ES evolves into key part of College's identity

Author: Tess Russell

At the outset of the 1994 academic year, President Emeritus John McCardell delivered an all-campus address that highlighted distinct areas in which the College had emerged as a national leader. McCardell imagined that these "Peaks of Excellence," as he dubbed them, extended far beyond the classroom, though - more than a decade later - the phrase tends to be employed most often in an academic context. As students, we now universally accept Middlebury's unique "excellence" in certain fields like literature, foreign languages, international studies and environmental studies (ES). And yet, the inclusion of the College's environmental curriculum in McCardell's vision was quite remarkable in 1994, considering that the ES major had been on the verge of extinction just a few years earlier.

The ES major, founded in 1965, was the first of its kind started at any undergraduate institution in the United States - other leaders in the field included Brown University, Dartmouth College and the University of Vermont, where similar interdepartmental programs were established in the 1970s. Initially, ES was quite amorphous in that it depended entirely upon faculty hired through other departments. It is worth noting that the College's infamous Northern Studies (NS) major also began as a freestanding (non-departmental) program, later becoming a track in the Geography department and then a focus in the ES major before being terminated.

Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Stephen Trombulak clarified the relationship, or lack thereof, between NS and ES in his response to a question about whether the NS major ever produced environmentally conscious alumni.

"This is a bit like asking whether the Math Department or the Studio Art Department ever produced environmentally conscious alums," wrote Trombulak in an e-mail. "I can't imagine that they did not. In my experience, Midd alums from across the full spectrum of the majors offered here have gone on to be environmentally conscious."

Though the ES major retained consistent, if low, numbers of participating students throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, its popularity soon fell off drastically, as evidenced by the complete dearth of ES majors graduating in the Class of 1988. At this point, the College enlisted Trombulak and John Elder, professor of English and American Literatures and Environmental Studies, to revitalize the ES program. Soon after, Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies Christopher Klyza joined the faculty - significantly, Klyza was the first purposeful ES hire in the College's history. With Trombulak and Elder, he began to work on restructuring the major, and the three of them ultimately designed a program centered on four principal core courses that is virtually identical to today's ES curriculum.

Klyza explained that McCardell's 1994 pledge was far from empty rhetoric. With the resurging popularity of the major in the mid-1990s, ES was in desperate need of additional faculty so that introductory courses could be taught more than once a year.

"[McCardell's address] suggested that the College was going to follow through with more support for the ES program, which they have," said Klyza. "It also coincided with [Professor Emeritus of Religion] Steven Rockefeller's 'Pathways for a Green Campus' report and the formation of the College's Environmental Council, which became the Energy Council. Theoretically, [academic initiatives at Middlebury] feed off of the larger commitments made by the College as an entity."

The ES faculty now includes nine full-time professors - including Trombulak, Klyza and Director of Environmental Studies Kathy Morse - though there are a total of 53 faculty members that are affiliated with the program and can thus serve in advisory capacities to students.

The graphic pattern of students majoring in ES over the past 40 years, explained Klyza, conforms to a sort of S-curve; since 2001, the number of graduates in ES has hovered in the 30s and 40s. Currently, the College has approximately 100 students among the sophomore, junior and senior classes who are declared ES majors, putting it in the top five most popular programs at the College. Students who receive ES degrees go on to have an impact in fields as varied as environmental consulting, green architecture and design, ecological research and green public policy.

To Klyza, the 2007 completion of the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest has been a perfect marker of the crest in importance of ES to the College's mission.

"When my window is open, I hear the campus tours come by, and they talk about the major and how it is part of Middlebury's identity now," said Klyza.