Environmental Studies as a core requirement...

There is a perception that environmental studies is growing as a general education requirement at universities. In looking through the core requirements of fifty schools (links to their cores are available at our "sister" blog site coreresources.blogspot.com), I cannot find any, however, that have environmental studies as a stand-alone requirement. So American universities are not there yet, it seems.

Certainly there is a strong case to be made, pedagogically, for a good survey course in environmental studies. In the old days it was easy of compartmentalize environmental studies as something that "experts" could take care of, but it is clear that environmental issues are now firmly on the political agenda and thus environmental outcomes are driven, in part, by public perceptions of environmental processes. So citizens need to be well-informed critical thinkers on enviornmental issues.

But the hard question: is environmental studies more urgent than all of the other issues vying for position on a core? (See Derek Bok's positions below). And since I am a bit of a nose-tweaker, I found myself thinking that in terms of the human race, shouldn't our students have a good introduction to military and security issues viewed through a peace studies lens, since we seem unable to stop ourselves from killing each other directly, let alone indirectly through pollution.