Central Michigan University’s Environmental Studies Program will undergo a rebranding in preparation for the Fall 2025 semester, according to Dr. Matthew Liesch, chairperson of CMU’s Geography and Environmental Studies program. Soon to be known as Sustainability, Environment and Society, the program’s faculty hope the new name will bring about new growth for CMU.

The Environmental Studies Program’s rebranding will integrate content related to sustainability, justice and community engagement into current courses, providing a multifaceted learning experience for current and future students.

Liesch said that classes such as ENV 101, currently listed as Intro to Environmental Studies, will become Intro to Sustainability, Environment and Society beginning in the fall.

Incoming freshmen will be able to sign under the Sustainability, Environment and Society major or minor at that time as well.

“We’re looking at how we integrate the management, the policy, and the science to have communities and places that are more economically, culturally, (and) environmentally sustainable,” Liesch said.

Originating in 2023, Liesch said that this rebranding aims to evolve the program with the current state of the environment, differentiating CMU’s Environmental Studies Program from others.

“One of the things that we like to do, faculty in this department, we keep current on state and national trends,” Liesch said. “We want to make sure that what people are learning is cutting edge. As well as cutting edge technology, oftentimes it involves cutting-edge pedagogy and ideas for learning as well as a lot of applied problem-based learning.”

In addition to remaining relevant and progressive, the Environmental Studies Program’s faculty also hope the rebranding will provide more clarity on what the program offers for students.

Dr. Anthony Feig, CMU professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, said that this change will be seamless for current students, as their earned credits will remain on their transcript and will be automatically updated in their degree plan.

“The name change really also helps highlight the fact that the major and the minor just pair so well with everything,” Feig said. “The combinations are just vast and we just love the opportunity to be able to offer that for students.”

Community engagement is also a vital part of the program, Liesch said, providing students with the opportunity to learn about sustainability issues outside of the classroom.

“We want to make sure that through this program, you're making decisions on sustainability, it's really about making people and places better,” Liesch said. “And so that's what our students are charged with doing, and so that's why we try to reach out to off-campus partners to go and get students applied learning.”

Current students of CMU’s Environmental Studies Program said that they are especially passionate about the sustainability aspect of the program that will be spearheading the fall semester’s rebranding.

Mason Squillets-Peterson, a senior Environmental Studies major, said that prioritizing sustainability in one’s community is especially important in modern society.

“Clearly there's no 'Planet B,' we have to protect our planet and get as many people as you can into caring about the environment,” Squillets-Peterson said. “You just need to build community around sustainability, and I believe environmental studies is a really good way of doing that.”

Sophomore Zoey Archibold, who is majoring in Environmental Studies, said that her experience taking classes within the Intergroup Relations and Justice Program while studying sustainability has improved her overall understanding of the topic.

“I really do feel like the IGR program with the environmental studies major has the value that it has overall because we consider sustainability to not just be environmental but human, social, cultural, and economic,” Archibold said.

Many other Environmental Studies students agreed that the current program intersects with and compliments other areas of study, as was Squillets-Peterson’s experience in his sociology class.

“Hearing everyone's perspectives, deconstructing ideas of race and colonization and all that stuff is very, very relevant to the environmental field,” Squillets-Peterson said. “Even though you don't necessarily talk specifically about the environment, you're not going to be able to solve issues in the environment without addressing or recognizing those things.”

While the current program is praised by its students, there are changes that some hope will accompany the fall semester’s rebranding.

For example, Kelsey Muth, a junior Nonprofit Administration Major, hopes to see a more dialogue-forward approach within the program’s classes in the future.

“I would love to see more conversational teaching and dialogic learning come into the environmental studies space,” Muth said. “That is a change that I would just love to see across the department because I really feel like my understanding is that with environmental studies you're trying to create people who are confident in their ability to create positive change environmentally.”

Three years in the making, students and faculty alike appear to be looking forward to the Environmental Studies Program’s “enhancement” in the coming months.