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EDUCATION REPORT

For Sustainability and Clean-

Energy Majors, Global Warming Is
Hot
10/17/2007
By Tom Nicholson

Both were once considered passé,

but if Al Gore and atomic energy can
resurge in the U.S., anything is
possible. Mounting evidence of global
warming’s impact has propelled the
study of sustainability, reinvigorated
nuclear engineering and made the ex-
vice president a campus hero.

The concept of sustainability has

been an academic discipline since
the 1970s, when development of
environmentally friendly materials,
designs, strategies and nonpolluting
technology such as nuclear power
began showing up in curricula,
educators say. But warnings of
greenhouse-gas effects by scientists
and popular media such as Gore’s Suny, Stony Brook
Oscar-winning movie An Inconvenient SUNY students on new South-ampton, N.Y., campus
with icon of cleaner energy.
Truth have galvanized academia to
renewed action.

“The demand for education in sustainability is growing, not only in environmental

sciences but in engineering, business, economics and nearly every other sector,” says
Charles Redman, director of Arizona State University’s new School of Sustainability. “In
this first graduate class at the school you will see civil engineers in class right alongside
people who want to save the polar bears.”

The Tempe-based school is at the vanguard of a new

thrust in higher education to make sustainability the
core of a variety of academic disciplines.

The school, which launched its first class of several

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dozen students in September, offers bachelor’s and

master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in sustainability. It is the "The
first school of its kind in the nation to focus solely on major
sustainability education and the first to offer will
undergraduates a track to pursue majors in it. Redman
says that of the 28 graduate students enrolled in the
create
program, about one-third have degrees in engineering. graduates
“It’s heavily focused on the built environment,” he says. with
“We are trying to marry engineering with urban skills...
planning.”
that are
in
"One-third of demand."
—Mark
sustainability Jacobson,
grad Civil-
students Environmental
Engineering
have Professor,
engineering Stanford

degrees."
—Charles Redman,
Director, School of Sus-
tainability,
Arizona State Univ.

Redman expects the program to grow to 150 to 200 students within three years.
Environmental issues are particularly relevant in Phoenix, where a heat-island effect
brought on by growing urban sprawl in recent years is baking the area’s natural
environment and threatening native flora and fauna.

While ASU has plunged headlong into sustainability, a number of other colleges and
universities across the country are beginning to wade into the water. Dozens of schools
are integrating new sustainability classes into curricula, with many combining
educational tracks across disciplines, such as a business major that may require
classes in environmental science or an economics or engineering major that would
study atmospheric science.

This fall, Stanford University, Palo Alto,

Calif., is offering for the first time an Related Links:
interdisciplinary major in atmosphere and
energy through its school of engineering. ● Industry Mentoring Links
“The major will create graduates with skills to Are Becoming Mutually
do things that are in high demand,” says Beneficial
Mark Jacobson, civil and environmental ● On-Line Learning Will Help
engineering professor. “They will be coming
Construction Practitioners
up with creative solutions to global warming
and pollution while also addressing energy Teach
needs.” ● As New Tool Lands on

More Campuses, Students

Stanford launched an atmosphere-energy Seek ‘A’ in BIM
program for graduate students three years ● For Sustainability and
ago and has seen the number of applicants Clean-Energy Majors, Global
grow from 37 in its first year to 70 currently.

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Jacobson says federal funding for Warming Is Hot

● Hard-Hit Civil Engineers
atmosphere and energy programs has grown
in recent years while funding for other Recall Fatal Day, But Virginia
disciplines has waned. Sustainability’s surge
in academia is “an undisputed trend” based Tech Moves On
● Viewpoint: Faculty Pipeline
on “a perfect storm” of societal interest and
concern over global warming and the Is Running on Empty
geopolitical energy issues, he says. ● Viewpoint: Respect We
Graduates will fill demand in sectors from Want Must Be Earned
business and engineering to government
and nongovernmental organizations, Jacobson points out.

In an innovative approach designed to introduce sustainability education across a wide

range of disciplines, the State University of New York, Stony Brook, which purchased
the former Southampton College in Southampton, N.Y., last year, has transformed that
campus into a liberal arts college with a theme of environmental sustainability. It
welcomed its first class of undergraduates this fall.

Interim Dean Martin Schoonen says the school is taking an interdisciplinary approach to
design sustainability curricula. “It offers an environmental studies major this year, but
will branch out into five new majors that are awaiting state approval, including
undergraduate programs in sustainability studies, environmental design, policy, and
planning, ecological studies and human impact and art, culture and theories,” he says.

The school is a work in progress, as faculty and donors design curricula where few
models currently exist. “We are teaching environmental studies more broadly than
before and trying to create a well-balanced sustainability program,” says Schoonen.

According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education,

Lexington, Ky., the rise in sustainability education is evident. “Our membership went
from 30 in 2005 to 400 now,” says Tom Kimmerer, executive director. “It’s clear to me
and most others that sustainability is rapidly becoming an educational and societal
trend.”

Most engineering and design schools now offer associate, bachelor’s and master’s
degrees focused on sustainability. Kimmerer says. With more academic institutions
committing to sustainable design and construction in campus facilities, Kimmerer says
schools and educators also are “informally educating contractors about green building.”
As more owners adopt sustainable building practices, he sees demand for green-
thinking graduates.

Comeback

Also heating up is demand for nuclear engineers as the power supply makes a
comeback as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. The number of schools offering
degrees in nuclear engineering in recent years has tripled, says Michael Corradini, chair
of the nuclear engineering and engineering physics department at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison.

With the recent submission of a

permit application in Texas to build

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and operate the first nuclear plant in

the nation in more than 30 years,
demand for grads schooled in newer
and safer design and construction
techniques is expected to explode,
educators say.

“We’ve seen the number of students

in our nuclear engineering programs
grow by a factor of four,” says
Corradini. “Industry is reaching out to
us and saying they need graduates
who are conversant in nuclear
Washington Group International technology.”
Nuclear power is seen as cleaner alternative to
fossilfuel.
Likewise, the federal government is
ramping up support of universities’ nuclear engineering and research programs, says
John Gutteridge, director of university programs at the U.S. Dept. of Energy. He says
the agency has helped fund about 40 university nuclear programs since 1997 to the
tune of about $120 million in grants, which has assisted schools in starting up and
expanding nuclear-engineering programs and upgrading research laboratories.

DOE is looking to reverse a dearth in nuclear engineers spawned by stagnation in the

nuclear power sector following the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor accident in
Pennsylvania. Many remaining experts are on the cusp of retirement age.

“In all universities in nuclear engineering there have been less than 600 graduates
since 1997,” says Gutteridge. “That is not nearly enough. We need at least 300 to 400
per year to replace those who are retiring and keep up with new growth. We started
taking steps in 1997 to get up to speed, but there will not be enough people in the next
decade to keep up with growth.”

One encouraging development is Congress’s renewal of funds this year about $27
million for DOE’s efforts after two years in which grant funding was not even requested
by the administration. “We recognized nuclear would make a comeback, and it is,” says
Gutteridge.

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