SESES Faculty Hiring Priorities October 11, 2013
Environmental Sustainability: Science and Policy
Because of the rapid increase in students majoring in environmental and sustainability studies, the 10-fold
increase in sustainability degree programs nationwide (Vincent et al., 2013) over the past 5 years, the
emergence of sustainability science as a field (Bettencourt et al., 2011; Clark 2007; Kates et al., 2001),
the massive shifting of research funding toward sustainability (e.g. NSF’s SEES program), and
programmatic needs, we believe that the highest priorities for the SESES faculty hires for 2013-2014
must be in Environmental Sustainability. These positions have been previously identified and requested
as part of the staffing request tied the new interdisciplinary PhD in Earth Sciences and Environmental
Sustainability and in support of our suite of environmental degree programs. We envision that these
positions could anchor the sustainability focus of the PhD and also build bridges across the school and
NAU. They will also contribute to building bridges across CEFNS and NAU to address the emerging
interdisciplinary field of Sustainability Science focused on environmental sustainability problems. Building
these areas of environmental sustainability within SESES will contribute to NAU’s strategic sustainability
goals, build on the proven interdisciplinary success of SESES, and strategically position NAU and SESES
to take advantage of growing funding opportunities in interdisciplinary and sustainability science related
programs at NSF, NASA, Department of Agriculture and Interior as well as private foundation interests
and investments.
These positions will also address the growing student demand for sustainability related degrees, and
make SESES a true bridge to the future, combining existing earth and environmental sciences expertise
with developing advances in sustainability sciences. By strengthening our sustainability science and
policy, our unusual combination of programs in the earth sciences and in the environment and
sustainability would promote strong degrees providing the skills necessary for students to contribute to
the transitional economies of the next decades.
Program Needs and Potential
Over the past 4 years, the faculty of SESES have put forth a range of environmental and sustainability
policy/management requests in our annual staffing to address environmental program needs in
undergraduate and graduate teaching and advising in the rapidly growing and highly successful BA/BS
Environmental Studies, BS Environmental Sciences, MS Environmental Science & Policy, PSM Climate
Science & Solutions, and the new PhD. Our existing graduate programs have attracted external funding
support from various foundations, government agencies and NSF. We continue to attract high quality
applicants and to place them in professional jobs upon graduation; however, the lack of faculty resources
in our School and across the university is diminishing our ability to deliver the basic interdisciplinary
programs in our catalog. While our faculty resources have diminished over the past 5 years, these
programs continue to grow at rates far exceeding NAU’s growth and the growth of other programs in
CEFNS. The result is exceptionally high majors/FTE ratios (35.5/FTE) for our undergraduate programs,
and exceptionally high graduate students/FTE (3.84/FTE) (see appendices and detailed program
analysis). With the proposed new hires, we believe that faculty in the School will be better positioned to
attract and graduate more and better undergraduate and graduate students, and compete for external
grants demanding interdisciplinary approaches. In addition we will alleviate existing degree completion
bottlenecks for our existing programs and growing population of undergraduate majors.
Faculty positions
For next year we request 2.0 FTE faculty positions in SESES as a cluster hire. The first position would be
housed entirely in SESES, the other could be in SESES, or a joint interdisciplinary hire of 2 faculty.
1) Environmental/Sustainability Policy Hire (1.0 FTE in SESES),
Environmental and Sustainability Policy is a critical component of our existing and future education
mission in SESES. This position would contribute to delivering the core classes with a strong policy focus
including ENV 555 for our MS and PhD students, POS 359 Environmental Policy (or equivalent class in
SESES), and contribute to instruction in other management and policy oriented ENV STU and SCI core
classes. These courses would also serve EGR, BIO, and FOR students, and the position would help to
alleviate our graduate advising bottleneck. This position is to provide research and instruction in
environmental and sustainability policy and management from social sciences perspectives, focusing on
human and political systems. The success of Erik Nielsen in this discipline demonstrates the research
potential of this position.
2) Human dimensions of energy or natural resources (1.0 FTE or 0.5 FTE joint hire with FOR or EGR??)
Climate science mitigation and adaptation and energy management and economics are critical areas of
environmental sustainability with strong applications to both fossil fuels resources and sustainable energy
studies. These topical areas fall within the PhD Sustainability focus area and are growing areas of
importance in our undergraduate curricula. This position can be flexible across water & energy (the
energy/water nexus) management/policy/economics, water & climate change, and/or water & landscape
change. The new professor may have expertise in the growing area of ecosystem services. This general
area is an area of rapid growth in extramural funding and meets the current and future research needs for
society and industry. This faculty member would address key societal problems in Arizona & the
Southwest at the intersection of climate change and water/energy interactions from a social sciences
perspective. She/he would teach many classes in the growing ENV Studies major that currently has a
single tenure track faculty member. There is strong, demonstrated demand for jobs in this area in
consulting, industry, and government.
In addition, this hire would capitalize on the growing momentum of the contemporary/ near-future Climate
Science group (Huntzinger, Schwalm, and their students) and their international effort to improve models
of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Because future projections of climate change depend on both natural and
human dimensions of climate-carbon interactions, there is a need for improved understanding of human
influences (including land-management decisions) on the carbon and water cycles, and how these
influences can be incorporated into current models. NAU-based expertise positioned to link and span
(quantitatively) the human and natural dimensions of climate change would be a positive strategic more.
3) Human dimensions of water or agricultural resources (0.5 FTE joint position with FOR??)
This position could significantly interface with position (2) or establish other research foci, but the major
focus would be on water. Water resources remain the most critical environmental and sustainability issue
in the greater Southwest. As such, this area is a fundamental part of the PhD Sustainability focus area.
This position can be flexible with a focus across water & energy, water & climate change, or water &
landscape change. Like position (2), this is an area of rapid growth in extramural funding and meets the
current and future research needs for society and industry. There is a high demand for research and
faculty advisors for students in ES&P, CSS, the PhD and Sustainable Communities. We envision hiring
positions 2 and 3 together to create a complementary cluster in social and cultural dimensions of
sustainability that could work with natural scientists in SESES, FOR, BIO, and EGR.
Because of the strong relationship between positions 1-3 we strongly recommend that these positions be
hired together to optimize the potential collaborative possibilities between the three faculty hired into
these positions, and to maximize the 2-3 faculty complimenting one another.
Works Cited
Bettencourt, L. M., & Kaur, J. (2011). Evolution and structure of sustainability science. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 108(49), 19540-19545 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102712108
Clark, W. C. (2007). Sustainability science: a room of its own. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 104(6), 1737-1738. doi: 10.1073/pnas.061129110
Kates, R. W., Clark, W. C., Corell, R., Hall, J. M., Jaeger, C. C., Lowe, I., . . . Svedin, U. (2001).
Sustainability Science. Science, 292(5517), 641-642. doi: 10.1126/science.1059386
Vincent et al., (2013) Draft Study National Council for Science and the Environment