With Canada facing an unprecedented demand for environmental professionals, Western’s latest initiative could be just what the labour market ordered.

A new School of Environment and Sustainability could become a reality as early as 2008 if Professor Robert Bailey and Western’s Environmental Education Working Group are successful in convincing the university a need exists.

Formed in 2005 by administration to re-define Western’s profile and activities in undergraduate environmental education, Bailey, Director of Environmental Research, says the group quickly found merit in proposing a new structure for environmental education and research at Western.

The objective would be to showcase strengths of existing environmental scholars and break down barriers between faculties and departments.

Going even further, the proposed school would guide Western in adopting sustainable behaviours on campus.

“We also wanted the new initiative to focus and assist Western’s corporate commitment to greater responsibility and sustainability in its use of resources and waste management,” says Bailey, who co-chairs the group with Geography Chair Dan Shrubsole.

The thrust behind the new school would be to make Western a leader among Canadian universities in the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge about the earth’s environment and sustainability, he says.

This would be accomplished through undergraduate, graduate, continuing studies, research and corporate sustainability components.

“It’s about understanding the environment, not only the physical, chemical and biological elements, but how humans interact with it and how this interaction is used to manage and sustain that environment,” says Bailey.

Bailey adds an interdisciplinary approach to the programs, modules and courses is key to the success of the school, which would be co-managed by the faculties of Engineering, Science and Social Science.
“There is only so much you can do as far as research and teaching is concerned when locked into one faculty,” he says. “You truly need the interdisciplinary element.”

Looking ahead, Bailey says early estimates for the school would see a Chair and 14 joint-appointment faculty members. Staff members are also required and would be hired at the appropriate time.

Western Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Fred Longstaffe says the report is timely given the draft Strategic Plan’s priority for interdisciplinary collaboration in undergraduate and graduate education, and research.

“Next steps will include review and discussion of the report by all interested parties, and ultimately, consideration of its recommendations this fall and winter, alongside those of other initiatives, in the next cycle of Western’s well-established planning process,” says Longstaffe.

He adds it’s encouraging to see suggestions for new academic directions, such as this one, being brought forward by the academy.

“I look forward to ensuring that the ideas presented in the sustainability proposal receive full consideration in the months ahead,” says Longstaffe.

Focus groups, which have included both on- and off-campus input, have helped the group assemble a solid proposal that would “enhance learning” at Western, Bailey says.

“We think that properly structured, and with sufficient , independently controlled resources, the school can form the basis of newly invigorated undergraduate, graduate and continuing education programs, and foster inter-disciplinary research among Western faculty and external partners,” says Bailey.

By Paul Mayne

For more information about the Environmental Education Working Group and plans for a School of Environment and Sustainability, visit:

http://www.uwo.ca/enviro/EnvEdWG.htm