The University of Utah established the School of Environment, Society and Sustainability in the summer, aimed at better serving the student body interested in geography and environmental studies.
The new school, formed by merging the Department of Geography and the Environmental and Sustainability Studies program, is designed to meet the increasing demand for environmental education while fostering interdisciplinary research.
“We wanted to be able to better serve students, especially in the rapidly growing environmental and sustainability studies major,” Phil Dennison, former Department of Geography director and current director for the School of Environment, Society and Sustainability, said.
Dennison emphasized that the school’s formation was driven by the desire to create a stronger, more cohesive department that could better the interdisciplinary link between geography and environmental studies.
“We saw an opportunity with our faculty working across disciplinary boundaries to create something bigger than the individual units that started out with the Department of Geography and the program in environmental and sustainability studies,” he said.
The merger involved extensive collaboration among faculty members, which took about a year and a half to complete.
“The faculty met and we talked about what we wanted to accomplish, and then we had to go through the university process to get approval,” Dennison said.
Jennifer Shah, an associate professor at the School of the Environment, Society and Sustainability, said the two departments had connections before the transition.
“It felt pretty good because we already had good relationships, individual relationships between faculty in both units,” she said.
Shah acknowledged that the pace of the merger was fast but added, “I feel pretty comfortable that time and care was taken to try and address those fears and concerns.”
The school now aims to improve its offerings in teaching, student services and programs. ESS currently houses 31 faculty members covering a broad range of disciplines.
Dennison emphasized the new school’s interdisciplinary nature.
“Geography itself is very interdisciplinary, where a lot of the research and teaching involves interactions between humans and the environment through a lens of how things occur over space and through time, and that meshed well with what was going on in environmental and sustainability studies,” he said.
The merger is expected to provide more opportunities and better resources for students.
Dennison noted that the school currently has around 600 students, primarily in the Environmental and Sustainability Studies major, with a smaller number in Geography and Geographic Information Science.
The faculty hopes to address the high demand for certain courses, particularly those in the Environmental and Sustainability Studies program.
“There are a lot of classes in the ENVST major that are full or have waitlists for them, and we’re hoping with additional instructors, we can address some of those needs and move students through the ENVST program faster,” Dennison explained.
Shah also highlighted the positive reception from both students and faculty.
“The feedback seems really positive. Students really seem to be interested in the new school, and I think everyone’s excited to see how this grows and how we move forward.”
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