2015 Conference

Discussion Symposium

At recent meetings of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD), a committee has met to work on the role of the environmental humanities (EH) in interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability programs. In exploring the topic, the committee has defined numerous challenges and opportunities the EH fields face in interdisciplinary environmental education and we have planned a report to summarize what we have learned. Two members of this committee (Kaza and Mincey) seek to organize an AESS conference symposium with the same focus in hopes that, in sharing and critically discussing the experiences of participants and audience members, we will learn from one another to improve our individual programs and further inform the CEDD report. The overarching goal will be to confront the boundaries often faced by the EH fields and to consider cutting edge or frontier efforts in their inclusion in interdisciplinary academic efforts.  Participants from a variety of interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability programs will share “case studies” by reflecting on their own academic institution’s experiences, addressing the following:

1. Their definition of the environmental humanities and its purpose in their program
2. Their programs’ structure – related description of degree(s), concentration(s), learning outcomes and how EH is included in environmental studies or environmental science programs
3. Their EH curriculum – a survey of the pedagogical approaches and topical areas (e.g. literature, ethics, arts, religion, communication, etc.)
4. Boundaries / challenges facing their program – student, faculty and/or course issues
5. Careers – what are their EH-focused students doing after graduation and how are they facilitating their success (internships, etc.)?