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Environmental Education in the Market-place: A Decade of US Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

R. Rajagopal
R. Rajagopal
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA; Editor-in-Chief, The Environmental Professional.
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Extract

Undergraduate students in the United States who major in an interdisciplinary environmental studies curriculum are at a competitive disadvantage in securing entry-level environmental employment as compared with those majoring in disciplinary or specialized curricula. Major factors that separate these two types of curricula and hence affect the employability of their graduates include: a) Programme Diversity: Interdisciplinary programmes significantly vary in emphasis, course offerings, teacher strengths, and physical facilities, whereas the many specialized programmes tend to be more uniformly defined; b) Linkage: Interdisciplinary programme objectives are not clearly tied to employment needs in the public and private sectors, whereas the goals of the many specialized programmes are based e.g. on congressional mandates, personnel needs, or well-defined occupational categories; c) Federal Support: The US Environmental Protection Agency's funding for manpower-related programmes is negligible in comparison with total pollution-control expenditures—the few million dollars allocated for manpower development in the 1970s were mainly used to support targeted specialized programmes instead of general interdisciplinary programmes; and d) Occupational Definitions: Both long- and short-term environmental employment opportunities are almost always pigeonholed and defined in terms of a disciplinary background with an associated set of skills. This favours specialized-programme graduates over interdisciplinary majors for entry-level positions.

This situation can be changed with a concerted effort by faculty members, administrators, students, and employers, to become interested in fully tapping the potentials of interdisciplinary environmental majors. Towards this end, it is recommended that the faculty members (teachers) and administrators of environmental studies programmes form a national organization to promote their programmes' welfare, that students explore a double major, graduate education, or other specialized educational opportunities, and that employers investigate innovative short-courses, workshops, and intensive laboratory programmes, for retraining environmental studies majors.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1983 , pp. 225 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1983

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