About Environmental Dynamics

ENDY in the Early Days

The program was housed under Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and was the only interdisciplinary program on campus at that time. ENDY filled dual needs for:

1. Doctoral-level students to be trained by faculty tenured in the founding departments (none of which had a PhD program at the time)
2. A program focusing on human-environmental interaction, which was becoming an increasingly important focus area both within and outside of academia.

 

ENDY was envisioned by its framers to meet a need for professionals whose research would tackle complex problems dealing with those human-environment interactions from an interdisciplinary perspective. It was believed that ENDY’s graduates would find employment in academia, government agencies, and the private sector.

Each of the three founding departments contributed faculty to teach and mentor ENDY students, and each contributed three of its teaching assistantships with a tenth added by the graduate school. After 18 years ENDY still has 10 “legacy” assistantships, which has allowed the program to remain fairly stable with 25-30 students at any one time. The additional students have been funded piecemeal by individual departments and other programs (e.g., biological sciences, sustainability) through teaching assistantships that help them meet their curricular needs, and by individual faculty as research assistantships through grants.

Over the years, faculty in other units on our campus have participated increasingly in mentoring ENDY students.  All credentialed faculty on campus with research interests focusing on interactions between the Earth System and humans, past and present, are entitled to mentor ENDY students.  Faculty from numerous departments in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, College of Education and Health Professions, Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, Sam M. Walton College of Business, and the School of Law have all participated in the past few years.  In recognition of an increasing interdisciplinarity of the program, administration of ENDY was moved in 2013 from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences to the Graduate School and International Education (GSIE).

Campus-Wide Approach

The goal of ENDY has always been to prepare doctoral-level students for research and careers in fields associated with human-environment interactions. While it was originally envisioned that many of its graduates would gravitate toward private sector or governmental occupations, most graduates to date have been drawn to academic careers. The program boasts that we prepare students to follow their passion.

As interest in ENDY on our campus has increased, and administration of the program has moved from the College of Arts and Sciences to the Graduate School and International Education, the program has been charged with expanding its original scope, which focused largely on deep-time human-environmental interactions, to include considerations of sustainability. We recognize that a “deep-time” perspective gives ENDY context, while sustainability gives it relevance.  The two approaches can work synergistically to benefit all ENDY students and best prepare them to meet the challenges of employment of doctorate-prepared professionals in today’s world.