Green Studies Add Up At Holy Cross

Colleges are structuring environmental studies programs in many different ways. There are policy tracks and science tracks, programs with a focus on the domestic economy and those that take a global view.

Until last week, I hadn't seen a math angle. But there it is at Holy Cross, and it has, according to the college, become very popular. It might have something to do with the fact that Catherine Roberts, who is an associate professor of mathematics, is also the director of the college's Environmental Studies program. She teaches a course called Environmental Mathematics (in the Holy Cross catalog as Math 110), and this semester it was full--with a waiting list.

Environmental Mathematics is just one component to the environmental studies program at Holy Cross. But it seems a fair barometer of a larger trend there. The college says there were eight Environmental Studies students graduated in 2004; 12 in 2005; 23 in 2006; and 33 in 2007. There's a lot happening outside the math department too. Roberts has rallied professors for a series of 15 free lectures that range from a celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday to women in environmental jobs.

Image, credit: Catherine Roberts, by John Buckingham