Colleges and universities are on the green wagon.
“Green is good business,” said Pedro Alvarez, chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department at Rice University.
But it’s also about idealism.
“It’s not only a prerequisite to get a job but also something that genuinely appeals to this generation, how they could contribute to a better world,” said Barbara Brown Wilson, assistant director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Texas at Austin.
Community colleges, boosted by stimulus funding and grants from the Department of Energy, push green technology work force training, from installing solar panels to building wind turbines.
Four-year schools have approached the field in different ways: Arizona State University established a School of Sustainability in 2007, offering bachelor’s and graduate degrees in the field. Rice offers a minor in energy and water sustainability.
Researchers at Texas Southern University are creating biodiesel from algae. The University of Houston has a class in carbon trading, and many architecture programs feature sustainable design as a core element.
But the concept is embedded in traditional disciplines, as well.
“Sustainability is part of everything we do,” said Alan Sams, executive associate dean of agriculture and life sciences at Texas A&M University.
I spent my college days taking impractical classes like math and economics, so I don’t have a personal basis for comparison. But I figure this is pretty standard stuff, and why not? It’s practical and it’s ideal, and that’s a combination you don’t get too often. The real question is what programs aren’t going this route, and why.