SJSU ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM
Tuesday, May 16, 2000
1430 - 1600, SCI 127
MINUTES
Meeting called to order at 1440. Present: M. McNeil; U. Ndon; J. Smith; D. Schwarz; S. Rafkin; L. Rowntree; A. Diaz; D. Jaehne; R. Keady; G. SelterMINUTES of April 17 meeting are posted on the Forum website and were approved as posted.
ONGOING DISCUSSIONS
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND SAFETY PROGRAM UPDATE
L. Rowntree provided a status report from the ENVS program coordinator, B. Olszewski. Advising of approximately 15 students who have declared the major is underway, easing them into the program. The new advising form has been completed. Coordination meetings between COE and COSS, UCSC Extension and Mission College have been held. In addition, B. Olszewski mounted a significant display booth advertising the program and recruiting students at the SJSU Earth Day event. Numerous other developmental activities, including industry liaison and student outreach, are ongoing and will continue over the summer. Specific questions about the ENVS program component may be directed to BruceO@email.sjsu.edu or 4-5350.In the COE, D. Jennings will replace M. McNeil as the EH&S Program Coordinator. Though COE has attracted 24 students to the introductory course, only about three have declared themselves as majors. The COE is making efforts to increase the number of internships.
Developments on the industry side include new overtures (particularly by D. Hamm and B. Sherin) to the SSA education committee to gain recognition of undergraduate EH&S programs. B. Sherin is also developing contacts with professional societies to secure program notice on their websites.
The Forum expressed its continued concern about the limited program support from the COSS. It was agreed that L. Rowntree, D. Schwarz, and D. Jaehne would arrange to meet with Dean L. Noble to discuss this matter. The particular matter at hand concerns financial sponsorship of an information night for industry. B. Sherin has already provided industry financial support for the printing of the program brochures. The Forum understands that the college programs are expected to provide some sort of matching support for start up and outreach activities.
IREES/ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM ENGINEERING STUDENT CONFERENCE AWARDS. M. McNeil reported that no students had entered suitable environmentally related projects. The Forum agreed to postpone the awards until next year and to improve the outreach process to solicit more student entries.
IREES/EF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARDS. M. McNeil secured the Forum's agreement that faculty as well as students are eligible for these awards.
CURRICULUM INVENTORY. D. Schwarz provided a handout of the complete, updated environmental curriculum list, as now posted on the Forum's website. The final list reflects two rounds of requests to departments and chairs with final results cross-checked with the catalogue. The results are non-censored. The Forum noted the absence of Urban Planning from the list. They did not respond to requests. The Forum suggested that a more select, "highlighted" list be posted to indicate which courses in the inventory are actually offered in the upcoming semester. This would make the inventory list potentially more useful for advisors. D. Schwarz will study the matter and discuss possible procedures with Forum members. He also reported that the website had received 140 hits during the past week. The Forum hopes this reflects the impacts of the outreach brochures distributed at the new freshman orientation on May 5.
The Forum thanked Prof. Schwarz heartily for his considerable effort in developing and posting the inventory and for maintaining the Forum's website.
OUTREACH BROCHURE. S. Rafkin handed out copies of the Forum's first outreach brochure that he had prepared on behalf of the Forum. The brochure describes the Forum and its mission and then lists all Core GE courses on the environment, all Advanced GE courses on the environment, and all environment-related undergraduate courses and degrees. Six hundred copies of this first edition were printed (at a cost of $60) and distributed at the Freshman Orientation Day on May 5. As mentioned above, the Forum noted the increased number of hits on the Forum website following this brochure distribution.
The Forum discussed possible improvements for subsequent editions. A major concern was the desire to distinguish departments and programs with environmental degrees or concentrations from those that merely offer one or several elective courses. In the current list, both types of programs are grouped together and appear, therefore, to be equivalent. The Forum agreed that a revised heading should privilege the Environmental Studies program and then list other degree/concentration programs, followed by a third tier listing of departments that offered only one or several environment-related courses but not degrees or concentrations. The Forum agreed that the departments themselves should determine whether they consider themselves to be offering a degree or concentration. It is not always obvious from the department name. For example, the Forum agreed that Meteorology should be considered an environmental degree program, even though "environment" does not occur in the program name. Departments should communicate to S. Rafkin (rafkin@metsun1.sjsu.edu) how their department should be designated within this scheme.
The Forum noted that, except for the website, this was the first outreach product developed and distributed by the Forum to improve student awareness of environmental curriculum. The Forum extended its thanks to Prof. Rafkin for his efforts on the Forum' s behalf and directed that a formal letter of appreciation be sent to him.
FORUM WITH CHET BOWERS. R. Keady reported that the recent Forum co-sponsored speaker event with Prof. Bowers had a disappointingly small turnout. The Forum speculated that the "eco-justice pedagogy" title did not draw well and that the late April date was perhaps too late in the semester. Prof. Bowers also provided a two-day workshop on the same themes for the College of Education. He will apparently continue his work in this area as a developmental project on campus over the next several years. A smaller roundtable discussion with Prof. Bowers, following the public lecture, was well-attended and energetic.
NEW BUSINESS
IREES/ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM MERGER. M. McNeil, speaking as an IREES Board Member and a Forum member, proposed that the Forum consider a potential merger of the two campus units. As rationale, she cited the similarity of missions, the divided (and thus diluted) participation with two overlapping groups, and the IREES potential for fundraising and funding contribution to the Forum's work. She suggested that the Forum could serve as the umbrella group with its larger scope of mission and that IREES could function as the research arm of the Forum. IREES has already expressed interest in expanding its scope to include research in all curricular and disciplinary areas and is willing to modify its name to make explicit its support of general "environmental studies" beyond the colleges of science and engineering that were its founding focus.
Forum members discussed the potential benefits. They noted the strong historical precedent for such an integration in the original campus "environmental collaborative" that was precursor to IREES. The Forum also felt that it was a good time, in light of events and personnel changes on campus, for such a merger, and that it would potentially strengthen the campus commitment to and coordination of environmental programs and curricula. Such a merger should also improve the credibility of both organizations. The Forum was unanimous in supporting a motion that talks between the two groups, and the Provost, continue in Fall to effect such a merger. The Forum instructed D. Jaehne to include this item in the Forum's annual report to the Provost.
FORUM ANNUAL REPORT TO PROVOST. The Forum instructed D. Jaehne to prepare the Forum's Annual Report to the Provost, to circulate a draft to the members, and submit the revised report early in June. The Forum indicated that the report should indicate Forum support for a potential merger with IREES (see item above) and that it should make the case for ongoing Provost support for the Forum and its activities. To this end, the Annual Report should also include a specific budget report that lists the modest Forum expenses and illustrates how much the Forum did with the modest investment.
FORUM BUDGET. To support the completion of the Annual Report, all Forum members who have budget items pending should finalize their requests with Dean Selter so that he can prepare a final budget report in the next 10 days.
FORUM LEADERSHIP ELECTIONS. In light of potential changes with the upcoming discussion of the IREES merger, the Forum asked D. Jaehne to continue into the Fall and convene the first Forum meeting in September. Elections will proceed after that. The Forum expressed its thanks to D. Jaehne for his work as Forum Chair during AY 1999-2000, noting that the Forum had been favored with a series of able and energetic Chairs since its inception, and that the Forum had continued to mature under his leadership.
Meeting adjourned at 1600. This was the final meeting for this academic year.
Minutes respectfully submitted by D. Jaehne.