LHU Environmental Club member Michael Mehrazar pauses in the midst of a river clean up. On September 11, 2010, the Lock Haven University Environmental Club partnered with Clinton County CleanScapes to clean up a section of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. LHU’s new Environmental Studies minor will provide expanded educational and career opportunities for students like Mike who want to help protect the environment.

LOCK HAVEN, Pa. - Lock Haven University has received approval to offer a new minor in Environmental Studies. This is an inter-disciplinary minor that allows students to connect scientific knowledge of the environment with disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences.

The 18-credit minor integrates expertise and coursework from departments across the university.
Students will gain in-depth knowledge in the discipline of environmental studies through an introductory course, and then they will take at least one course from the sciences, and one from the humanities/social sciences. Two additional courses will be taken from either category. At the end of the program, they will take an Environmental Studies Capstone that will give them the opportunity to connect their knowledge of environmental studies with their discipline.

Professor Bob Myers, director of the new program, sees it as an opportunity for students across the university to expand their career opportunities. He commented, "The new economy will require people from a variety of disciplines who are aware of the importance of protecting the environment while integrating the human and the natural."

Dr. Myers smiled at his inadvertent pun when he said that the Environmental Studies minor is “a natural” for Lock Haven University. LHU students, faculty and staff are engaged in a wide variety of environmentally-focused activities such as treating hemlocks for the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid and discovering the dangerous Emerald Ash Borer in Butler County; monitoring water quality in the Beech Creek Watershed; contributing to The Hemlock, the online journal of the Environmental Focus Group; recycling; forming a new Environmental Club; and partnering with Clinton County CleanScapes, a local environmental group, in area cleanups.

If you're interested in the Environmental Studies minor, contact Bob Myers at 570-484-2236 or by email at rmyers3@lhup.edu.