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The minor in Environmental Policy and Culture (EPC) is an interdisciplinary program of study to enable students to acquire capacity to participate in scholarly inquiry about issues and problems of managing the natural environment, with an emphasis upon work in the humanities and the social sciences.
A minor in EPC requires students to select seven courses from the list of approved courses. Two of these courses must be selected from among: History 215, A Spoiled New World? ; Philosophy 268, Ethics and the Environment; Religion 261, American Religion, Ecology, and Culture; Political Science 204, Politics and Nature; Geography 211, World Biogeography. These are broader survey courses, and provide a foundation for the minor.
At least four courses must be at the 300 level. There are no 'tracks' within the minor, so students can pick and choose among the course options. But it is appropriate and possible for students to pursue some specialty or track of their own making within the minor. To this end, it is possible for students, upon approval, to count one unit of independent study toward fulfilling the minor.
Students must take one science course selected from the following list:
- Biol Sci 204, ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY
- Biol Sci 345, TOPICS IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
- Biol Sci 346, FIELD ECOLOGY
- Biol Sci 347, CONSERVATION BIOLOGY
- Civ Eng 206, ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY
- Civ Eng 360, ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT EVALUATION
- Env Sci 235, ATMOSPHERE AND CLIMATE
- Geol Sci 111, GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
Because the minor is meant to have a humanities and social science focus, no more than two courses will be automatically approved for the minor from the natural sciences list of courses. However, there will be students who will take courses which are on the list of approved courses, but which they are precluded from counting for the EPC minor because there is no double counting allowed as between majors and minors. This situation might occur for majors in history, religion, political science, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and economics who are pursuing an EPC minor. To illustrate, a political science major who is minoring in EPC is likely to take Political Science 204, Politics and Nature. If the student is counting Political Science 204 as a course for the major, it cannot also count for the minor. This type of situation will occur for many students. If students have , in fact taken courses which are on the EPC list, but which are being used to fulfill a major requiorement are allowed and encouraged to take and count additional natural science courses in fulfilling the EPC minor. Students who have a major in the natural sciences should take the regular set of courses for the minor.
In many academic years there are other courses offered which fall within the core interests of this program, perhaps given as topics or linkage courses, for example. Such courses can be approved for fulfilling the EPC minor. Declared EPC minors will be notified of any such additions to the course list, and the announcement of those courses will be posted on the EPC web page.
