ENVR—Environmental Studies Program
 “How will you walk this earth?”
asks Wayne Gilchrest, former US Congressman and Environmental
Studies adjunct professor. His question, posed to a group of
ENVR students in a summer kayaking class, is central to our
program—for whether you seek to become a
professional
environmental advocate or wish to enrich your own understanding
of the world about you, we encourage you, in the words of
Thoreau, to live deliberately.
SU’s fast-growing and exciting Environmental Studies Program
integrates courses in the humanities, social sciences,
and natural sciences to give students the tools they need to
examine complex environmental issues in depth and assess them
from a variety of perspectives. The program combines a solid
academic foundation with extensive experiential learning
opportunities: frequent opportunities for research and community
engagement provide ENVR graduates with a substantial foundation
for further graduate study or meaningful careers in
environmental fields.
A Dynamic Environment
 For
the outdoor adventurer who loves marshes, rivers, forests and
barrier islands, there's no better-situated university on the
east coast. With the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean next
door, students can explore some of the mid-Atlantic’s most
intact river systems, the Nanticoke and the Pocomoke; study
coastal barrier islands such as Cedar and Assateague; visit
major wildlife refuges at Blackwater and Chincoteague; observe
working watermen’s communities on Smith and Tangier Islands; and
investigate close to a hundred thousand acres of wetlands.
Getting Our Hands Dirty
ENVR majors gain valuable real-world experience
through a wide variety of activities. Opportunities for study
abroad abound: ENVR students can snorkel coral reefs in
Honduras, investigate glacial landscapes in Iceland, or explore
biodiversity in the Amazon.
Some share meals with rural villagers in India; others walk
Shinto Buddhist pilgrimage routes in Japan.
 Closer to home, they
canoe remote Eastern Shore creeks, kayak to Smith Island
(Maryland's only offshore inhabited island, with a three-century
tradition of harvesting the bay) and witness the mass spawning
of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay.
They study organic gardening
with Jay Martin, the farmer who started Community Sponsored
Agriculture on the Eastern Shore, and investigate an
ever-changing range of Chesapeake Bay Topics with award-winning
author Tom Horton.
Green Floor Living-Learning Community students share common ENVR
classes, develop environmentally-oriented activities, and
perform green service projects. ENVR students
intern in organizations as diverse as the Maryland Coastal Bays,
US Geological Survey, Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center,
Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, Irvine Nature Center in Baltimore,
and the Maryland Department of the Environment. Three
ENVR majors have been awarded EPA Greater Research
Opportunity Fellowships.
Stewardship
Stewardship and advocacy opportunities comprise an important
part of our program. Environmental Studies students have worked to ban arsenic in
chicken feed, helped political candidates push for storm water
regulations, removed invasive privet from a local forests, and
taught area middle school students how to monitor
electricity use. They held a fundraiser to purchase an
Environmental Studies greenhouse, built raised bed gardens at a
nearby elementary school, and mapped out an interpretive trail
at a local forest preserve. ENVR students are growing vegetables
on campus, working to develop an on-campus sustainability tour
for both students and visitors, and are developing SU’s
first-ever permaculture garden, which will serve as a learning
laboratory for both SU and the community.
The Environmental Studies Program offers a flexible and
relevant mix of coursework and field opportunities—and, above
all, the chance to cultivate what Rachel Carson termed "a
sense of wonder
so indestructible that it would last throughout life."
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