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PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Environmental Studies & Sustainability Program (ESSP) is
a multidiscipline program for students and faculty across the college.
It brings together a rich grouping of courses, ongoing projects,
campus programs (including the new sustainable
campus plan), and speaker series so that students can develop
their own ways to combine the sciences, social sciences, and humanities
to study and work on environmental and sustainability topics.
Through the ESSP Hampshire students develop a truly interdisciplinary,
project-based course of studies which allows them to tackle –
with the help of faculty and other students – complex, real-world
issues. This is just the preparation that college graduates need
to face the difficult environmental problems and challenges of today.
DIVISION I in ESSP
• Division I at Hampshire is accomplished mainly in the first
year. By taking problem and issue-based courses, students begin
the process of asking their own questions and building on the progress
of other professionals before them. Through their courses ESSP students
might work on a new electrical generating windmill at the Farm Center,
assess concentrations of arsenic from historical spraying in our
apple orchards, count and observe migrating birds from our aerial
walkway, or assess environmental justice issues in nearby postindustrial
cities.
DIVISION II in ESSP
• Students accomplish their Concentration, Division II, during
their second and third years, and they design their Concentrations
with the guidance of a faculty committee. Each Division II is unique
and includes courses, internships, and projects. ESSP students especially
interested in the sciences might focus on geology, chemistry, biology,
ecology or agriculture. Others might choose a more interdisciplinary
path and integrate the Social and Natural Sciences or Humanities
and Sciences. Many ESSP Concentrations (Division II) are by nature
interdisciplinary.
Within four areas of focus some recent Division II titles are:
Environmental Science: Conservation Biology, Geology; Environmental
Chemistry
Agriculture: Bioregionalism and Sustainable
Agriculture: Creating a Sense of Place; Agriculture and Society;
Ethnobotany
Design and Technology: Alternative Energy Design and Implementation,
Solar and Wind Engineering
Sustainable Communities: Land Use and Development in Hadley, Massachusetts:
Helping Diverse Ideas Lead to Healthy Decisions; Cultural Ecology;
Sustainable Community Design
DIVISION III in ESSP
• Division III includes an in-depth project which students
work during their final year at Hampshire. Many ESSP students do
summer field projects or internships on and off campus and then
write a thesis under the supervision of their Division III committee.
Example Division IIIs in ecology and conservation, geology and chemistry,
policy and history, community development, entrepreneurship and
invention, and agriculture and nature writing are listed below.
The following are examples of recent Division III titles:
A Tale of Two States: Progressive Land Use in the U.S.
Federal Intervention in Environmental Affairs: A Case Study of Boston
Harbor
Wind Energy: Working Towards a Sustainable Energy Path
Materials and Process Affecting Compost Quality: An Analysis of
the Hampshire College Farm Composting System
Carbon Dating Anomalies in the Long Valley Caldera, California
Sea Turtle Restoration Biology and Ethics
A Vegetable Oil Powered Diesel Car
Kavas: The Sacred Mini Forests in Kerala, India
Video Production of Environmental Issues
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