5 College Majors On the Rise

By Karin Fischer and David Glenn

To read the full article visit the Chronicle web site at www.chronicle.com.

Sustainability

Colleges across the country have embraced sustainability, seeking to make their campuses more environmentally friendly. Now, spurred in large part by student demand, colleges are greening their curriculum, too: Some 70 institutions have sustainability-related academic programs, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

There is no single approach to a sustainability degree, says Julian Dautremont-Smith, the group's associate director. Some colleges have married sustainability studies with traditional liberal-arts majors, like economics, while others have developed green architecture and business degrees. Still other institutions prepare graduates to become sustainability scientists or environmental professionals. And beginning last fall, students at the University of New Hampshire can enroll in an undergraduate program in ecogastronomy, combining the fields of sustainable agriculture, hospitality, and nutrition.

The federal government has also gotten involved. This spring NASA awarded $6.4-million in climate-change-education grants to higher-education groups, as well as elementary and secondary educators, that make use of the agency's earth-science data and resources. One recipient, the National Council for Science and the Environment, a nonprofit group, is crafting a virtual tool chest of lesson plans and resources for colleges interested in teaching about climate change.

At Unity College, in Maine, the three-year-old program in sustainability design and technology has a practical bent. "We didn't want to take an ivory-tower approach," says Michael (Mick) Womersley, the program's coordinator and an associate professor of human ecology. "We focused on jobs that are being hired for, now."

The major is heavy on applied skills, like learning how to assess the feasibility of installing wind turbines, and is grounded by a core of physics, biology, and math. Mr. Womersley expects that his students—he has 12—will go on to become energy auditors, environmental-compliance officers, and sustainability coordinators, as well as enrolling in related graduate programs.