"There were a number of students who were particularly interested in this interface [between] environmental and policy issues," he says.

He says that lectures on environmental issues have been given to packed Science Center audiences.

"It's a strong statement that the interest of young people in the environment is much greater than we thought," he says. "It's impossible to ignore us now."

Diverse Group of Concentrators

Diversity is important in ESPP, since environmentalism has often been critiqued as being divided by class and race.

"It's as diversified as the College," says Michael B. McElroy, Rotch professor of atmospheric science. "We are pleased that we have a larger fraction of women concentrators than...the other sciences. All minorities are represented."

Coffey agrees that ESPP concentrators are a diverse group, saying they consist of everything from "premeds to gov guys to granolas."

"[ESPP] is going to produce the kind of people who will be the leaders in environmental affairs after they graduate," says McElroy, who is chair of the University Committee on the Environment and a member of the ESPP degree committee. "[They will have] a deep understanding of serious environmental challenges and know where to put their time and effort."

Students who are concentrating in ESPP have begun assuming those leadership roles by undertaking policy-oriented senior theses.

One student who is concentrating in ESPP says she is doing the international policy track and would like to work in government or international policy and focus on issues relating to the environment of South America.

Alexis M. Maybank '97 says she took a semester off to study international policy in Argentina and is doing her senior thesis on the construction of a 2,000-mile-long waterway project in South America.

And Castle is working on a thesis about the economics of a natural disaster. He says he is doing four case studies on earthquakes and hurricanes.

"A good fraction of the senior theses are good and interesting and a few of them are truly excellent, the sorts of things I would be delighted to be seeing out of the professional schools here and the magazine I edit," says William C. Clark, Harman professor of international science, public policy and human development.

"It's excellent not just in the quality of the research and writing but in the fact that the students are grappling productively with this very difficult topic of the interface between knowledge and action in the environmental realm," says Clark, who is a member of the ESPP board of tutors and vice-chair of the University Committee on the Environment.

Interdisciplinary Nature