UW environmental studies get higher profile
When people think about the contributions higher education can make to solve the world’s environmental problems, the University of Washington wants to be the first institution that comes to mind.
UW Provost Phyllis Wise made a case for establishing the UW as the world’s preeminent research university on the environment at the Higher Education Coordinating Board’s meeting on the UW campus Oct. 29, 2008. In June, the UW Board of Regents unanimously established the UW’s College of the Environment.
Wise said programs that already make the university’s environmental offerings “incredibly strong” — and which may become part of the new college — include oceanography, forest resources, atmospheric sciences, earth and space science, and aquatic and fishery sciences.
The decision to create a new college — the highest organizational division within the university—underscores the importance the UW places on using academic research to find workable solutions to environmental issues and to increase environmental literacy among students during their university years and later life.
One goal of the college is to catalyze fundamental academic research — from space to the earth’s core — to develop practical answers to many of the earth’s environmental problems. Plans for the college include an institute that would act as a think tank, bringing together experts from government, business and other fields to hold workshops and examine a particular environmental issue for a period of time.
Discussions with administrators and faculty members in UW programs that already offer environmental studies are under way to determine which programs will be included under the new college umbrella. Wise said she hopes those discussions will be concluded by the end of the year.
In addition to the main UW campus, College of the Environment programs also are anticipated at the UW-Tacoma and UW-Bothell branch campuses.
The UW is seeking $6 million in state funding for the new college in the 2009-11 biennium. That level of support will enable the UW to develop the college more quickly but will not determine the university’s basic commitment to the concept, Wise said.
The HECB has responsibility for making recommendations to the Legislature on institutional budget requests and for approving any new degree programs proposed by four-year institutions.
Wise said existing degrees in the programs that comprise the college’s “inaugural core” will continue to be offered. A potential new environmental sciences degree would first come to the HECB for review, Wise said.
More information on the UW College of the Environment»
