Washington and Lee University Environmental Studies Newsletter Fall 2019

Page 1

WA S H I N G TO N A N D L E E U N I V E R S I T Y

The Environmental Studies Program N E W S F R O M T H E D E PA RTM E N T

G

reetings from W&L, and a warm welcome to the Environmental Studies Program’s annual newsletter. It’s been a beautiful summer in Lexington, and we are excited to reach out, reconnect and update you on lots of exciting things happening on campus. This year, Environmental Studies will celebrate the 20th anniversary of our first graduating class with ENV degree credentials from Washington and Lee. In the years since, the program has grown immensely. We now offer both a major and minor in environmental studies, with more than 20 students graduating from the program in 2019.

Thanks to a generous gift from the family of John Spencer ’13, the program now has an endowed directorship, and I am honored to be serving as the first John Kyle Spencer Director for Environmental Studies. We also welcomed new faculty and staff to the program this year, including our first full-time faculty appointment in Environmental Studies. Chelsea Fisher, an environmental anthropologist and archeologist, joins us this year as an assistant professor and will develop the program’s curriculum in the emerging field of environmental humanities. Debra Frein started in June as our program coordinator and will be working on a number of curricular and co-curricular initiatives that are in the works. Finally, Megan Hess, associate professor of accounting, who teaches sustainability

accounting in the Williams School, joined Environmental Studies as an affiliate faculty member. The program’s core and affiliate faculty now represent 10 different departments and offices around the university. This year we instituted completely new curricula for the major and minor. The core foundations in sciences, social sciences and humanities will be covered in a new series of required courses offered by ENVS, rather than from supporting departments. This creates a common experience for our students that we hope will lead to stronger connections within the program. The new major also allows students to focus their elective coursework around a specific topic or theme, including climate change, conservation biology, water

continued on page 6

Robert Humston and Wes Tetsworth ’10 take a break from fishing outside of Bend, Oregon, in 2018.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.