A global study of undergraduate environmental engineering programs

Recent analyses of environmental engineering and management (EE and M) field has highlighted its rapidly expanding size and increasingly diverse nature (Hart and Nolan, 1999). The last 30 years have seen growing international recognition that the challenges associated with environmental degradation and sustainable development have important implications for, and connections with, education and research (IUCN, 1970; UNCED, 1992). The concept of environmental education is now widespread in national educational policies, curriculum documents, curriculum development initiatives, and conservation strategies. Reflecting this trend, several universities throughout the world offer a wide range of graduate as well as undergraduate programs in environment. These programs have originated from various academic schools and disciplines (engineering, public policy, business, management, etc) creating considerable diversity of focus, themes emphasized, courses and methods of offerings. The rise of these programs, in part, reflects the growing need for engineers, technologists as well as managers, who are able to understand, contribute to, and manage a wide variety of technology-based programs and organizations. In addition, the large number of environmental engineering research journals, professional associations and international/national conferences point to the rapid growth of this field. This paper will examine the trends in provision, type of program, major curriculum focus of undergraduate environmental engineering and management education and then compare these trends with the emerging trends in the environmental engineering and management research journals of the last decade. (author)