Environmental Studies and Sciences programs take a range of positions on a spectrum of whether or not advocacy is an acceptable role in the academy.  At one end are those who discourage it entirely, preferring to stick to objective research and policy analysis as the only defensible academic endeavors.  At the other end are programs that actively encourage student and faculty engagement to “change the world.”  In my work as a faculty member and director of the Environmental Program at University of Vermont, I participated in and chose to pro-actively enhance opportunities for advocacy engagement as part of our mission.  These opportunities reflected current pedagogical practices of experiential learning, service learning, and capstone projects as well as the scholarship of teaching.

Among these opportunities were: 1) helping students with financial support to attend conferences, 2) supporting activist senior capstone projects, 3) co-organizing campus-wide events with student groups and other academic units, 4) promoting a culture of event announcements in ENVS courses, especially at the introductory level, 5) supporting courses in advocacy as well as student-taught courses, 6) promoting such engagement at faculty meetings to build a local culture of support, 7) encouraging faculty to participate in civic leadership on campus.  The cumulative impact of such support over the past two decades has built a strong culture and critical mass for advocacy at University of Vermont, that has contributed to state, regional, and national efforts around emerging environmental issues. In this paper I discuss key elements of broad based success in creating a positive academic environment for wide ranging student and faculty civic engagement.