This fall, the environmental studies minor will undergo several changes to make it easier for students to fulfill course requirements.The biggest changes to the minor were not having to submit a learning plan, not having to complete a capstone project and changing the double counting rule. Interdisciplinary studies Director Scott Alberts says the changes taking place mostly concern the minor’s structure.“We sort of rebooted the whole minor, but we didn’t actually change most of the courses,” Alberts says.
Alberts says students no longer have to submit an approved learning plan with all the courses they are planning to take or a proposal about what they plan to do at the end of the minor. Students now simply can declare the environmental studies minor online through TruView.
Alberts says there weren’t many people with this minor, and he says he thinks the learning plan may have scared a few people away. He says without having to do that it should be much easier for people to add this minor. Alberts says instead of having a capstone project before graduating, students will have to complete two credits of service learning.
This requires students to complete service that involves doing research, writing a reflection on the experience and integrating it with previous coursework. He says two student-facilitated courses, Grassroots Environmentalism and Expanding Environmental Consciousness, already complete service learning projects.
To read more about Truman amending environmental studies minor requirements, be sure to pick up a copy of the April 28 Index on newsstands now or online here.