ESPP Purpose
Develop University-wide graduate education programs (initially doctoral specialization)Articulate and coordinate research activitiesIdentify gaps and opportunities and deploy faculty hires and strategic investments to move areas forwardCommunicate MSU excellence to broader community
Faculty•130+ faculty members to date•11 Colleges
–Agriculture and Natural Resources–Arts & Letters–Business–Communication Arts and Sciences–Engineering–Human Ecology–Law–Natural Science–Osteopathic Medicine–Social Science–Veterinary Medicine
Governance
“Board”Deans Armstrong, Baba, Klomparens, Leroi, VPRGS Gray, Acting Director Baker Dean of SSC is lead dean
Program Advisory Group (PAG)10 faculty elected to two-year terms2 faculty appointed by each College Dean to 1-year term
environment.msu.eduWebsite launch February 10, 2004, to coincide with “State of the University” address
Portal to ESPP and environmental work at MSU for the world
Materials distributed to National Council of Environmental Deans and DirectorsMaterials distributed at AAASEnvironment ad ongoingRadio spots on WUOM (May/June 2004)Launch of search engine of faculty expertise at Society of Environmental Journalists meeting in October 2004Feature story in Graduate Post, Fall 2004
environment.msu.edu
environment.msu.edu
We need your helpFocus group with graduate students indicates that website is best mechanism for informing students of our programsPlease
Get your department to link to environment.msu.eduDistribute our “sticky notes” and magnetic clips at professional meetingsReview and update your bio sketch and your entry in the database Suggest other Web resources to which we can link (we will do major update of this section over the summer)
Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs
Doctoral specialization in ESPP4-course sequence supporting existing doctoral programs12 students enrolled in ESP 802
Four 2-year doctoral fellowships awarded per year (2-year match by doctoral program required)
Other Graduate Program Possibilities•Master’s level specialization in ESP (2-3 courses)
•Possibly two tracks for those with and those without natural science background
•Certificate in Ecosystems Services
•~2 courses, Web-based
•Plan to link strongly with Millennium Assessment
•Coordination of courses in economics, law, policy
•Develop repertoire of courses
•Possible certificate in environmental law for scientists and engineers
•Environmental economics faculty to offer two sections of intro graduate environmental economics, one for economics graduate students, one for others
•M.S. in ES? ES&P?
•Certificate in environmental monitoring?
New Faculty--Interdisciplinary First priority is for policy, articulating with substantive areas of strength in ESPP and with at least one line focusing on risk2 lines this year, search underwayAssistant/ Associate levelInitial appointment 25% in department, 75% in ESPP and other University wide units (e.g., MAES, MSUE)Migrating out of ESPP over ~5 yearsAll departments willing to participate are eligible - no prior commitment to specific departmentNext two priorities to be developed by PAG with open call for ideas
New Faculty—Helping Departments GrowMost colleges now use position management at the college levelESPP can be an advocate for departmental requests that serve the overall mission of enhancing environmental graduate research and education at MSUProcess this spring
Workshop to identify priorities for new environmental facultyLink these creatively with existing departmental priorities Articulate these priorities to Deans, etc.
Signature Areas
Call for signature area white papers in Spring 2004All proposals to articulate with national and international priorities
list of such priorities from NRC, etc.; documents at environment.msu.edu
Review by PAG Board and “Board”Developed strategic plans for investments during Fall 2004Initial priorities for new faculty emerged and are input to priority settingEnvironmental Research Initiative to provide targeted funding
An Image of Current StructureSignature Areas and their constituents
Participant groups listed in alphabetical order with faculty leaders in parentheses. Italics indicate formal ESPP White Paper proposing signature program.
Ecosystems and Human Well-BeingBiogeochemistry Faculty Group Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability Center for Global Change & Earth ObservationsCenter for Microbial Ecology Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Program Invasive Species Faculty Group Kellogg Biological Station Kellogg Long Term Ecological Research Site Sustainable Michigan Endowed Project
Signature Areas and their constituents, continued
Environment and Human HealthEnvironmental Toxicology Faculty Group (Center for Integrative Toxicology)Environmental Transport of Pollutants and Pathogens Faculty Group Environmental Health Subtheme in Biomedical Sciences/ Health initiative
Environmental Monitoring and AnalysisEnvironmental Statistics and Modeling Faculty Group
(Note: Most other groups and many centers/ projects have expertise in this area.)
Climate Change AssessmentBiogeochemistry Faculty GroupCenter for Global Change & Earth Observations Climate Land Interaction Project Integrated Risk and Impact Assessment Associated with Climate Variability and Change Faculty Group
Signature Areas and their constituents, continued
Land Use Center for Global Change & Earth ObservationsClimate Land Interaction ProjectLand Policy Program
Risk, Values and Decision MakingEnvironmental and Resource Economics Faculty GroupFood Safety Policy REF Center Public participation working group Risk initiative Social and Ethical Research and Education in Agrifood Nanotechnology Project
Signature Areas and their constituents, continued
Sustainable Agriculture and Food SystemsSustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
WaterInstitute of Water Research Center For Water Sciences Water and Aquatic Sciences Faculty Group
National Ecological Observation Network (NEON)
•Continental scale instrument based on geographically distributed networked infrastructure
•Fully interdisciplinary (physical, biological, social sciences and engineering)
•Responsive to Grand Challenges in the Environmental Sciences
•NSF proposes Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction funds
•NEON Design Consortium 6 months into 2-year planning effort (www.neoninc.org) with NSF funding
National Ecological Observation Network (NEON)
•MSU proactive:•Gross co-chairs Biodiversity Subcommittee•Tiedje serves on Biodiversity Subcomitttee•Robertson serves on Research Infrastructure Subcommittee•Dietz serves on Advisory Board
•Robertson et al. leading internal MSU planning effort
Grand ChallengesBiodiversity—“The challenge is to improve understanding of the factors affecting biological diversity and ecosystem structure and functioning, including the role of human activity.” Biogeochemical cycles—“The challenge is to further our understanding of the Earth’s major biogeochemical cycles, evaluate how they are being perturbed by human activities, and determine how they might better be stabilized.” Climate change —“The challenge is to increase our ability to predict climate variations, from extreme events to decadal time scales; to understand how this variability may change in the future; and to assess realistically the resulting impacts.” Hydroecology —“The challenge is to develop an improved understanding of and ability to predict changes in freshwater resources and the environment caused by floods, droughts, sedimentation, and contamination.” Infectious disease—“The challenge is to understand ecological and evolutionary aspects of infectious diseases; develop an understanding of the interactions among pathogens, hosts/receptors, and the environment; and thus make it possible to prevent changes in the infectivity and virulence of organisms that threaten plant, animal, and human health at the population level.” Invasive species—The challenges are to understand species invasion “as an ecological process sufficiently to allow forecasting of the invasiveness of species and prediction of which potential biological agents would both be effective in controlling an exotic species and have the fewest detrimental effects on natural and managed ecosystems.” Land use—“The challenge is to develop a systematic understanding of changes in land uses and land covers that are critical to ecosystem functioning and services and human welfare.”
Technology for sustainability
•Designing sustainable socio-technical systems•The history of nuclear power and the ongoing saga of biotechnology demonstrated the need to think of technologies and the social, economic and environmental systems in which they are embedded together rather than separately
•The nano-, bio-, info revolution offer both immense promise and substantial difficulties
•Our best strategy is for truly integrated systems design from the start
•How can we deploy the wonderful possibilities so that they:•Are socially acceptable?•Enhance sustainability?
•This is an exciting challenge on which we can work together, melding engineering and the environmental and social sciences
Environmental monitoring
•Environmental monitoring and analysis as integrated activities
•Immense prospects for better monitoring of key environmental parameters and processes and full integration with modeling
•This immensely enhances the ability to “govern the commons”
•The move from stationary to networked and mobile sensing•Matching the spatial and temporal density of measurements to the problem•Autos ands cell phones as environmental monitors?
Environmental genomics/ “metagenomics”
•New technology developed around the human and other genome projects offer a prospect for a new way of doing environmental science
•Much enhanced capabilities for sequencing, annotation and analysis
•Need to strategize about MSU’s opportunities and challenges in working in this area
•Possible links to Biogeochemistry, Invasive species, Health, etc.•Link to NEON, environmental monitoring initiatives
Building on MSU’s International Strengths
•MSU is one of the leading Universities in the U.S. with regard to international research and teaching.
•Special opportunity to better meld our expertise in environmental science and policy with our international expertise.
•MSU may be unique in its ability to pursue the idea of “sustainability science”
•Also will benefit from global partnerships as many nations and regions develop much stronger scientific capabilities
Next Steps?
More aggressive student recruitment Primarily Web- and listserv-basedUpgrade links to resourcesStrongly encourage links to environment.msu.eduText announcement for faculty to forward to their target listsMichigan Environmental Science Day?Other ideas?
New curriculum areas?New research signature areas?
