A group of Environmental Studies majors, concerned about the future of the department, met early this month to discuss ways to get more funding and support for the interdisciplinary major.

“[Environmental Studies] has become a much more popular major in recent years but there has been no increase in faculty or funding,” ES major Catherine Neuschler ’02 said.

According to Institutional Research, there are 39 declared ES majors this semester. Based on this data, ES is the second most popular interdisciplinary major (after International Studies) and ranks 12th in popularity among the 38 majors offered at Macalester.

Though the seniors did agree the program had improved since their first year, they worried about its future.

“The consensus is that it is a good program, and it has developed a lot,” said ES major Joel Creswell ’02, who called the meeting. “But it can’t go further without more support from the college.”

According to Creswell, seniors at the meeting discussed funding and faculty for the program. Last year, ES requested a $50,000 budget. Their budget is reportedly $10,000, but this year, the program also has an extra $25,000 grant from an anonymous donor, which helps with expensive student projects. One of the next steps for the students is to look into budget allocation-”how the budget is assigned and what input students have in that,” Creswell said.

As for concerns about faculty, ES majors Anna Payden ’02, Mike Gelardi ’02 and Creswell met with Provost Jan Peterson Executive Assistant to Provost Dan Horbach after the student meeting to discuss institutional goals and the future of the program. Much of the meeting was devoted to how faculty is hired, which is based on a set ratio of students to professors, which is ten to one. If a new professor is hired, another professor must leave in order to keep the ratio the same. Currently, Associate Professor Al Romero is the only permanent faculty member in the ES department.

“He’s done a lot of work, like restructuring the major and starting EnviroThursdays,” Neuschler said. “A lot of us like the direction [the major has] taken, but it’s just been Al Romero. We want to know, how can we leave other students a vibrant and viable program?”

The students would like to see more joint faculty appointments with other departments, along with more funding in order to boost the program’s reputation.

“ES is a pretty fast growing field,” Creswell said. “Other schools [whose programs] started out like Macalester’s but have given theirs more faculty and funding became famous because of their program. Macalester has that potential if it gives more support.”

The students do not have a clear plan of action yet, but they are working on ways in which to go about making changes.

“We’d like to talk to the president about what he wants for the program and its future,” Creswell said. “Right now, we’re trying to get an idea of what channels we can go through.”