By Sydney Schabacker

Staff Writer

As of Fall 2014, students at CSUSM have the opportunity to declare a brand new major: Environmental Studies. This program focuses on providing a collaborative setting for students, faculty and community partners to study land-use and environmental issues.

The curriculum of this major is comprised of life and physical sciences, social science and policy, research methods and arts and humanities. Since this is an interdisciplinary major, students will be introduced to a wide variety of classes that create an overview of how we interact with our environment and how we can better protect it.

Student Rocio Fuentes, who declared this major last semester, remarks on the importance of being mindful of our environment.

“In our lifetime we are seeing all the harmful footprints that are being created,” she said. “We are seeing the changes that one day we are not going to be able to fix.”

The idea for the Environmental Studies major began 12 years ago amongst Michael McDuffie, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Wes Schultz, Professor of Psychology, Dr. Pamela Stricker, Professor Political Science and Environmental Studies Program Director and Dr. Bonnie Bade, Anthropology Department Chair. Their collective interest in Environmental Studies grew over time, culminating with this new program, which is now a part of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Behavioral Social Sciences.  Already, 22 people have declared this major, starting with an initial eight declarations last semester.

As a follow-up to the now-available Environmental Studies major, Dr. Stricker says that she hopes to set up an internship program. Majors in this field would then have both the internship and a community service network to help prepare them for related careers such as environmental advocacy or environmental law.

“When it is asked how much it will cost to protect our environment, one more question should be asked: How much will it cost our civilization if we do not?” said Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, in an Environmental Studies textbook.

It is very possible that this major will become one of the more popular ones at CSUSM, and the fact that it is now available reminds us that we can each play some part in making an effort  to preserve our planet.

“A principle….[that is] critical for every one of us to learn… is sustainability, which means meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” Fuentes said. “We see so many problems in our environment, but it is up to all of us to get together and to become educated about how we can add our tiny grain of sand to make a change.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article contained a typo that has been corrected. Dr. Stricker was referred to as “he”, but the pronoun has been changed to “she”.