Jovana Brown
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: Thinking… The first questions I had had to do with teaching. And what I was wondering about when
you think of your teaching in environmental studies, what programs that have been the most fun for you
to teach? The most fun.
JB: Well I really like travel natural resource policy because it does something unique for the students. My
natural resource policy during spring was fantastic. I got some of the best, that’s my portfolio pile there. I
got some of the best evaluations I’ve ever had. Students just… Well then of course they seemed to self
select. I got mature students who were really willing to go down the legislature and work on these issues.
And they got very good internships spring quarter. My best coordinated studies to date was fall quarter
with Lynn and Ralph of the MES core. That was terrific. I hope Lynn remembers it fondly too.
MS: She seemed to think that she had been blessed with good colleagues and happiness.
JB: Yeah it was good. It was really good. And the three of us just clicked and so the students really knew
it. And it’s so wonderful. The MES students, they sit and they lean forward you know and their eager and
they’re listening and they’re excited. And I really realize a contrast because I went into IES a couple of
times to give guest lectures and for the most part they were so (laughs) like this you know. Not all of
them, but I really noticed the contrast. It’s just MES students were, are a joy to work with. And I’m
looking forward, I’m going to go back into the MES program, not next year but the following year, so…
And I won’t speak about other things past because you don’t want to hear about society (?) (unclear)
computer (unclear) and things like the past history of environmental studies stuff.
MS: No, I’m really focusing on environmental studies that talk… What is it that’s, when you think about
a program that works well for you, what is it that makes it fun? What I’m asking here is not so much what
works well for the student necessarily but why would you want to teach something? Why would you sort
of feel like you want to commit yourself to something and to work at it and enjoy it?
JB: Well I do it personally to learn stuff. And that’s why I signed onto IES with Pete Taylor for next year
because I want to learn something about salmon from him. So I hope we have a chance to do some
salmon stuff. I’m not sure how much we’re going to do. But that’s my personal agenda. I need to know
more about salmon (laughs). And I guess, what was your question again? What…
MS: Why do you choose to do, or what makes a program fun to teach and fun to be in? Oh the faculty?
JB: Oh it’s the faculty, the faculty. It’s the faculty, yeah.
MS: When you think about the environmental studies areas as an area overall, what do you think is, what
are the things we do best both perhaps areas of study that we do teach the best and what skills or kinds of
learning do we teach best?
JB: I don’t know because I don’t have a good sense of what the scientific folks do. I know Steve Herman,
his students are always incredibly challenged and excited in learning something. So obviously what Steve
does is good stuff. And students are always lined up. You know and it’s not just because it’s the science
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Jovana Brown
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
credits. It’s just because of what Steve does. So I have more sense of who the individual sort of stars are.
But see I don’t know what we do as a program that’s really… But I think what we do with
interdisciplinary stuff, we can still do that. I think that’s good. I can tell you what we don’t do. We should
do more advanced work. I think we can offload them on the MES program because obviously only you
know, sometimes there are only six slots in those electives. But maybe I’ll have a better sense after I do
IES next year. I have a good sense of what the MES program does well now. That is really to give them,
to break them away from what they think of environmental science is and to introduce them to a truly
interdisciplinary environmental studies and all the components that go into that. And I think that they’re
really getting quite a big and enormous, interesting curriculum.
MS: Well that leads right to my next question…
JB: And I know that you know (unclear) Steve does not think much of the MES program.
MS: Lots of people don’t. I mean it varies a great deal. Some people do and some people don’t. In fact
you hear, and it isn’t just from people who have taught in it and people who haven’t taught in it. I mean
people who have taught in it, some of them have taught in it more than once think that the students are
pretty dull and pretty uninteresting. And then there are people like you who say gosh this is a wonderful
group of students. (laughs) So I don’t know quite what’s going on there. You know I asked Kay Vee (?)
and she goes, “Oh my God,” you know. She really finds them (hard to take? – unclear)…
JB: No, she did not, that was not a good thing for her to teach was quant methods (?). That was most
unfortunate. Nobody should be you know sort of (unclear) quant methods. (unclear) to teach it.
MS: Yeah. But you were saying when you were referring to the environmental studies, the MES program,
that moved them from environmental sciences into an interdisciplinary environmental studies. I guess the
question is what does environmental studies mean? When you think of the words and to the area, what is
the core of it?
JB: Obviously I think of you know this point and aspect obviously because I’m interested in teaching
policy and all those issues and that’s what I think of you know. Some of the students who came to natural
resource policy had taken something in the fall, tropical rainforests?
MS: Right.
JB: Yeah. And so that was an ideal combination because they came with some technical forestry stuff, not
technical, I’ll say some forestry stuff and so they immediately able to move into the policy arena and
really see the connection. There wasn’t all you know (unclear) interesting legislation down there. But
there were some things for them to grab onto and to really see and they could understand that relation. So
I think there has to be both. But I’m very conscious that we are an environmental studies department.
That’s why I’m in it or I wouldn’t be if it was environmental sciences department.
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Jovana Brown
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: If you were trying to make a definition for environmental studies, what would…? It would be
interdisciplinary…
JB: Probably yeah, I can go get some wonderful definition off some, all those people who write
wonderful definitions about the study of people in relation to the earth and their impact on the earth. I
would just go to the books and find a great definition and say this is the total studies, not only the
technical parts of looking at people’s impact on the earth but it’s the political-economic-social stuff that
goes along with it that causes that stuff to happen in terms that sort of a circle of events.
MS: What’s in place, in relative place I guess, of stuff that, material that focused primarily on scientific
understanding? The natural history materials and so forth and the earth sciences and so forth. How did
they fit in? How do the students…?
JB: Well students need to know, you said before, they need to know what this stuff is and how it could be
applied. What I don’t understand is how they can get a special again if they want to. You know there are
certain things yes we do, we do some more sciences because we have a couple of geologists. (unclear)
teaches geography. They can do, you know go on what he’s doing in his geography for a contract next
year. But see I just don’t know. I just don’t know how many avenues we offer to them. When Pete and
Cilarius (?) do forest and salmon then they can go on and do a little bit of that you know. But I have no
idea how that relates to if they’re doing something at the UW and becoming a fish biologist.
MS: Well it’s not the same.
JB: It’s not the same.
MS: No, it’s not the same. But it…
JB: But we changed all those years ago to do a BS because it was the Department of Fisheries that
required a BS. So I don’t know if they’re hiring any more students.
MS: A few I gather.
JB: And now I understand that they no longer require a BS. But see I just, that goes back to what I said
before, I mean I just don’t have a sense of what our science folks do you know.
MS: I think something you said earlier is sort of interesting is that it’s not clear what we as a program do.
It’s clear what some people do. And I think that’s a very useful way of phrasing a lot of the insight about
you know…
JB: Yeah because you never know who’s doing what from year to year. I mean we know that we have
two geologists but are they doing… you know maybe they’re doing something in the core program.
MS: Or teach them hydrology which is what Paul’s always doing.
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Jovana Brown
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
JB: Yeah, so it’s just you know, I don’t have any… We were just talking about repeating things in two
years like some of the marine studies stuff. I guess we still sort of do that because Gerardo is going to go
out in winter quarter and teach that. So I guess there’s certain things we try to repeat with some regularity.
But I just don’t know how that works. And of course E square we’ve done for…
MS: Well we did some version of that for 13 years. But now Steve and Al are just not going to do it. So
that will be interesting.
JB: That will be very interesting, yes. When Steve told me that I thought, is this a voluntary end of the
quarter….
MS: It didn’t sound like it when I talked with both of them. It sounded like both of them had reached a
point in their careers where they were tired of dragging students out there in large numbers and being
responsible for them. And they didn’t feel like they were getting the kind of support from faculty, I mean
from the institution that they really needed to do that.
JB: Now I think it’s true. I think our administration has very little idea about what we do. If we don’t
know what we do, they don’t know what we do and therefore they can’t give any support to what we do. I
know something about you (?) were dean for a while presumably and then (unclear) had more knowledge
of what goes on in this particular area. But I don’t think as a whole that the (unclear) does. Or if they do
their attention is so focused on other big issues that they can’t…
MS: Yeah and indeed most of the kinds of support that one needs in here are mostly budgeting realities
(laughs) you know that have to do with buying vans.
JB: Yeah actually I’m at the point where I’m not on gung ho on field trips as you are. I mean not that I
don’t think they’re of value. But I just think they’re a hell of a lot of work and I too worry about the
students. But after making those trips in the fall, I’m really worried about field trips. And I’ve told Pete
I’m getting worried about it because those vans are getting pretty creaky. Don’t you think so?
MS: The ones I did this spring I only took them for a little drive weren’t too bad. We’ll see what they’re
like in the fall. I don’t know.
JB: So I mean this kind of support is very important if you can do this stuff. It’s not trivial stuff.
MS: When you think about the area and the number of students there are and the sort of….
JB: How many students are there?
MS: Well there’s spaces for something like 300+ and between 200 and 300 I think. But there are always
you know lots and lots more people wanting to get in.
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Jovana Brown
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
JB: What I think of is all the students… I had 25 on a waiting list winter quarter. And I know there one
time they were camped out overnight in the foyer over there to get a registration appointment. So I think
that somehow we’re not, we don’t have enough.
MS: Right, we don’t have enough. We obviously need more faculty. It’s one of the solutions to our
problems. But well we need…
JB: (unclear) We really need to apply our faculty (unclear). But that’s one of the joys of environmental
studies is we’re not deployed. Okay, go ahead. What was your question?
MS: Well the question is, given that there’s huge numbers and there is a certain instability in the nature of
what gets offered from year to year… If you look sequentially they’re pretty darn different from one year
to the next. What one or two things should the area be just sort of saying look we’ve got to focus on this
and try and solve this? And what….
JB: You know naturally we’re all going to save our own thing because it’s so important. (laughs) I mean,
I just realized after I did natural resource policy, that should be done every year or every other year, or
something like we do this summer which I imagine is something similar. That should be done just on a
regular basis. Not that I’m going to do it on a regular basis because I’ve got other things I want to do. But
they just need to know that stuff. They just incredibly, as you know, they don’t know anything about
anything. And so it’s something they… And some of them of course don’t think they need it. And the
other thing of course is well with a BS. We’ve got to get rid of that BS because people aren’t asking for it
out there. Because that makes people make false choices. I’m not saying they don’t need the science in
the curriculum. I’m saying they shouldn’t have to make false choices about what they want. And some of
the students don’t know that they need policy stuff because they don’t understand that if they go to work
within, in a technical position within seven or eight years, if they do well they’re going to be bulked up
for up until they start dealing with policy.
MS: Right. In fact, probably earlier.
JB: Earlier, yeah. It’s just being lost here (laughs). So I would say that you know. Although… And I
realize, I have a career for myself, just every two years I could teach natural resource policies. I’ve got
something here I could do but I’m not going to do it because I’ve got other stuff that’s more interesting
for me to do. I’ll come back to it though sometime.
MS: Well hey I mean one of the things that I think is true is that one of the ways in which there has been
predictability and indeed a lot of quality in the area, that there are things where you can point to quality in
the area, oftentimes are those things where faculty have said, I really think of field natural history is a
crucial reality and the students need an exposure to it and I’m going to provide it. Or I think that
ecological agriculture is a critical issue. And I’m interested in it and I want to provide it. And so every
year I’m going to, you know, or every other year that’s going to be there.
JB: And sometimes they are teaching it every year (laughs).
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Jovana Brown
Future of Environmental Studies at Evergreen
Interviewed by Matt Smith
MS: Yeah. So I mean, things like natural resource policy, I mean I can imagine taking that and saying,
I’m going to be teaching you the natural resource policy or native tribal natural resource policy every
other year. And so, making sure that there’s some way that people can start talking about that and those
kind of issues.
JB: I have put the tribal natural resource policy back in and will teach it about next spring. But I’m not
ready to do that with natural resource policy.
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