Statement of Purpose: Why do we want a Center for Environmental Studies?

1. To unify our multifarious environmental offering in order to make sense of it to our students in order to find orderly routes through it to the goals that they may have in mind.
2. To place our resources in one place, to become a center for conversations formal and otherwise, to help faculty conduct research in environmental science, ethics, economics and policy, and to guide our students in these fields.
3. To become a resource for the community, for consultation on regional environmental matters and for education, through public lectures and workshops, for the people of the area.
4. To serve as an interface between the concerns of the academy and the environmental concerns of the area environmental health in our cities, environmental preservation in our suburbs, environmentally sound agricultural practices in the rural areas. The center should be a permeable membrane, helping the academy direct its resources where they are needed, helping the community teach us about the real needs of the region.