Environmental Studies Program to Become Part of Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

Beginning January 1, 2022, USC’s Environmental Studies Program (ENST) will become part of the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies (WIES). The change will benefit both ENST and WIES as they more tightly connect education and research on sustainability and the environment within USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

“By combining the Wrigley Institute’s historical strengths in research and engagement with the innovative and student-centered educational approach of the Environmental Studies program, we’ll be better able to deliver classroom, lab, field, and experiential learning opportunities that will help to shape the environmental leaders and changemakers of tomorrow,” says WIES Director Joe Árvai, who is also the Dana and David Dornsife Professor of Psychology.

The new arrangement is driven by the changing landscape of environmental and sustainability challenges. Intensifying climate change is affecting almost every area of human behavior, including where and how we live, what and how we consume, what we invest in or leave behind, and how we interact with one another and with science in general. The current generation of environmental leaders-in-training will only be able to develop effective solutions to these challenges if they’re able to think more critically, creatively, and holistically about the linked environmental, social, and economic dimensions of living sustainably.

“USC Dornsife students recognize both the urgency and the opportunities for creative thinking in the sustainability space,” said USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller. “By bringing our world-class Environmental Studies program together with the integrated research mission at the Wrigley Institute, these students will both engage with environmental challenges head-on and help accelerate the behavioral changes that society must quickly adopt.”

ENST currently offers degrees in the fields of environmental studies and environmental sciences and health, plus a minor in environmental studies. Students can choose from stand-alone bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as options in USC’s Progressive Degree Program, which enables students to earn both a B.A. and M.A. in five years of study. ENST has a long history of collaboration with WIES, and ENST students already have access to numerous research and experiential learning opportunities through the institute. But, says Environmental Studies Program Director Jill Sohm, the new relationship between the two units will take everything to a new level.

“We’ve worked together for years, but I’m very excited to be bringing our two groups together in an official capacity because it means that the expertise, effort, networks, and fundraising capabilities of the Wrigley Institute and their staff will be particularly focused on expanding opportunities for ENST students and helping our faculty create the most impactful educational experience possible,” Sohm says.

Certain aspects of the ENST experience won’t change. There will be no immediate changes to the ENST curriculum, and the same faculty will continue to teach the program’s classes. Available majors and minors will remain the same in the near term, and ENST students will continue to follow the same processes and interact with the same staff and advisors as they navigate their degree programs.

Over the coming months (and years), however, as the Wrigley Institute devotes more resources to ENST, opportunities for students will expand significantly. First, WIES’s Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island will serve as a satellite campus for Environmental Studies students. The institute has already begun to renovate and modernize the campus’s classrooms and labs to better serve ENST’s needs, and more capital projects are in the planning stages. WIES and ENST will also develop new curricular and co-curricular programming for ENST students, including more internships and experiential learning opportunities. Finally, WIES’s new interdisciplinary research centers—focused on Earth & Environmental Systems, Applied Environmental Solutions, and Social Innovation—will incorporate opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students to participate in sustainability and environmental research at one of the country’s leading universities.

These changes are all emblematic of a larger move to make USC and the Wrigley Institute the best possible home for students who want to become tomorrow’s environmental leaders.

“As the director of a student-centered program, my north star is doing things that are good for our students,” Sohm says, “and I believe that joining ENST with the Wrigley Institute will be very good for our students.”