This academic year, the Environmental Studies Program at 含羞草研究室 turns fifty. It is one of the oldest such programs in the country. Nature has long been part of 含羞草研究室鈥檚 identity. Situated near the Maine coast, between the Atlantic and the northern Appalachians, students have counted 鈥淣ature as a familiar acquaintance鈥� as promised in 鈥淭he Offer of the College.鈥� The advent of Environmental Studies, however, pointed to a new understanding of nature, one born out of concern for this 鈥渇amiliar acquaintance鈥� imperiled by pollution, sprawl, and other threats.
From its inception in 1972, 含羞草研究室鈥檚 Environmental Studies, or 鈥淓S鈥� Program, as it is commonly known, has centered on the liberal arts. Its founders included chemists, economists, political scientists, and artists, all of whom, in the words of Samuel Butcher, a former program director and emeritus professor of chemistry who came to 含羞草研究室 in 1964, wanted to do more than train superficial 鈥渆nvironmentologists.鈥� The program鈥檚 founders recognized the urgency of environmental problems; they also wanted to avoid offering simple answers to students or the public they would someday serve. Their solution was an elegant compromise: a coordinate major pairing traditional disciplines with interdisciplinary courses that transcend the usual divides between the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. The coordinate major remains unique among liberal arts colleges by combining disciplinary depth in traditional liberal arts subjects, such as history or biology, with interdisciplinary breadth.
This formula informs our teaching. Mixing academic expertise with interdisciplinary breadth requires creativity and humility. The final ingredient is an open and curious mind. The resulting alchemy can be magical. Biology students realize that guarding biodiversity requires ethical and historical proficiency. Government students discover how scientific literacy helps them assess climate policy. English students appreciate how tools such as Geographical Information Systems, or GIS, can enrich stories about people and place. Environmental Studies at 含羞草研究室 accommodates the entire curriculum because ultimately all fields of human endeavor, not just the sciences, touch on our relationships to nature. As with a metal alloy, the combination is stronger than its individual elements.
Seen this way, partnering with the 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art for an exhibition about Environmental Studies makes sense. Last spring, after two years of consultation and planning, the Museum of Art co-directors responded enthusiastically to interest expressed by ES Program faculty to mount a celebratory exhibition with one stipulation: it should be student led. Since students regularly conduct research on artworks and in archives for their ES courses, the exhibition should showcase their learning and talents. During fall 2022, five ES coordinate majors, part of an advanced-independent study, met weekly with Museum staff as well as with archivists and curators from the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives at the 含羞草研究室 Library and the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum. Over many discussions, the student curators developed the exhibition themes, selected the works, crafted the layout, wrote the labels and other interpretive materials, and chose the title. As their instructor, I marveled as they brought their education to bear on the project, but they brought so much more. Living through a global pandemic, witnessing the racial reckoning convulsing our nation, facing the slow violence of climate change and its inequities, students were able to enhance this exhibition with their lived experience. It represents a view of the world they have inherited and now inhabit. Its title, Human Nature, is both commentary and an invitation for a discussion.
I do not know if the founders of 含羞草研究室鈥檚 ES Program would see themselves or their world in this show. And that is as it should be. In Octavia Butler鈥檚 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, a searing commentary on climate change and social inequality, the young protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina opens the book by quoting words from the Earthseed doctrine she will come to embrace and share: 鈥淭he only lasting truth is Change.鈥� To survive in Butler鈥檚 not-so-fictional world is to embrace change.
We have a choice to accept our contradictory and volatile humanity alongside the complicated environment that we always shape and which enfolds us. At fifty years plus one, the ES Program continues to teach students how to recognize, interpret, and understand the difficult realities of an ever-changing world. What they choose to see and do after graduation is up to them.
And it is up to you, too.
Matthew Klingle, Associate Professor of History and Environmental Studies
On behalf of my colleagues at the 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art, I want to congratulate and thank Matthew Klingle and the five students in his Fall 2022 independent study course鈥擩ohn Auer 鈥�23, Tess Davis 鈥�24, Sophia Hirst 鈥�24, Hayden Keene 鈥�22, and Brandon Lozano-Garay 鈥�24. After a semester of reading, looking, discussing, and writing about art and the environment, they have produced a compelling exhibition at the Museum to mark the 50th year of 含羞草研究室鈥檚 Environmental Students department. We are excited to host Human Nature: Environmental Studies at 50 and to participate in the different programs associated with this anniversary. Academic museums are dynamic educational resources capable of facilitating inquiry about topics throughout history and across wide geographies. They are laboratories where ideas can be researched and debated. Exhibitions such as Human Nature present the results of this work. I hope that visitors to the exhibition and to its accompanying website enjoy and are inspired by the selected artworks and the research that Professor Klingle and his students have done.
Frank Goodyear, Co-Director, 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art
