The Course:
PLS/ENV 345: Environmental Politics and Public Administration

Conversations and debates on the state of the planet aren’t relegated to scientific communities and laboratories anymore. They’re heard in the halls of Congress, in executive board rooms, in elementary-school classrooms and, with the release of Al Gore’s 2006 award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, even in movie cinemas across the country.

Despite all the talk, experts from many fields continue to disagree on the causes and affects of phenomenons like melting icecaps, warmer oceans and the frequency of super storms and wildfires.

But for students enrolled in Dr. Mark O’Gorman’s PLS/ENV345: Environmental Politics and Public Administration course, the debates frame some good, basic questions: In the noise of partisan bickering and sensational media coverage, how can people discern the real environmental issues? What role should governments play in dealing with environmental crises?

“What is clearer now – for the first time in decades – is that the environmental future of our nation and our planet is now a political issue,” said O’Gorman, associate professor of political science and coordinator of the College’s environmental studies major. He writes in his syllabus for students: “How can rhetoric and speculation be separated from valid facts, so that policy makers, selected and elected political officials can prioritize our planet as the central political issue of your generation? That is the question this course will attempt to reveal.”

PLS/ENV354 is a required course for both environmental studies and political science majors. According to its professor, the course is useful to both majors because many political science students are interested in careers in policymaking, state and local government jobs, campaigning and pre-law. For the environmental studies majors, jobs with wildlife management, outdoor recreation administration and biology fieldwork are aspirations.

“What is clearer now – for the first time in decades – is that the environmental future of our nation and our planet is now a political issue.”

- Dr. Mark O'Gorman

 

Students do not have to be biology majors to understand the critical issues facing the environment that are studied in this course. O’Gorman explains: “They need not be natural science-fluent, but it becomes clear that in recent times, environmental issues are as much about science as power. Knowing more science, rather then less, can only help students recognize the importance of sustainability or trans-boundary environmental issues … and help discover solutions that benefit everyone.”

O’Gorman challenges his students to do real environmental work and immerse themselves in real, local environmental issues at Maryville College and in East Tennessee. He hopes this immersion will help students achieve a more complete integration of knowledge, philosophy and action that embodies the work needed to resolve debates regarding the planet.

“Students experience praxis, which is a Greek term that attempts to describe how to marry theory with practice and action. Like any marriage, it is not without obstacles.”

On the theory side of the course, students are assigned readings and expected to participate in discussions that range from “The ‘ideal’ versus the ‘reality’ of environmental politics” to “Regulation – Land, Air and Water” and answer questions about legislation like the Clean Air Act and reports from groups such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Because staying current with both new and old environmental policies is critical in meeting the course’s objectives, O’Gorman requires students to keep a portfolio of recent news coverage involving the environmental politics. Some local issues that students have been following this semester include the recent Maryville College rezoning plan and the water/drought issue in Tennessee.

Looking beyond Maryville and the United States, students easily see that that environmental politics extend far beyond America’s boundaries. They are required to keep a journal over the course of the semester in which they choose any nation (excluding those in North America and Europe) and collect several articles relating to environmental issues found within that country.

“Finding information on those issues, like the issue of Beijing’s air pollution and if it can be mitigated in any way for the summer Olympics – or the status of the Great Barrier Reef in the ocean off of Australia – researching these questions help students recognize the international nature of eco-political issues,” said O’Gorman.

The course is taught with experiential learning in mind. Answering the action objectives of the course, students are required to put all that they learn in the classroom into an environmental service project.

Earlier this semester, the class divided into four separate groups to tackle issues facing the Maryville College campus and the community. The goal of the project is to provide a “student environmental consulting service” to clients dealing with real-time and ongoing environmental issues.

For example, one group is creating a list of added energy saving features that could be added to the interior of the under-construction residence hall and also to the soon-to-be-constructed Civic Arts Center. The goal for another group is compiling a list of suggestions to be made to the City of Maryville for their Wetlands Education Center project that allows for public use of the sensitive wetland ecosystem in a sustainable manner.

Students bring together all they have learned over the course of the semester, both in class and while doing their service project, into a 20-page final report. This report is presented to a group of experts, which in the past has included Dr. Bill Seymour, vice president of administrative services, Mountain Challenge Director Bruce Guillaume and members of the College’s Environment and Forestry Advisory Committee. This year, O’Gorman hopes to include planners from the City of Maryville in the group.

It is a very appropriate way to end the course because even the best environmental proposals have to pass through multiple levels of political approval before they can be made into policy, O’Gorman said.