The University is taking small steps to better the future. Two formally separate departments with the same goal of helping the environment have combined forces.

Recently the Environmental Health program and Environmental Studies program merged together to form the Department of Environment and Sustainability in the School of Earth, Environment and Society. The school was approved on Dec. 5.

“We need to prepare our students for a different world than has existed,” said Gary Silverman, department chair of the new school. “So, to prepare our students for this different world we have to realign our resources so that we can do that. This is a small step in that realignment that we are planning to take a leadership position in a number of areas.”

Silverman said the new school offers three majors: environmental science, environmental policy and analysis, both from the Environmental Studies program, and environmental health.

He said these degrees have remained the same; however the administration is different.

“I used to be the director of Environmental Health, someone else was director of Environmental Programs,” Silverman said. “Now there’s just me in that joint role [as] department chair of [the school].”

While the degrees and requirements remain the same, they may change in the future.

Charles Onasch, the director of the school, said he hopes they can redesign the curricula so students in one major can take advantage of courses in another major.

Onasch said the department had a number of duplicate programs, such as geology and geography, that both had a similar course, but now that the departments have merged they have one single course that can be taken by both majors.

“Hence, we won’t have to teach as many courses,” Onasch said.

While their courses are also being merged, so are the faculty.

“It’s hard to have a department with very few faculty,” Onasch said. “Because even though your program is small, there’s still lots of stuff to do, and if there’s only a couple [of] people to shoulder all those responsibilities I think the students ultimately suffer in the end because of the time spent in just administrating the program.”

Simon Morgan-Russell, the interim dean of the College of Arts and Science, said there is a newly hired professor who does not have a department affiliation, but was a school hire.

“He might teach in different departments and in such he brings his interdisciplinary background to those two programs,” Morgan-Russell said. “Courses won’t change in the short term, but because of who’s teaching, the courses the programs will pull together in essence.”

While the departments have come together in one school and will be sharing faculty and curricula, they have not, however, come together under one roof.

“One of the things that we sort of regret is that even though these three units are in a school, they’re not in the same building,” Morgan-Russell said.

Currently, the school is located in Overman Hall, Geography is in Hanna Hall and Environment and Sustainability is located in Shatzel Hall.

Onasch said there has been discussion among faculty of a new integrated science building.

“We’re hopeful that in the not too distant future that we can all get together under one roof,” Onasch said.

Even though the departments will not all be in the same location, there are still some benefits to the University.

Silverman said the recent merge will not save or cost the University anything; however, he said it could save in the future.

“If the University starts adopting environmentally sustainable practices, the University will start saving money,” Silverman said.

Onasch said there has been a small saving in the merge though.

He said the Environmental Health department had a part-time secretary and the Environmental Studies program had a full-time secretary. Now, the school is using one secretary.

Russell-Morgan said he believes the fact that this merge did not cost the University anything was a good thing.

“We’re not in a time where we want to do something that will cost the University more money,” Russell-Morgan said. “We strive for efficiencies wherever possible.”

The University will not be the only one benefiting from the new school; the students will also.

Onasch said he thinks it will eliminate a lot of confusion students may have had in recent years, because Environmental Health was in the College of Health and Human Services while Environmental Studies was in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Another benefit, Morgan-Russell said, is that students will be marketable after graduation.

“Employers out there these days are very interested in not so much students gaining raw content,” Morgan-Russell said. “They’re more interested in that you can bridge different areas of knowledge, have skills and figure out how to apply these skills in different ways.”

Morgan-Russell said another benefit of the University’s new school that will give students an advantage is they will be more willing to think creatively and solve environmental issues that will come in the next several decades.

“They’re going to have to develop skills of talking to each other across disciplines to propose solutions to environmental issues,” Morgan-Russell said.

These benefits go along with the significance of the name of the new school, the School of Earth, Environment and Society.

Onasch said the name is recognition of the importance of sustainability and the faculty wanted to have that in the name.

“We have a big goal of educating all the students that graduate from Bowling Green so that they’re environmentally literate and can make the right decisions when they’re out there as citizens,” Onasch said.