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With the future of the planet and all of its resources as uncertain as it is, more emphasis must be placed on the undergraduate environmental science departments at Syracuse University. We need more professionals in environmental fields  — which means we need to have more students enroll in environmental areas of study within higher education. 

Doing this is challenging, but if SU can appeal to the passions and values of their prospective students in encouraging them to enroll in environmental disciplines, it can be possible.

Currently, SU and SUNY-ESF have 21 undergraduate majors related to the environmental sciences. More emphasis must be placed on these majors because the future of the planet depends on it. 

The number of people in the environmental workforce in 2019 was significantly lower than that of psychology and journalism. Many of the environmental disciplines offered at SU, such as environment, sustainability, and policy or energy and its impacts are vital in solving the planet’s issues.

Getting prospective students interested in environmental disciplines is necessary if there is any hope for solving the issues that the planet is faced with, said Andrea Parker, an associate professor at SUNY-ESF.

“The environmental disciplines, at this point, are crisis-based. We are a people and planet in crisis, so we have to be working on these problems,” she said. “They’re social problems, too, though, and so we have to see ourselves in these systems.”

Parker, who teaches about environmental communication, said that the best way to gain the interest of prospective students is to show them that the issues relating to the environment relate to them, too.

 “It’s best done by relating the environment to something that they’re passionate about or value,” she said. “When they realize that that thing, whatever it might be, is threatened, they’ll act.” 

With the amount of environmental issues that need solving, the number of students entering environmental areas of study must be higher if there is any chance of helping Earth. If SU can find a way to make the environmental disciplines more relatable to their prospective students, we’ll have a better chance of mitigating the issues that ail the environment and its ecosystems.

SU should take pride in its environmental sustainability programs while acknowledging that there’s always more to be done. There is no ‘Planet B,’ but placing more emphasis on the environmental areas of study at SU and other universities can become part of the solution for protecting our planet. 

Samantha Kolb is an environmental studies major at SUNY-ESF. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at sakolb@syr.edu.

Published on March 16, 2021 at 10:18 pm