It is with great pleasure that I have served as Director of the Environmental Policy Major for the last three years. Perhaps no time of year fills me with quite as much optimism as the spring—thanks in large part to this role. Each year at this time I get to watch the terrific students in our major graduate. This year we are graduating eight smart, talented and driven young persons. These students will go on to a wide array of schools and careers — including graduate school in climate science, law school, climate change and sustainability consulting, and government — but they all share a rigorous and interdisciplinary background in environmental policy. 

This means the world is gaining employees and students trained not only in the natural scientific foundations of the environment and climate, but also in the political science that informs our understanding of political institutions, political behavior, interest groups, and international relations. They also know how to create and assess public policy.  As a result, our environmental policy majors are well equipped to engage the most pressing problems of our time: how to address climate change, ensure healthy communities, prevent biodiversity loss and pollution, and build a more sustainable future for us all.  

It is easy in the current political climate to be pessimistic about these and a host of other man-made problems. Take a page, like me, from these graduating environmental policy majors, and know that the country and world will be better as a result of their hard work at WashU and the new paths they are starting down.