Details on the ENVS Major

What is the deal with the ENVS major? This page includes information on:

Core Courses
Breadth Courses
Concentration

Core Courses

Core courses in ENVS include the following, for 21 semester credits:

• ENVS 160 (4 credits, spring): Introduction to Environmental Studies
• ENVS 220 (4 credits, fall): Environmental Analysis
• ENVS 310 (4 credits, spring): Environmental Problems
• ENVS 320 (4 credits, fall): Environmental Solutions
• ENVS 400 (4 credits, spring): Senior Seminar
• ENVS 499 (1 credit, typically fall semester senior year): Independent Study: Thesis Preparation

These courses follow a strict sequence: generally, completion of all lower-numbered courses is required to take a higher-numbered course, with the exception of 499, which you should take prior to Senior Seminar to finalize your senior research project. Note that either BIO 141, or ECON 100, or CHEM 110, or IA 100, or SOAN 100 or 110 is required prior to taking ENVS 160, so it's a good idea to do at least one of these courses fall semester of your freshman year (see below).

Depending on whether you take 160 spring semester of your freshman or sophomore year, your path through these core courses will follow one of these diagrams:

160 Spring Freshman Year

160 Spring Sophomore Year

As you can see, if you take 160 in your freshman year (diagram on left) you have alot more flexibility in how you do the remaining core courses: two options are presented, both assuming you take 220 fall of your sophomore year. In the first, you also take 310 in your sophomore year, and 320 your junior year, which opens up spring of your junior year for study abroad or other activities. In the second, you take 310 in your junior year and 320 your senior year, which opens up spring of your sophomore year or fall of your junior year for study abroad or other activities. There are other possibilities too if you take 160 in your freshman year. But if you take 160 in your sophomore year (see diagram on right), you have to take an ENVS core course each semester thereafter to graduate in four years.

Breadth Courses

Breadth courses are other required courses in the ENVS major taken outside of the ENVS Program. These include the following, for 26 semester credits:

• Any two of BIO 141 (5 credits), CHEM 110 (5 credits), and GEOL 150 (5 credits) in the natural sciences, both generally offered fall semester annually
• ECON 260 (4 credits) and either IA 257 (4 credits) or SOAN 305 (4 credits) in the social sciences, all three generally offered spring semester annually
• PHIL 215 (4 credits), generally offered spring semester annually, and one four-credit elective in the arts and humanities

As noted above, it's a good idea to take Bio 141 and Econ 100 (a prerequisite for 260) as soon as you can, optimally one or both during fall semester of your freshman year, because then you'll be able to take ENVS 160 spring term of your freshman year. Geol 150 is a good course to take early in your career at Lewis & Clark because it is a prerequisite for other Geology courses you may want to take, and it gives you some great experience in field research and analysis. (Bio 141 and Geol 150 fill quickly, so talk with your advisor to determine if you should prioritize one of these courses during registration.) The remaining courses may be taken at any time, but it's always a good idea to get these required courses done sooner rather than later, as they will help you in all your upper-division ENVS core courses and give you ideas for possible senior research projects. In addition, you may choose a concentration in one of these areas, e.g. economics or philosophy, and the required breadth courses may be prerequisites for additional upper-division courses in your concentration.

Note that, by the end of your sophomore year (i.e., when you declare a major at L&C), you will fill out a form for ENVS telling us whether you'll be taking SOAN 305 or IA 257, and which four-credit humanities elective you choose and why; this information is provided as part of a larger form that primarily addresses your concentration. On the other end of the spectrum, we no longer require quantitative methods breadth courses because we are integrating this material into our core courses, but we do strongly urge you to complete Mathematics 131 (Calculus I) to fulfill the Category B graduation requirement for scientific and quantitative reasoning.

Concentration

A major difference in the new major is that you don't choose a concentration…you design a concentration! We want to give you the opportunity to identify a scholarly area for which you have a keen interest, or desire advanced professional or academic preparation. You will then design your concentration to build an excellent grasp of the concepts (theories, major issues of scholarly debate, etc.) and skills (research and analytical methods) necessary to do a sensational senior research project in this area. Your concentration may take a natural science, social science, humanities, or transdisciplinary focus, but must be proposed no later than spring semester of your sophomore year.

Here are the basic rules:

• All concentrations must include 16 credits of courses not counted in the above, nor prerequisites for the above
• At least 8 of these 16 credits must (with limited exceptions on a case-by-case basis) be 300-level courses or above
• No more than 8 credits of non-Lewis & Clark courses may be included, and they must be approved before you take them

You will propose a concentration using our online form; when approved, we will convey this information to the Registrar's Office and you will be recorded as an ENVS major. When you propose your concentration, you will fill out an online form that includes the following:

1. The general theme of your concentration
2. Some related questions that define what you are seeking to understand via this concentration
3. A list of courses you will take for your concentration, including when you plan to take each and how they apply to your questions
4. The date in which you discussed all the above with your L&C faculty advisor (we will request a confirmation)
5. You'll also include a listing and justification of your humanities elective on this form; you may want to make this elective relevant to your concentration too, but it cannot count for both

To get you started thinking about the above, visit the concentration help page.

Important note: if you are double-majoring in ENVS and another field, this satisfies the ENVS concentration requirement, and you do not have to propose 16 additional credits. You will, however, be expected to complete a senior research project on a topic that reflects this second major, as you would for a typical concentration.

If you have any questions whatsoever about the above, please do not hesitate to contact envs@lclark.edu for additional guidance. We're very happy to work with you!

Link to the ENVS Moodle Main Page