have been active on campus in many ways over the history of the department--they started the annual American River Clean-Up, now taken over by the County, the campus recycling center, and the campus community garden. During this review period, as a senior thesis project, an Environmental Studies student developed a proposal for a full-time Environmental Coordinator for the campus, jointly financed by CSUS, the CSUS Hornet Foundation, and Associated Students. She carried out negotiations that led to the creation of the position and associated program. The person hired applied for and received a $176,000 three-year grant to support recycling and other activities on campus, building on the efforts of the campus recycling center originally founded by Environmental Studies students in the late 1970's.

We have participated actively in the Alumni Association and University programs to recognize outstanding alumni and prospective graduates. When possible, we have offered a tutor to assist students with the Quantitative Methods for Environmentalists course, E.S. 120. The Departmental budget has not permitted us to offer other tutorials. When we offered the lower division general education distance learning course, Academic Affairs provided funding for a tutor. With the help of the Dean's office and after some years of trading and negotiation with the neighboring Geography department, we have been able to consolidate our office space in such a way as to be able to offer a student study room in the same office suite as the departmental office. This room is generally available to students for study, group work, and use of the computer hooked into the campus system. The room is often used by students, as well as for faculty meetings and other departmental needs. Faculty--the prospects for rapid change in the immediate future. The challenges of impending change. As discussed in the introduction to this review, the Environmental Studies faculty is undergoing and will certainly continue to undergo rapid change over the next several years. Fortunately, the College Dean and central administration have been much more supportive in recent years of maintaining an appropriate level of faculty strength in the program. We anticipate that in Fall 2000, Professors Brentwood, Davidson, and Anderson will compose the full-time teaching faculty, with assistance from several part-time faculty members. Prof. Krabacher, of the CSUS Geography Department, will be the interim Chair for the year. Prof. Wright will return as a participant in the FERP to teach full-time in Spring, 2001, and may return on that basis for as many as four additional years.
The question of leadership and administration of the Department is also bound up with the larger question of the future composition of the faculty. Careful consideration must be given to how to assure the availability of a tenured faculty member able to serve as Department Chair in the coming years. In response to this problem, the Dean of SSIS has authorized a national search for a tenured Chair to begin service in Fall, 2001. The decisions made by the University, College, and Environmental Studies Department in the next few years will be critical to the future of Environmental Studies at CSUS. Continued support from the Dean and University could bring a period of very positive renewal to the Environmental Studies program in a field that has evolved very rapidly since the inception of the program nearly thirty years ago. Any weakening of support could create crisis conditions that would threaten the quality and future of the program. This is the critical issue for the next several years.

Faculty composition:

At the original drafting of this document, our faculty consisted of five full-time members. All were of primarily Euro-American ethnicity. Four of the five are women. Two of the women have resigned and one of the men has gone on partial retirement. The new full-time tenure-track faculty member who will begin is assignment in Fall 2000 is a man of Mexican-American and Jewish heritage. Given the small number of hiring’s and the general composition of faculty available, achieving diversity is a difficult task. A special effort was made in the last three hiring cycles to attract diversity candidates, with two short-listed minority women and a short-listed minority man taking themselves out of the running for personal reasons in the last cycle of short-listing. Fortunately, the last hire has brought greater diversity to the faculty and the last three tenure-track assistant professors hired have brought special records of commitment to diversity issues. The number of part-time faculty is modest. When no faculty is on leave, we expect to staff no more than nine total units with part-timers. However, due to the situation described above, we have recently been forced to staff up to 21 units with part-time faculty. In the 1999-2000 year, we appointed a full-time lecturer to take the place of one of the faculty members on leave. Faculty Training, Scholarly and Creative Activities in the Field: Environmental Studies is proud of the quality of its faculty in every respect. As mentioned above,

Environmental Studies faculty participate very actively in scholarship, community, and the governance of the university. (See attached vitae, Attachment I). As a brief overview: Dr. Nancy Ostiguy, who just resigned for a position at Pennsylvania State University, is working on problems of sampling techniques in entomological and epidemiological studies and a study of Sacramento regional air pollution; Dr. Doreen Stabinsky, who has just resigned for another position, has been an active participant in Agenda 21 negotiations on international biosafety agreements and intellectual property questions regarding biotechnology, is co-editor of a book on related issues, has a book project on biotechnology and world hunger; and was a Fulbright lecturer and researcher in the Philippines in 1999-2000; Prof. Valerie Anderson has been engaged in a study of women in the textile industries as well continuing study of informal housing issues; Dr. Mary Brentwood is conducting research on negotiated rule-making and consensus building on public policy related to the Endangered Species Act and salmon in the Pacific Northwest and California and is developing a related film proposal; Dr. Angus Wright is close to finishing a comparative study of property rights related to environmental and social issues in the Americas on contract with a university press and serves as the U.S. representative on the Inter-American Development Bank's Investigative Mechanism panel, where he coordinated a study of the world's largest existing hydro-electric project, on the Parana River. In partial retirement, he is initiating two new book projects, one an environmental history of Latin American for Cambridge University Press and another history of the Brazilian landless peoples movement. Our new faculty member, Dr. Carlos Davidson, continues to work on research that shows a relationship between declines in amphibian populations in California and agricultural activities and has recently published an article in Bioscience suggesting new perspectives on environmental dilemmas. Part-time faculty are similarly active. Environmental Studies faculty are also active as innovative teachers in their own classrooms and with relation to the University curriculum. Drs. Ostiguy and Stabinsky were among university faculty pioneering classroom use of computer and other distance learning technology; Dr. Stabinsky received a small grant to adapt our Field Methods course in Fall, 1998 to the CSUS Community Collaboration program, involving students in a community garden used primarily by Southeast Asian immigrants. Prof. Anderson has helped develop new RTP procedures for the College and participated in various faculty workshops for active learning and continues to develop innovative ways to involve students more actively in the classroom. Dr. Wright has worked to develop new graduate courses in Public Policy Administration and International Affairs, and was a member of the General Education Task Force for the up coming Self-Study. Dr. Brentwood has worked in her first year at CSUS to develop new graduate courses in the Public Policy Administration program and new methods for teaching some of our core curriculum. These are only a few examples of the ongoing activities of our faculty in the constant renewal of teaching in the department and university curricula.

Faculty resumes and syllabi: These are to be found in Attachments I and J.

Teaching effectiveness:

Teaching effectiveness is measured in the following ways: Study and, where appropriate, discussion of student evaluations taken of fifty percent of all courses taught in the department; Examination of all relevant materials in faculty files in the RTP process; Discussion of the experience with the capstone senior thesis requirement in terms of what it reflects about the success of individual courses; Continual informal discussions among faculty members and at faculty meetings; End of semester evaluation interviews with part-time faculty and observation of part-time faculty classes; Student surveys conducted as part of Program Reviews; Ongoing discussions with students and graduates. In addition, the new Assessment Outcomes Plan, see above and Attachment D, will provide an additional source of information on teaching effectiveness.

Academic Program Goals/Student Outcomes Academic program goals:

These have been addressed in the first section of this report, in the program plan submitted to the Dean, in the outcomes memo to the Dean, and in the newly adopted Environmental Studies Assessment Outcomes Plan (Attachment D.) Below are the goals as presented in the December 10, 1996 memo to the Dean, with modifications to fit present circumstances indicated in parentheses: Á*Continue to prepare a modest number of well-prepared majors for graduation, Fewer than at present. (Numbers are now at a level we can deal with and we plan to increase them somewhat.) Play a larger role in the General Education Program, educating a citizenry and professionals outside the environmental field more deeply about environmental matters. (Recent unsuccessful efforts to qualify Environmental Studies 111 for Critical thinking requirements and assessment of Environmental Studies 112 for the race and ethnicity requirement have necessarily reduced our expectations in this regard.) Seek over the long term a greater incorporation of Environmental Studies courses into other academic majors and minors where appropriate. (As discussed above, new courses are to be incorporated into the graduate Programs in Public Policy and Administration, International Affairs, and Liberal Studies.)

Develop a wider array of courses available to majors and non-majors in new or previously neglected environmental areas. (We cooperated with history in their cross-listing of an American Environmental History course, cross-list a course in Environmental Law with the Government Department, offered a course in environmental issues in biotechnology, and developed graduate courses for Public Policy and Administration, International Affairs and Liberal Arts.) Streamline our minor, making it more attractive and useful to students in other majors. (This has been done.) Seek the cooperation of the university in widening the choices available to Students in the Environmental Studies major through the development of Concentrations and advisor-approved course sequences to substitute for the Required minor. (Some exploration needs to be followed up by more work on the matter, about which the Environmental Studies faculty still have some Reservations.) Increase the laboratory and field experiences of our majors through internal development of these capabilities with the school and through the use of courses in other programs. (Increased computer technology available, College Purchase of vans, new plans for field trip experiences in various courses, and Improved operating budgets have led to gradual improvement in these areas. The College has also developed at computer BATS lab in which we have Scheduled Quantitative Methods and Senior Thesis courses for the 1999-2000 Academic year.)

Evaluate the wisdom of strengthening the emphasis in our program in areas of Land-use and land-use planning, an area we expect to expand in importance in the Sacramento region particularly, and in the nation more generally. (There been only a little movement in this direction, mainly due to need to give Attention to the rapid changes in faculty presence and strength in this period. We have moved to more frequently offer Environmental Studies 122, the environmental impact reporting course that is at the heart of much of the land- use planning process.)

In support of our present program...we hope to add a fifth member to our Program, as recommended in the recent Program Review. However, we are eager to explore various arrangements that might make it possible to share the expertise of new faculty hires made jointly with other programs, either formally Or informally. (This has been done, with cooperation with the graduate Programs as mentioned above and with the Government department in our and their hiring processes.) Play an active role in developing interdisciplinary courses within the School of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies, such as the "honors" program now under discussion by SSIS Chairs. (After long discussion, this has been on hold among the Chairs.) Continue to explore the feasibility of developing graduate programs in Conjunction with other departments. (A plan is underway with PPA, with Additional offerings in the M.A. International Affairs and Liberal Studies programs.) Response to surveys and other data on overall effectiveness.

We keep an updated alumni survey of employment, begun in preparation for the last Self-Study. (Attachment F; also G). This ongoing study indicates that our graduates are finding employment more often than before in private consulting firms. Public sector employment in state and federal agencies is still the most important source of employment, with more rapid growth expected soon as a result of improved budget prospects for environmental and resource agencies in Sacramento. In Spring, 1998, and Fall, 1999, with the support of the Dean's office, we offered a course to students that involved bringing numerous alumni now working as environmental professionals to discuss their work with current students. Although the course, very surprisingly to us, was poorly enrolled, it did give us an opportunity to hear from our alumni at length. By and large, they expressed satisfaction with their careers and their education. On the ongoing question always at the heart of discussions of our curriculum of whether the curriculum should be more heavily weighted to technical skills and additional science courses, the consensus seemed to be as it has often been in the past. That is that it would be highly desirable for students to have more science and technical training, but not at the expense of the broader integrative courses and emphasis on writing and analytical skills in the present curriculum. There was also strong affirmation that the main skills used on the job have to do with essentially political questions of developing problem-solving strategies and working effectively with others. Some alumni expressed that for them the further development of writing and social science skills were at least as important as strengthening science and technical knowledge. Virtually all agreed that the program's strong emphasis on making ethical and political judgments was a critical strength of the existing curriculum. Without being able to require more units of students than they now take, it is difficult to see how we could reform the curriculum in a way that would be responsive to all these ideas--the issue has to do with achieving a balance whose content varies from person to person. Thus, the core curriculum and additional minor, or possibly in the future, advisor approved list of courses, still seem to be the best way to respond to the experience of our graduates. We do hear from students having a difficult time finding employment. Usually, but not always, these people have been looking for less than six months, or, they are students with low GPA's and poor or lackluster recommendations. These students are the most likely to express the idea that they should have more technical background. Our conclusion on the basis of all the experience available to us makes some sense of this: employers often have threshold requirements that involve looking for a minimum of technical preparation, but they are also always looking for the more broadly trained person capable of further learning who is also self-motivated, well-spoken, and sharply analytical. The newer and/or less capable graduates come up against the minimum threshold and are unaware of the larger questions that will determine success in the long run. Better prepared students either show them capable of meeting the technical threshold requirements and/or display more fundamental qualities that make the threshold of current levels of technical preparation less important to the employer. Students also tend to succeed in finding suitable employment at much higher rates if they have had student assistantships, internships, substantial volunteer work, or other experience in the field. Such experiences give students more realistic expectations, allow for networking opportunities, and offer training in important skills. While the number of interns is down in our program, we believe that this is due primarily to judgments by students that if they have suitable work experience, gaining academic credit for it does not add importantly to their future chances, while it requires more commitment and work. A large number of our students are working in the field as student assistants or part-time or intermittent employees. Some of our students who formerly enrolled as interns in our program now enroll through the university Cooperative Education program. We do all we can to encourage students to take advantage of pre-graduation work opportunities in the environmental field. With the assistance of the Office of Institutional Studies, the department has conducting a survey of graduates and employers, Attachments F and G.

Student outcomes:

This topic has been addressed at various points in the foregoing discussion. It is thoroughly addressed in the Environmental Studies Outcomes Assessment Plan, Attachment D.

Institutional support for Academic programs Library, information technology, and computers. The very broad inter-disciplinary character of environmental studies makes it extremely difficult to assess library resources. The general experience of students and faculty is that many reasonable research topics cannot be completed using the CSUS library. A very large proportion of senior thesis students in particular must use the UC Davis Library and/or the California State Library. The small number of journals and recent book acquisitions of the CSUS library make it increasingly inadequate. Two recent book searches by an E.S. faculty member typify the problem: the UC Davis library had nearly one hundred times the number of books owned by CSUS on the same topic, and the few CSUS holdings were seriously outdated. (The topics searched, using a variety of search terms at both libraries, were agricultural policy in India and the history of land tenure and property law in the United States.) Inter-library loans provide important back-up, but students are often reluctant to use the service because of time delays... In any case, it is difficult to overcome a one hundred to one ratio of relevant materials. We want to emphasize that the staff of the CSUS library have always gone out of their way to be helpful in response to particular problems and requests and are highly competent. They seem to be stretched between inadequate overall resources on the one hand and the demand for electronic services on the other. Certainly Internet and other electronic research capabilities have been a great boon, but it is difficult to understand how a library can so seriously neglect basic book holdings and journal holdings at present, when these holdings are still not typically available electronically. The purchase of services offering electronic downloading of scholarly journals would help enormously, and these services are available now at some CSU campuses. The College Dean and Associate Dean have worked closely with us to improve our computer resources, which at the moment are largely adequate. The availability of technical help and its quality remain a problem for us as for some other programs.

Student support services:

These are on the whole adequate to departmental needs.

Physical facilities and financial resources

The Environmental Studies curriculum has been designed on the assumption that student experience with laboratories would come almost exclusively in courses and facilities not offered by the core faculty. Quantum improvements in the curriculum could be made if this were no longer the operating assumption, but there is at present no prospect of bringing together the appropriate physical, financial, and faculty resources to make this feasible. The recent purchase of two vans by the College will make field trips much easier and more attractive for E.S. faculty. Our operating budget, severely constrained at the last review, is now relatively satisfactory. In general, the very active support of the Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies has vastly improved the working morale and capabilities of the Environmental Studies faculty and staff. The previous situation was one of constant conflict and frustration. We are still growing into the situation of active support and enthusiasm offered by the present Dean's office.

Governance processes:

As mentioned above, the present situation is a vast improvement over the one prevailing at the last review. Governance is more responsive, more transparent, and more supportive at every level in the new College. Faculty are more trusting of one another and of the Dean's office in regards to governance. Issues of University and system-wide policy lead to various frustrations among faculty, but these are dealt with outside of the department context. Future plans to change curriculum These have been detailed above in, and may be seen in greater detail in Attachment H. In brief, they are: create the senior seminar series and portfolio assignments as outlined in the assessment plan, create new courses in the graduate programs in Public Policy and Administration, International Affairs, and Liberal Studies, and continue to explore the possibility of creating concentrations and/or advisor-approved courses as an alternative to the minor requirement. By the end of the program review process, a virtually entirely new faculty will be in place in the Environment Studies program. It would be normal to expect that they will want to reshape the curriculum in ways not contemplated by the present faculty.