I’m having problems finding a job. Maybe that wouldn’t be relevant to this forum, except that I’m an Environmental Studies (ES) major. My classes in that program have convinced me that I want my work to ultimately help the environment. Yet I’m faced with the reality that I may not be able to put my environmental principles fully into practice in whatever job I get after graduation.

This isn’t right. After all, doesn’t Macalester teach us that we should stick to our ideals and make the world a better place? That we can change things, work for global causes, promote diversity? Haven’t I spent four years preparing to take my issues into the world?

Oh wait. I forgot one crucial factor. My issues are not Macalester’s issues. Internationalism and multiculturalism don’t, in many minds, include environmentalism. This is despite the fact that globally and locally, environmental issues are becoming vital in political and social interactions. We see this in the Kyoto Protocol and the problems of environmental racism. These are undeniably issues of internationalism and diversity.

Yet while I spent four years believing in the connection between my field of study and the pillars Macalester professes to embrace, Macalester ignored that environmentalism is a crucial field in a globalizing world.

After four years at Macalester, I have yet to see student involvement strong enough to bring environmental issues to prominence. That prompts me to ask the following question: How are we, the graduating class of over 20 ES majors, supposed to believe that the world will value our environmental commitment when our college will not? When a liberal bastion like Macalester will not pay attention to such a progressive issue, who will? I’m an optimist, but I’m getting disillusioned.

Most students are unfamiliar with our classes, and the administration largely nurtures only the interdisciplinary programs it sees as fitting into a narrowly defined view of internationalism. To be fair, President McPherson has met with Environmental Studies students and listened to our concerns, for which I am grateful. And ES is not very visible. But we don’t have the resources to offer the diversity of classes, speakers, professors, or events that would make us more visible to the college community; and we can’t do this alone.

It’s too late for seniors to force environmental issues into the forefront of campus conversation, but we’re trying. The senior seminar is doing an environmental audit and looking for ways to “green the campus,” and gain institutional support for ES. (Look for our results on the ES web site sometime in May.) We’re leaving the groundwork, and I hope the campus community will, in words and actions, step up to the challenge of making Macalester more environmentally friendly.