Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
JV: … can bring to this is more about what environmental studies, environmental science is doing in the
real world in other schools I guess. I recently graduated and just finished my dissertation. So I guess I
have a more perhaps recent idea of what other schools might be doing. Whether everybody wants to know
about that or not… (laughs)
MS: I would love to hear… I mean you might want to just start talking about that and I’ll take notes
and…
JV: Well it is environmental science which is you know different than environmental studies. And
probably the focus is not so much on natural resource management as it is on, my background’s been
more the effects of toxic pollutants on the environment and on man. And then around the toxicology,
what environmental pollutants do to other organisms that are animal life and bacterial life. So and then
how that then you know man is kind of the big picture perhaps. I think the environment is probably the
big picture in the environmental studies program, or at least has been the main focus.
MS: Yeah I mean, taking our, I mean when I talk with most folks about what people think they mean by
environmental studies, one of the things that’s clear is that it’s human nature relations but with a very
strong notion of how did nature as a system work? And then add human beings and how they interact in
that and how to what… In what ways are they reasonably thought out as being a part of it and which
ways… And then the whole set of sort of political, moral, ethical policies like choices that may attach to
that set of relations. And environmental sciences I think are understood to be fundamentally sort of
natural history, biology, geology, sort of various explanations of how the world works from a certain
natural sciences perspective. It depends on who you’re talking to, what discipline gets the forefront. But
ecology obviously plays a big role. So, talk about the, in the real world or in the other worlds or in other
worlds, environmental sciences means is more focused on the issues of politics is what you’re saying?
Yeah, and I guess on the different… It’s more of the visionary type approach than it is a disciplinary
(unclear). If you study environmental chemistry, you study the effects of chemistry of environmental
degradation. Whereas if you study toxicology you study the toxic effects on organ systems. If you study
epidemiology you study the effects of disease on human populations. So it’s more, it’s not an integrated
approach which as we know is what most schools do. And not that I think, the integrated approach really
can bring in the natural resource with man and that’s kind of what I have done in the last year. And trying
to show how man changes his environment, what the impacts are on his own health as well as on you
know other health… For example, it happens when you build a dam in Africa, you dam up the river you
get shifts (unclear) because you allow a snail then to live in the water. And so usually kind of human
disease and the effects of changing man’s environment, how that affects himself. So it’s worked well with
teaching people like Oscar Sewell who does the biology – ecology background and I do the human health
background. And even though human health is my focus, I have a background in chemistry and biology
and physics and calculus. So I understand you know those systems. It’s just not my expertise in this
(unclear) if any of us have one. (laughs)
1
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: When you think about the way in which environmental studies is done oftentimes in other
institutions, what are the strengths of that and what are the weaknesses of it? And how do the, I mean is
that just a mirror image of what Evergreen is? I mean what’s the relationship between this?
JV: Well I think a real good example would be a case studies class that I took as a graduate student versus
one that I’m going to teach this next quarter. And for example, had a case studies class on lead, lead and
the law was the class. We learn all about the regulation of lead and lead is a toxicant. But we didn’t really
learn about the realm of lead and how it would affect wildlife, how it effects different ecosystems. So this
next quarter with David Mill, he’s going to teach ozone in case studies and I’m going to teach about
heavy metals, lead being the focus. So we’ll look at how does lead affect wildlife? How does lead
(unclear) affect ducks for example? How does it affect earthworms? How does it get in, how do heavy
metals get into sewage systems? And how are they released and what amount of lead is going out on
Thurston County right now is just a process of the sewage treatment plant? How much ozone are we
being exposed to? So what are the laws and regulations affecting and protecting us and what are those
regulations? How do they affect the ecosystems? So looking at it more of an integrated approach, I think a
lot of people come out of a doctoral program or a graduate program have no idea of how their research
might really impact the world for example. So if on the Evergreen kind of realm, I think you can
investigate a toxic pollutant, a pollutant that… and look at it not only for how it affects social systems,
how does it affect ecosystems, what are the regulations that are involved, what are the housing issues that
might be there, what are intergenerational issues that might be there, what are the politics of the metal,
what are the economy of the metal. So you really get more of an idea of the whole aspect of this pollutant.
So when you think about maybe doing regulation, you get a lot of people wanting to get into policy, what
are the pieces that have to be there?
MS: Yeah and it becomes clear where regulation would be useful and how. I mean it helps you identify
the points at which regulation is possible in some sense as opposed to those points where it would be kind
of, it’s one of those nice myths that we’ll pass a law that says we’re doing something about it which has
nothing to do with anything happening.
JV: What it’s all about, yeah. And when I think of other schools probably train students to not think so
much about the end of the pipe, you know, about what they’re working with and might it be a bad
substance or not. How bad might it be, they don’t think too much about that I don’t think. They’re not
perhaps as worried about the overall outcome of the research they’re doing or the toxic potential of this
pollutant. Whereas I think some of the outlook from Evergreen tends to be a little bit too much
chemophobic (?). All chemicals are bad. Because I don’t think they get the depth that they might need so
they can kind of understand… Yeah there are some that are very horrible. And then there’s this kind of
step you know to get to the horrible and to go by. And maybe there are some that we can tolerate. Maybe
there are some chemicals that we need to focus on because for example when you band EBT then you get
organic phosphates which are even more toxic. You know so kind of the, getting a spectrum in there is I
think, I guess that perhaps is what I could, this could go around in circles, but I think what I might be able
to offer is giving a bit more of the depth of thinking that may be necessary to think about a toxic…
2
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: Talk about, what is it that you are, how would a student obtain depth since you’re using that phrase. I
mean, what does that mean? Does that mean…
JV: Well let’s see. In a case studies program or an environmental studies class, intro class, I would
imagine probably studying about water is very important, water regulation and we work with tribes, those
types of issues. And then to study water pollutants, what are pollutants that are in water that can damage
the ecosystems? What are pollutants in water… what are the pollutants? What is their innate ability to do
whatever it is to an animal cell, and then to talk about that in more depth so they understand it’s not just
salmon head and it’s not just beavers. You know it also can occur in man. And though indeed those
salmon head may be the best species to you know as an initiator species to kind of watch surveillance.
MS: So depth is… I’m just trying to understand when you’re using the word depth, whether you’re
focusing on the idea of a more sophisticated chemical and biological understanding? Or is it, I would say,
that people should have a stronger background in chemistry and biology and physiology and so forth.
JV: That’s probably a debate. I mean if…
MS: You’re damn right it’s a debate (laughs).
JV: Yeah, if environmental, well if they’re going to get their BS, which is what a lot of them do is want to
go through the environmental studies route so they can get their BS. But I know that not all students are in
that route. I mean as a sophomore they can then branch out and go that way. I guess what I would hope is
that at the sophomoric level they would be allowed that ability to be encouraged to go that route if that’s
what they want to do. If they’re not, I don’t think getting more chemical is necessary if that’s not what
they’re interested in. If they want to be a poli-sci major but they want to have some good environmental
studies background, that they would understand more about kind of somehow it’s overall it’s a breadth
and depth issue. But I think the idea is being able to become a critical thinker. And because environmental
studies is so integrated, critically thinking at not just a horrific, the world is falling apart sense, but why,
why are they things that you know. I know it’s hard to…
MS: Okay. So what, let me see if I can say what you’re saying. Rather than being I guess sort of preacher
like and sort of knowing that there are disasters, being somewhat sophisticated in saying indeed how these
disasters may in fact occur, and being able to… So it’s knowing some particulars about ecosystem
processes and about human practice that are the critical issues. And that not simply decrying the reality
but trying to be able to describe it accurately.
JV: Well, a good example, I’m trying to give examples, really they’re not working. But gold mining in
the Amazon Basin, okay. It’s horrible. They shouldn’t be gold mining in there. They’re tearing down
trees, the mercury that they use for the alluvial. Washing is getting into sediments, fish are having high
levels of… Okay but why are they gold mining in the Amazon? Because people there can barely survive.
So not only look at the natural resource degradation but why are people doing that? Because they can’t
survive, because their mortality rate is horrible, because they have so many social issues and health issues
3
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
and need for economy. But beyond just you know the capitalistic view, I mean people are trying to live. It
isn’t…
MS: Right, they are people within a system and they’re simply making the available choices rather than
making sort of grand systemic choices as the students sometimes wish they could do on some sort of
detached way. Okay. This sort of leads into sort of let’s really focus on some of the sophomore level
questions and things that… I mean when you think about a sophomore year for students, what is it that, I
mean in one way I guess of asking this question that might be useful is to sort of do the famous value
added approach and say you know, when the students come in what should they know and when they go
out, what is it that you hope they are capable of doing that they weren’t capable of doing when they
wandered in your door?
JV: Well I guess sophomore students from what I understand in the environmental studies programs are
oftentimes they’ve transferred in from another school. And maybe even junior level, is that…?
MS: Right. Oftentimes we end up in those programs with people who are community college grads and
are first year core grads. And there isn’t usually much distinguish them except that our people are a good
deal more comfortable with the sort of notion that their work is collective. But after the first quarter it’s
usually all pretty much a wash (unclear). The community college people sometimes know a little bit more
math or know a little bit more something. But often they can’t write. It’s never clear what you’re going to
get.
JV: Well, see I don’t know since there’s no requirements. But I would hope that they would probably
come into it with some sense of what would be required of them as a college student for reading. You
know, how much effort they would need to put in. I would hope having some quantitative ability and
some ability to write. And I think by the time they come out of a program like this they should have, I
would hope honed up their quantitative skills. I don’t know if that’s even possible and fast. I would
think…
MS: It really varies, you know, it varies a lot. And some programs that are described as introductory the
people do it and there are others that clearly don’t. It’s a wish list. So you get to say whatever we want
you know. This is not too constrained. When you say quantitative skills, what in particular? I mean what
would you hope they were able to do?
JV: Well I guess I’m thinking of just basic type of algebra ideas and not anything too complex. But I
would hope they’d get a little economy just to have an idea of, that’s probably a real wish list too.
(laughs)
MS: No, I mean when you say algebra skills, what about statistical skills?
JV: Yeah, you know differing from calculus, I don’t expect… I mean it would help for them to
understand you know an area under curves since so many things have that type of a life form. But I think
some basic stat would really be helpful if they’re going to think about doing an experiment, counting
4
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
numbers of cells, you know. Things like learning about how to read literature, how to read scientific
literature. So if a p value doesn’t really mean anything, if they have a p value of .05, does it mean
anything or should it? I think being able to read scientific papers, at least with a limited scope, is
something they’re really going to need if they want to go into the field of environmental studies. From
reading an environment magazine to reading science to reading you know.
MS: Right. So reading. What would you expect them to be able to do any research at any level? I mean,
work any problems, solve any, write anything, write up literature discussions and that kind of thing?
JV: Oh yeah, yeah. I would think, if they got, say they were in their first quarter they were supposed to
read five scientific papers of their own choosing on a topic they were interested in, they should be able to
read it and explain what it’s about, what was the results, the problems with the study as interpreted by the
writer, by the author. And then whatever else they may think, you know, what critique might they have.
That would be I would hope what they would pull out at the end of the year, probably by the first quarter
wouldn’t be able to do much with it. To not accept everything they read as true and learn to be critical I
think. I think that they wait until their junior and senior year to start doing that, it’s almost too late
because they’re going to be I would hope wanting to get a little bit more in depth in their own area. And
those skills should kind of be there. It seems like the first two years are kind of skill building.
MS: Yeah, they are. And really the question is what skills, and one of the critical things to try and think
about is that we assume that in the first year and maybe we assume this out of community college
students as well if you do it in two years, is that people end up knowing how to read a book, write an
essay. And do sometimes do some math and to walk into a library and not entirely freak out, do write a
research paper of a probably of a descriptive sort. Not necessarily scientific at all. I mean none of this is
necessarily science work, although some of it may be bordering on that. Some students will have had
some experience doing natural history description kind of work. I mean that occurs. Because I think
there’s a lot of emphasis here on the notion that you can indeed go out and observe the world and see
something. And that gets trained into students all over the place around here. Anyway, so that’s where
you can, what you hope you can assume at the beginning of the sophomore year. And so the question
really is, well what do you hope you can assume at the end of the sophomore year? I think particularly
disciplines that you think that students ought to have had explicit… You mentioned economics or…
JV: Before they enter?
MS: No, after they went through the year, I mean.
JV: Well I would hope I mean, they’ve got to have some biology in there. I don’t think you could…
Biology and ecology. And probably natural resource management. I think it really gears on who’s
teaching it when I think about (unclear) you know.
MS: Right, all these things depend on the people in some important way. But… I guess what I’m
suggesting is if you were to take a, who would you like to be, assuming you were going to teach a junior
5
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
level course, what would you want those students to be able to do? Who would they be? What would they
look like? What would you want to be able to expect of these folks? Not that you could (unclear)…
JV: Yeah. Well I mean I would want them to be able to conduct a literature review on a couple different
databases, on an environmental database and a toxic database and a social psychology database if that’s
what they’re interests are. I would want them to know Cox postulates and how to line up an experiment.
What are the things you need to do if you’re going to conduct an experiment in the field or in the lab. And
by the type they exit it if they were with me for a year or part of the time with me I would hope that they
would have a basic understanding of toxicology at a very basic level.
MS: Yeah. So you want people in their sophomore year to have some sort of field or lab experience where
they actually get their hands dirty and try to do something. Okay. You want them to be able to do some
serious mathematics or some mathematics, some statistics, be able to think about what probabilities mean
and how to add and subtract. You want them to be able to do literature searches and then read the
literature and be able to talk about it in some coherent sense. And then you mentioned natural resources
management, economics. This is sort of getting at a whole notion that they ought to understand at all. All
these decisions take place in the context of some sort of social reality or?
JV: Yeah that I guess is what I’m, without saying, yeah. Sociology, I was thinking they should have some
social justice or social comprehension of how this all fits and…
MS: Well that’s another issue. I mean social justice is really different from an economics issue or even
from a political, that’s where a political dimension really comes in, political and ethical dimension comes
into question. But seeing this as a part of, seeing these sort of physical realities as a part of a social reality
is just a really important piece. How do you think that ought to be achieved? I mean if you were to try and
design a program and you get to choose two other people to work with, what would you do, how would
you do it, how would you get this kind of information across, how long would you take to… You could
have as much as a year or as little as a quarter. You could have these people for 16 units or less. You
could force them to take courses if you wanted to. You could organize these things around themes. You
could be less structured than that. You could have projects you could do. How, what and when, what mix
of things seems right to you?
JV: Well, I guess for me I feel like I’m, I mean I’m interdisciplinary from whence I came. It was an
interdisciplinary doctorate program. So I feel like I’m kind of the cog, not a cog, but what would be kind
of linking the social world with the scientific world. And so I think and because I have taught with
someone who’s very much a biologist or an ecologist, who would be able to set up either field
observations or a lab setting and I could certainly help in those things on how to do that and setting them
up and that kind of thing with my expertise with someone who’s probably in a social justice arena or
perhaps more of a political economist or with that type of background. And it seems like for myself what
I’ve seen to work well is to have group type projects where three or more people work together. Some of
the students at a graduate level have never worked with anybody ever in class. And that…
MS: They didn’t graduate from Evergreen (laughs).
6
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
JV: Right. And so they get that sense of working together, picking a topic that they want to research for
the quarter or for the year and having some field studies, do laboratory studies where they can… Even if
it’s simple microbiology type settings so they can look at organisms growing, perhaps look at the effects
of a pollutant on that organism in a petri dish and then extrapolate that to the field.
MS: If you imagined a theme or sort of an idea that was sort of holding this altogether, can you identify
what that would be?
JV: Well it seems like you can either take the media, like take water and then look at the different, the
history of water, let’s say western water has quite the history and there’s several people around who could
do that very well. You could look at the impacts of pollutants on water like groundwater and pesticides.
You could look at like the selenium in California, those types of toxic… You know and the fact that
selenium isn’t toxic. It’s an essential element in the body. It’s needed. So we get into the essentiality of it
and the conflict that occurs. These things are not all good or all bad. A dose makes the poison I guess
(laughs). And then you know different groups of students could take a pollutant and talk about that
pollutant and research that pollutant. Or they could study, if they’re more interested in the social history
of an issue, you know water in a certain region and interview people and look at dams or take a specific
organism and see how different pollutants and loss of water like salmon…
MS: Right, yeah and then you could look at all the ways in which you build dependent systems to
irrigation and all that kind of thing.
JV: Right, and take it globally, you know with the global (unclear)…
MS: Yeah, I’ll teach this one.
JV: (laughs)
MS: It sounds like fun to me (laughs). So let me think a bit about this. Your notion then would be to
really try to think about teaching this as a program, as an integrated year long program that built into it a
lot of this sort of, building a fair amount of the biology and the ecology and the mathematics as maybe not
the equivalent of four courses but some large pieces of what would normally be covered in a course.
JV: And I think you know to me it’s because I know students are worried about well it not being offered
next year or the two years or whatever and they don’t get water this year because (unclear) offered or
whatever. But I think the idea is teaching, is that they learn how to think about a media so they could in
their own mind do the same thing with air if they wanted to, talk about the pollutants in the air, how
nitrogen oxides are formed.
MS: Yeah, I mean to be able to generalize a situation, whether it’s… I mean, one way of thinking about
this is to, or another way of taking this water question and just sort of turning it a little bit would be to
simply take the river basin and think well, let’s take a river basin and see what’s happening in that. And I
7
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
mean Pete Taylor and I did a very quick intro a couple of years ago that was being built around examining
the river basins and then having the students compare the realities. I mean we spent all our time out on the
Nisqually for a quarter. And the students then picked the Congo and the Columbia and the Yangtze and
the Rhine and so forth. And they said well my goodness, look at this. You know they have the same, here
we are more or less the same issues showing up around the world. And so being able to say, see that the
issues don’t have some very strong similarities. I like the idea of taking a water… I’m sure we could
talk…
JV: And the war in Isreal, I mean the fact that the war in Isreal was based around water…
MS: Yes and there will be more of them too won’t there… And the Middle East is going to just really be
a joy in the next few years around that issue. It would be you know, I keep meaning to try and clone Paul
Butler two or three times with the hydrology…
JV: Yeah, gee groundwater, you could talk about you know the effects of drilling for oil and how that
affects water systems and aquatic, yeah…
MS: So you’re seeing that most of the skills that students would need are the basic skills and so forth that
they need in order to be able to say they know some chemistry or know some math, are going to come
through the project orientation.
JV: I think so. And I think it might be more for students who have an adverse feeling about studying
science. It’s a way to get people excited about science without knowing they’re even studying it almost. I
mean it’s real subversive I guess. Allowing them to understand… You know the hydrology cycle is really
fascinating. And that’s science and yet it doesn’t feel like science when you’re studying it. It kind of
creeps in and is there before you know it.
MS: Right and a lot of people have really sort of argued that a fair amount of what can be done is to sort
of lure people into environmental work with nice sounding titles. Restoration ecology, environmental
agriculture, things that just sort of make or sound nice. And then get them in there and there’s some useful
good work that they can do with almost no understanding. I mean the ecological agriculture, you can
indeed plant plants you know. And in restoration ecology you can indeed go out and work on vegetation
of the slope and so forth. But once you start asking any question about it, then much more can occur. And
yet the focus of it is sort of positive in a sense. I mean that one of the things that people have found when
they’ve tried to teach programs that don’t have that little sort of positive piece to it and teach them very
hard like some of the early versions of a program we had around here called “Habitats” which was very
similar to those. But it ended up just being so damn gloomy. I mean for a while the people who were
teaching it were very, very gung ho and so there was lots of it. But also there was this strong sense that we
can’t do anything about this because we’re working on…you know, the more they knew the bigger the
problems were. And so by putting some sort of positive spin or sort of hopeful spin on it really makes a
difference in terms of students’ willingness to just say okay well if I need to know this in order to save the
world I guess I’ll study my damn chemistry. (laughs) When you think about a program that goes on
from… (unclear) window, that’s nice.
8
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
JV: Smaller window…
MS: But more birds.
JV: Yeah, more birds.
MS: Yeah, you should be able to get a little thing and open it and put a bird feeder right there.
JV: It doesn’t open. I would like to take a sledgehammer to all these windows. I want air. Where are you
at?
MS: Lab 2.
JV: Lab 2. Do Lab 2’s windows open?
MS: They can be opened, yeah. These can’t be huh?
JV: They don’t have a hinge (unclear)…
MS: No little piece huh.
JV: Nope.
MS: If we’re thinking about trying to do more than one year obviously if this is an intro. What ought to be
in intro too? What third year programs ought there to be, things that students can do in their junior and
senior years that are more tightly focused? Do you have a sense of what you’d be interested in seeing
happen?
JV: Well, I guess more depth is one of the things I would try to work on. Perhaps more global, a bit more
extrapolating what you’ve learned. You kind of did that, you said with your river basins but you know the
global issues of water quality and ozone, that kind of thing. I mean it’s hard for me to… I guess it would
just, for me the intro would be kind of a breadth and the next course it could either get into another media
issue.
MS: And presumably there are going to be a lot of different options for students at this point. I’m just sort
of trying to think what the array of options, what array of options makes sense to you. Like what would
you think needs to be taught?
JV: Well would this be like within a year or is this like two quarters and then a quarter of…?
MS: It could be arranged in any structure… I mean I don’t even think we have to, I’m not so concerned in
designing the class so much as thinking about what kinds of options ought there to be available for
9
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
students at the junior level? You know, if they’re going to be doing another year, assuming that any kind
of concentration really takes a couple of years of study. I mean one year is going to be a sort of general
introduction of some sort more or less, perhaps as we’ve described or talked about. What ought next year,
what ought to be the options and the choices that are available to students in the next year?
JV: Okay. For options I think you could then get into a more perhaps structured ecology type quarter
where a certain ecosystem is a study of the ecosystem or a river basin for example or groundwater cloves
(?). And then a group that maybe wasn’t interested so much in natural resources could get into studying
specific water pollutants or studying water treatment from sewage treatment. I mean there’s wonderful
things you could study. Commencement Bay in Tacoma. You could study the regulations surrounding
water. You could study national priority pollutant sites you know super fun sites in the United States that
have had groundwater impacts and social constructs of those sites. And you know the other group that
might be, if there was a group that was chemistry minded or biologically oriented, then study the effects
of that pollutant on certain human or animal systems. So it seems like you could go from a real breadth
kind of idea into different groups that could be like regulation, ecosystem management, biology,
biological effects. It’s hard to, you know. Labor, I mean that’s really out of the (unclear).
MS: What about things, I mean we do, I was thinking maybe, I mean some of the things that we’ve done
traditionally in the junior year have been very on some of the ecological agriculture. We’ve done a lot of
work with natural history and sort of descriptive work. And then some organism censusing kind of work,
a lot of that actually. There’s, (unclear) very dull at the moment… There’s been some traditional sort of
coursework in menology and ornithology, in botany. There’s been sort of areas where we can do field…
There’s been some community development work that has been oriented towards the fieldwork. Does that
step seem appropriate to you as being involved in this sort of thing?
JV: Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess because it’s not, I’m trying to think about things that I could teach. I
would probably not be able to teach a botany course. But it would seem like that would be (unclear)…
MS: No I’m not so much concerned about what you could teach as what you think might need to be
taught in an area.
JV: Yeah no I think that makes sense. I mean, natural history, maybe a little stat in there as they’re
counting you know to…
MS: Right, some serious statistics (unclear). What are your teaching… You’re doing, you’re on the
horrible series of one year hires reality aren’t you. That makes it hard to make any real plans doesn’t it.
(laughs)
JV: Well it kind of does, yeah. Well I have another job offer but I decided that after all the energy you put
into lectures, it’s nice to be able to utilize some of them again you know some of that… So and I also
thought it probably can offer more this year. Once it’s your second time around it seems like your ability
to give is probably a little bit perhaps better than it was the first time. So that’s why I’m back here. But
yeah in June it’ll be you know (laughs)…
10
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: The work that you’ve been… So you’re doing MES again this next quarter?
JV: Well the first quarter and then I move into Intro to Environmental Studies with Javon Brown and Pete
Taylor. And then I guess the spring quarter I still don’t quite understand how this works but it’s kind of
like contracts I guess. In the intro now they’re teaching fall and winter and then the spring is a contract
kind of…
MS: Group contract situation. Well that means essentially that you just do a big course with as much
fieldwork in it as you want to, as you can get away with. And spring is hard in the sense that students are
distractable. But it’s fun to do that. I mean you basically you know sort of pick an area that you think that
you can, that students will be interested in and that is you know an extension of work that you want to
work on. And then just say come on and do it. And you know you do get to figure out the details of it on
your own. And you know in some ways that’s fun and in some ways that’s… I like doing it one quarter at
a time let’s say. I mean if I have to do more that a quarter at a time I end up feeling like gosh I’m really
sort of running out of things to say. Or I really feel like I need to be checking this out with somebody or
something you know. I’ve just taught in this collective manner so long that it’s hard for me to work in
other ways. Can you talk a little bit about your teaching experience this last quarter or last year and what
was good about it and what…?
JV: Okay. Well the first two quarters was in the MES core. And the first quarter is called Case Studies in
Environmental Studies. And that was a difficult quarter because it was the first quarter and an excellent
teaching team I felt. But it got very political very quickly. And because one of the topics that we chose to
teach which was risk assessment, it’s a very political topic and students hated it before they even knew
what it was. So I guess you know for me that’s part of, I feel like I’m a very much a real world person.
I’ve been out working for a long time before I went back into academia and back to school. And I’ve
worked for the government, I’ve worked for private industry, private corporations, not… and then you
know the public. So I’ve kind of walked in a lot of different shoes. And so I don’t see the world as black
and white anymore. So I guess what I offer students is that ability or hope to show them that things are
not quite so black and white as they may seem. And that it’s important to learn the global issues not just
your local issues. So the first quarter, part of being brand new is that students don’t have real high
expectations of you. The other part is that they I think tend to challenge you a lot more than they would
challenge a saged professor. And that’s okay, I mean you know that’s alright.
MS: It’s possible. I mean I don’t know, they seem pretty obnoxious under all circumstances. I don’t know
whether…
JV: (laughing) Yeah, you know. Well anyway we got into some very interesting debates. And I think for
me it was learning the ropes of seminar and what that is all about. My idea of seminar was much more of
their own thing that ended up being something I should have controlled I guess more. The second quarter
was again in the core and it was population energy and resources. So I taught the population component
and taught with an ecologist, Oscar, and Ralph, an economist. And that worked out very well. I think that
was a real breadth course. And in the end students ended up wanting more depth is kind of what… I mean
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Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
they liked the course. It was horrible because we had the storm, the interlibrary loan, and that was the
quarter from hell. That was the quarter from hell! (laughs)
MS: That was the quarter from hell. I mean in addition to that, all of our seminar rooms were in the
library. And I mean we were teaching classes in a different room every day for (laughs) about three
weeks. I mean you never knew where you were going to be. Yeah, it was a pretty bizarre… It’s funny
how you can…
JV: (skip in recording) … can’t do that anymore at the library? Did you try to do that?
MS: No I haven’t this summer. I’ve been doing this.
JV: Okay. You can no longer go and look up a journal article that you want and ask them to go get it for
you. They no longer do that unless you’re a state employee for an agency and you have a badge and the
whole nine yards. So you have to get any article. You no longer have the right to….
MS: You don’t have the right as faculty members to get…?
JV: Journal articles, unless it’s through interlibrary loan that can take anywhere from five days to two
weeks or three weeks. I don’t know if you use the Washington State Library at all?
MS: Oh this is kind of the (unclear – muffled)…
JV: But they’ve got a lot of journals there. They don’t have nearly enough as the University of
Washington. So I would go in and get articles that I would use in the next week or so and lecture and
write them down and they’d go find them no problem. Now it’s five days maybe, two weeks probably. So
for a search I really I mean….
MS: You can’t, wait, normal people can’t use the state library anymore?
JV: Right, exactly. Normal people cannot use the state library. You have to do an interlibrary… You ask
for a request and they get to it when they…
MS: They’ve been trying to do that for years. They really want to make themselves into this little private
space if they can.
JV: Oh it’s terrible. So for research I mean it was real reality for a lot of people because students are
night, you know, work during the day and they only have at night. So trips to Seattle and that kind of
stuff. But I mean that is the reality of the world I guess. But that was, I taught epidemiology which for a
lot of people that’s the first time they’ve ever heard anything about it. And it doesn’t have to be the
epidemiology (unclear) and all kinds of… But to study how disease occurs. I mean there’s places of
people to look at the history and… So that worked out, it as a fun quarter.
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Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: And that was in spring or in the winter?
JV: Winter. And then spring I taught my first elective. I mean it was environmental health. And that was
great. I think that was probably my best quarter. Maybe it was because you know it was my last (?) and it
was my own subject. I knew I could… I had speakers and I had videos. And we did research papers, they
did a couple of essays. And they just, I mean they covered so much material in such a short time. It was a
very, as you, taught one night a week is just not a lot of time (laughs).
MS: No it isn’t. I’ve done one thing on water policy and it’s just, you can’t do it. It’s just crazy.
JV: It’s really hard. And then if you lose a night, which we lost a couple nights because (unclear) and
different things and we relocated. But it worked out… I guess I really felt that I probably, and probably
because I’m new at teaching, I push students beyond what they think they can do. But 70-80% of them
really do it. And it’s just, I think they’re amazed at what they come out learning. And one of the things we
didn’t really focus on is how to read a research paper, how to read a scientific journal, how to analyze its
parts, its components, talk about the statistics that they used (unclear) did the work. And for some of the
people who are taking statistics or had taken it, it was really helpful. Some of the undergraduates that
were in there really had trouble but they were having trouble anyway. And then a couple rallied for the
cause and did great and did as well if not better than some of the graduate students. So it was I think a real
challenge for some people and some of them really got a lot out of it and it’s a graduate elective. I think it
should be a challenge. So that I think was, I mean as far as teaching, I did the best teaching in the quarter.
But I think they were there because they wanted… They knew exactly what they were going to get and
that’s what they wanted so they were there. Whereas in a broad class you have to kind of give a little, you
know, everyone gets a little bit of spinach even if they don’t like spinach.
MS: Yeah, that is often the case when you are…
JV: Teaching.
MS: Yeah, teach that one thing that you know and the students know that you know and therefore they’re
there to get it. They really will and they really can be pushed because that’s what they’re there for. When
you think about you teaching here, what seems to be the most important elements in the program for
making it fun for you to do it?
JV: Having the time to lecture that I need. This winter and spring we didn’t allow enough extra time and
students, that was one of the negative comments was we needed more lecture time. The second was
because of the storm that was right during my piece and we just didn’t replace it. And at first it was
because we thought that if (unclear) quarter (unclear) were wanting to teach each other but they weren’t
there yet. And when I think, that’s probably…
MS: Well I’m thinking more in terms of what makes things satisfying for you to be a part of? What are
you looking for when you’re working in a group, working in a teaching team? What’s good for you in that
situation aside from having enough space to talk.
13
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
JV: I think there are moments of just pure… When the things that Oscar taught or that Ralph taught, I
don’t know if you want to call it a paradigm. That word is horrible. But an example, for example,
economics works I mean it works in environmental health too. It works in biology, it works in ecology,
and all of a sudden it’s becoming so clear. I mean learning myself from my colleagues was just it was
wonderful. Being able to see how they teach and but learning from them.
MS: Yeah, that sort of making those connections across disciplines is really fun.
JV: And I think some of the students because (unclear) going to be the same undergraduate have already a
background in something so they know to have some real specific questions they might ask. And if I can’t
cover that question being new faculty, everybody thinks you’re supposed to know everything but if you
don’t (unclear) not only do. Yeah, Arthur said just tell them to shut up, we don’t want to talk about
(unclear) (laughs). But being able to bat it over to Ralph or to Oscar and ask them what they thought you
know kind of come up with a thought or assign it to somebody to look up or whatever.
MS: Yeah. Well I think that’s one of the real pleasures. I find is when teaching is, if you’re in a team
where you actually like other people and everything’s going well, it is possible to sort of move the
expertise around the room and indeed challenge each other you know. Say I don’t understand, it seems
strange that you would argue blah blah, doesn’t it, isn’t it. And that sort of thing is really fun to do. And it
takes students by surprise because they really don’t believe that faculty ought to be questioning each other
in some sense. I mean and yet once they get the hang of it, once they understand that people aren’t, it
doesn’t mean that they’re angry with one another or that there is some massive disagreement but that
they’re merely talking about what seems to be interesting. And then they can sort of sometimes start, at
least some of them will start entering the conversation and having real opinions of their own by God. And
that’s really fun. It’s fun to try and encourage that. What else should I ask? What else do you want to say?
Do you have any sense of what we do well at Evergreen in Environmental Studies? What one or two
things are just really well done?
JV: Again I guess it’s pretty much with MES. I think I mean from students that have had, that is have
been environmental studies involved into the MES students that took my elective, they really enjoyed the
fieldtrips and the reality of the course. I mean, they seem to have a real sense of what it’s about. I mean
they’re not afraid to take something on. From what I’ve seen at Evergreen, students that have wanted to
take on a subject, they just have this incredible enthusiasm and energy and they can do it, they crack in,
they jump in there and then you realize oh my God, you know the subject is huge and I am small. But the
appreciation of the value of knowledge and of how much there is to learn is just, I mean I think it’s
overwhelming but it’s also kind of reaffirming in a way because they realize boy I don’t know, there’s so
much to learn. And I think they do that because of the breadth that is offered and because of the
interdisciplinary approach to things. And when I see that happening I think that’s where you go. I mean
that’s great if we can teach them that they don’t know it all.
MS: Yeah, A, that they don’t know it all and B, I mean the other piece of it that seems real important to
me is that they want to know. I mean I think that the thing that I am always struck with when I deal with
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Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
students from, actually the transfer students are the ones who exhibit this the most strongly, is that they
don’t know why they, many of them don’t know what it is they want. They’re just there. They signed up
because somehow they got persuaded that this is what they thought they wanted to do but they don’t
really know. And you know that I think there’s something about the education here that in the long run
with those students and with lots of others sort of frees them up to say, oh well I want to know this. And
even if that doesn’t mean that they really do very much with it or that they make a lot of progress on it,
there is at least some sense of volition and choice that’s useful. I guess this comes to, this is the other
question that I had. You mentioned that you’ve done a lot of real world work and things. And I guess one
question I have about that is, how prepared are the Evergreen graduates to actually go out and take part in
the world? What’s your sense of that? The things that we are just sort of missing altogether that are
importantly weakened should we just worry about?
JV: Well I guess, and again this is graduate more experience than anything. Although I do have a handful
of undergraduates who I know pretty well. I think the internships are excellent because it gives students,
one of the undergraduates took my elective and was doing an internship at the health department and was
able to apply her skills that she learned in class to the setting and take what she got from her setting where
she was working and bring it back to class. So the internships are very important for preparing them. And
I think it’s, there’s a you know, there’s such a trend here. I mean they I think espouse to be so
nonconformist and yet they’re so conforming in what they do that it’s traditional to not like government,
to not want to have anything to do with government. And it’s kind of that you wake up one day and you
are them you know. I think their animosity towards the establishment is so great that it can get in the way
of reality. And you know I’m probably more biased than most because I’ve been out there working in it
for so long. But I do think there are really dedicated people in government. There are some real
scoundrels too. But there’s also real scoundrels in the environmental movement, there’s scoundrels
everywhere you go. And I think that they’re more not maybe encouraged but they’re allowed to think
that’s the truth instead of being challenged on those views by faculty and by some of the things that… I
guess that to me the older you get things become more gray than they do black or white and I guess that’s
one of the things that I think students here might leave with a real negative idea of what the world is
about. And yet let’s face it they’re going to have to live in that world. They’re going to try to make it
better. That’s the wonderful thing about most of the students here is they do want to make the world
better. They’re not capitalistic, they’re not engrained that bucks (?) are it. But that you know it’s like, it’s
them or us and is that a way to really approach the problems of the world? I don’t know. I mean I think
the internships that people do tend to help them realize that gee there are some really good people who do
work for ecology. Some of them are real you know, but there are some people doing some great stuff.
And you don’t sell your soul necessarily if you work for a government agency.
MS: Or you do but you understand that you’re only selling part of it or something like that you know, that
there are certain compromises you do end up making. I mean I’ve certainly, I think the internships are a
wonderful way, I mean and sometimes they are just amazing and sometimes they’re just ways for the
student to get even further in bureaucracy you know. And that’s okay because you know you did want
them to be employed and but you’re sort of, you know I think about two students I had this year, one of
them was just working for EPA doing public relations affairs sort of stuff and you know just ended up
being just a dull bureaucrat (unclear) today. I mean there’s no hope for him. I just, I mean he’s a nice guy
15
Jude Van Buren
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
but there’s nothing that this guy’s ever going to do and you know it, you know it, you just can’t… And
yet you’d rather he did that than to be stymied and out of work. And his heart will be in the right place
and all that kind of thing but a lot of it will go by him. Whereas the other student went down and did an
internship with the legislature with the Autobahn Society for a quarter and then went down and just went
wild. I mean just, it basically took over four or five bills that they were concerned about and did all their
research and lined up all the witnesses and just went crazy. They did all this stuff and then turned right
around and went to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service for a quarter doing merlot stuff, trying to
figure out what the… The Fish and Wildlife Service hadn’t figured out anything what they wanted to do
and yet they were in a position of trying to decide whether this was an endangered species and whether
that meant they were going to close all the fisheries. And they hadn’t even bothered to figure out what
they were doing (unclear) as I the sampling research programs for them and get this through multiagency
things. It was just (unclear). I mean learning the statistics as he went and just putting in 90 hour weeks
and contacting people from all over the world and doing it you know, just doing it, just frankly doing it
and doing a very good job. And they just sort of let him go. And you know I mean I sort of coaxed this
guy and I said, “John, you are the gabbiest person I know. You’re definitely not the political manipulator.
Get in there and be manipulated.” And I think he’ll end up doing something like that more than…
JV: That’s great. Yeah I did a graduate student (unclear) rain contract with me where he has this
undergraduate in social psychology and he got his graduate, just finished his MES. And he wants to get
into horticultural therapy. And I mean it just sounds, and he was with the Olympic Nature Center and this
other group’s are also advocates in this and the program crumbled in front of his very eyes. I mean the
bureaucracy fell apart and they put all this crap on him. But he’s got these three or four guys who are just
bumbling, I mean just completely outside of who they were, not able to talk, to integrate, to do anything
with each other or with themselves. And now I mean they’re planting plants, we’re talking, we’re selling.
All of a sudden he’s got these people to really come outside of their illness and become human beings
through this therapy stuff. And it was just you know I mean he learned that you can do things even though
the system is completely in havoc. So then he went on and did his graduate work and his doctoral work.
But I mean it was just wonderful stuff. I mean it kind of gave me shivers to see what he was able to do
kind of on his own. He was under a psychiatrist’s care doing this. But I mean just doing incredible things.
MS: I know a psychiatrist cares (?) supervision of (unclear)…
JV: Yeah that’s (laughs)… But you know just I mean it’s wonderful what these people can do. It’s most
exciting. I just got cold. I’m freezing. Well I don’t know if I was very much help now. I don’t have much
background here. My teaching experience is more at graduate school teaching in that arena. But…
MS: Oh there’s some things that have been helpful. And I don’t know it’s just interesting to see some
other views on this. And you know I hope that… (End of recording.)
16