Williams College
AC-3: Undergraduate Program

Critical environmental issues of our time call upon citizens, organizations, and other agencies to grasp complex science concepts, address conflicting human values, and make difficult economic, political and ethical choices. The curricular options in Environmental Studies—our major and our concentration—are designed to prepare students to deal effectively with these issues by integrating perspectives and methodologies from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities.

We encourage and assist ENVI students to examine environmental issues in the vicinity of Berkshire County, other regions of the US, and the world. Many of our courses also include an experiential component so that students can learn the complexities of environmental issues first-hand. The Center for Environmental Studies (CES) manages the 2600-acre Hopkins Memorial Forest and the Environmental Analysis Laboratory in the Morley Science Laboratory, both of which afford great opportunities for hands-on environmental lab experience and fieldwork. CES also sponsors a wide range of environmentally-themed activities, events, and programs, including the Friday noon Log Lunch speaker series and an extensive program of generous support for summer internships relating to environmental issues.

Students who wish to pursue a major in Environmental Studies prepare an individualized plan for the major in the spring semester of the sophomore year with the help of a faculty advisor from the ENVI program. Each such plan combines a core set of courses with an individualized 4-course elective cluster tailored to the student’s particular disciplinary or topical interests.

Incoming students with an interest in Environmental Studies should consider taking ENVI 101: Nature and Society during their first semester at Williams. (ENVI 101 is offered only in the fall semester of each year.) This gateway course is required for the major and the concentration and provides an excellent overview of the most critical environmental issues ofour time, bringing together scientific, political, ethical and cultural perspectives. ENVI 101 also serves to introduce students to the challenges and rewards of interdisciplinary study, preparing them for the more advanced courses to follow.

While ENVI 101 is a recommended starting point for both the major and the concentration, many students come to Environmental Studies through an interest in applying a specific discipline to environmental problems. Students who think that they may wish to pursue a “plan of study” that focuses on environmental biology, environmental chemistry or environmental geosciences or on economics are advised to begin the introductory course sequence for those subjects in their first semester as well.

The Environmental Studies Program also serves as the on-campus base for the Williams-Mystic Program, an extraordinary maritime studies program housed at Williams Mystic Campus on the Atlantic coast in Connecticut. Students who wish to pursue a concentration in Maritime Studies combine a one-semester course of study at the Williams-Mystic campus with core courses and elective courses as described in the college catalog. Students may spend a semester at the Mystic campus in either the sophomore, junior, or senior year; choosing which semester to spend at Mystic should be done in consultation with a member of the Environmental Studies faculty.

The Environmental Studies concentration provides students with an opportunity to explore how humans interact with the environment, including physical, biological, philosophical, and social elements. The concentration is designed so that students will understand the complexity of issues and perspectives and appreciate that most environmental issues lack distinct disciplinary boundaries. The goal of the concentration is to educate students to be well–informed, environmentally–literate citizens of the planet who have the capacity to become active participants in the local and global community. To this end, the concentration is designed to develop the capability to think in interdisciplinary ways and to use synthetic approaches to solve problems while incorporating the knowledge and experiences gained from majoring in other departments at the College.

Understanding the oceans and our interactions with them is of increasing importance in this era of climate change, sea-level rise, fisheries crises, and the internationalization of the high seas. We encourage students to investigate our WaterWorld from the perspectives of the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. Maritime Studies is an interdisciplinary, cross-divisional program that includes the literature, history, policy issues, and science of the ocean. Candidates for the concentration in Maritime Studies must complete a minimum of seven courses: the interdisciplinary introductory course (Geosciences 104 Oceanography), four intermediate core courses (at Williams-Mystic), an elective, and the senior seminar.