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Environmental Studies

Department Overview

Chris Graves

Chemistry and Environmental Studies Professor Chris Graves designs aluminum compounds for development of more sustainable catalytic processes. 

ENVS celebrating the new major

Faculty, staff and students celebrated the birth of the Environmental Studies major on May 5 with cake, t-shirts and nachos.

Professors Haili Kong and Carol Nackenoff took eighteen students in their CHIN/POLS 087A course on Policies and Issues of Fresh Water Resources to Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Tainan in the summer of 2017.
 

Party celebrating the ENVS major.

Another picture celebrating the zeroth birthday of the Environmental Studies major.

Capstone:Environmental Communication Hope and Action

The Hope and Action Capstone students and Professor Di Chiro had an open house organized with many booths offering interactive activities to engage students about climate change and to prepare for the People's Climate March in DC in April. 

Giovanna Di Chiro

The Environmental Studies Program is thrilled to welcome Giovanna Di Chiro, an internationally-known scholar of environmental science and policy, as the first full-time faculty member of the Program. Professor Di Chiro will be teaching ENVS 035/POLS 043B. Environmental Justice: Theory and Action and ENVS 042/ENGL 089E. Ecofeminism in the fall of 2018. 

Carr Everbach

Engineering Professor Carr Everbach engages students in hands-on design.  Professor Everbach is on leave 2018-2019.

 

Eric Jensen

Astronomer Eric Jensen is the program coordinator for Environmental Studies.

Christy Schuetze

Anthropologist Christy Schuetze visits a spirit medium with whom she's been working since 2001. Professor Schuetze is on leave spring 2019.

José-Luis Machado

Ecologist José-Luis Machado engages his students in the Crum woods next to campus.  Professor Machado is teaching BIOL 137. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in the fall 2018.

 

Tim Burke

Historian Tim Burke teaches the Environmental History of Africa while more broadly considering possibilities inherent in digital humanities and relationships between theory and popular culture.

Art McGarity

Professor McGarity is teaching ENGR 057. Operations Research and ENGR 063. Water Quality and Pollution Control in the fall 2018. ENGR 066. Environmental Systems will be taught in the spring 2019.  He also teaches ENGR 004A. Environmental Protection (spring 2020) and ENGR 035. Solar Energy Systems (fall 2019) for the Environmental Studies program.

Betsy Bolton

English professor and Fulbright scholar Betsy Bolton shares digital stories with some of her collaborators: Hamid and Mohammed, traditional artisans in the Fès medina.  

Chemistry and Environmental Studies Professor Chris Graves designs aluminum compounds for development of more sustainable catalytic processes. 

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Environmental Studies News

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Upcoming Events

Environmental Studies at the Lang Center

One of the central goals of the Environmental Studies program is for students to see their own world through others’ eyes in order to understand the human dimension of environmental issues. (Human beings are, after all, part of the environment.)  Community- and project-based learning is thus central to the Environmental Studies program.

The Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility supports Swarthmore faculty, staff, and students as they engage with “surrounding communities both locally and globally, for mutual benefit and reciprocally enriching relationships.”

This fall, connections between Environmental Studies and the Lang Center will become even closer and more explicit.  The Environmental Studies program and the Peace and Conflict Studies program will begin holding office hours on the second floor of the southern half of the Lang Center; several environmental studies classes will be held in the Lang Center, and a variety of co-curricular events will be jointly hosted by the Environmental Studies program and the Lang Center.  Stay tuned for more news!

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Environmental Studies at the Lang Center

ENVS faculty hold a range of opinions about divestment

Swarthmore’s Environmental Studies faculty, all agreed on the urgent importance of mitigating climate change, nonetheless hold a range of opinions about the efficacy of the divestment movement.  

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Divestment Sit-In