Abstract

Students want integrative, transformative courses to help them address society’s pressing problems. This integrative and interdisciplinary course targeted educational needs of future environmental experts (scientists, managers, policy leaders). It was transformative for students, helping them achieve their potential (e.g., “competence in action,” “ethical pragmatism”). The course encouraged reflexivity on meaning of life/existence, problem solving skills, and social and policy process. It taught the New Haven School of Jurisprudence at its core (i.e., the policy sciences). Clark started the course in 1990 and updated it annually. Terway co-taught the course with Clark from 2013-2016 and guided the appraisal below. Students submitted course reviews anonymously. This was our data set–we analyzed, grouped responses, and identified major themes in their appraisals. Some students had conventional expectation coming into the course, and so, the course was initially disorienting and did not meet students’ conventional expectations. We reinforced students as they engaged new course materials. Last, we found that student reflexivity required substantial time and effort on the part of instructors and fellow students. The course taught students what and how to integrate among contributions from both scholarly and practical domains. In sum, our appraisal (and the course) set out to understand the outcome of pedagogy designed to make explicit the meaning-making process among future environmental experts. Some students in their appraisal noted that this is the best course they had in their graduate program. Further, many graduates who took the course 10 or more years ago, said they actively use the skillset taught in the course in their current professional roles.