School of the Environment
The School of the Environment strives to solve important environmental issues facing communities in Idaho, our nation, and the world by building connections and relationships among existing strengths in environmental teaching, learning and scholarship at Boise State.
News and Opportunities
For Students
- The school will provide high-value inter- and transdisciplinary learning opportunities for students including new majors, minors and certificates as well as intensive research experiences.
- Students will have access to experiential learning opportunities that support both the student and faculty partners though field schools, interactions with esteemed researchers and other experiential learning opportunities alongside problem-based and place-based coursework.
- The school meets students, any student interested in understanding or helping to solve environmental issues, where they are.
- The school will provide students new suites of technical skills, peer and faculty mentoring, conferencing experiences, among many more.
For Faculty and Researchers
- The school provides a novel support system for faculty scholarship and ways of investing in collaborative, connected work.
- The School of the Environment provides faculty with cross- and transdisciplinary opportunities to work with other faculty around areas of shared research interest and in an environment aligned with, and supported by, our shared values.
- The school elevates collaborative research by identifying existing projects and resources, connecting similar interests across disciplines and programs, and providing professional support and critical thinking time to move the projects forward.
For Idaho and Beyond
- The School of the Environment is a community of people—students, faculty, staff and partners—interested in creative and interdisciplinary ways of understanding and finding solutions to environmental challenges facing the world today.
- The university and the public can expect to see a series of programs and engagement activities and a more vibrant network of conversations around pressing environmental issues.
2022 Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area Symposium
This two-day symposium of talks, poster presentations and collaboration focuses on the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area and showcases research, conservation-based projects and partnerships in order to facilitate interactions and research development with university students, local agencies, NGOs, private corporations and the general public.
Building on Existing Excellence
Creative, coordinated, interdisciplinary programs are the liberal arts of the future. At Boise State, we have been growing our environmental expertise in conversations with each other for years across disciplines and degrees like biology, public policy, geosciences, sociology, economics and public health just to name a few. We have cultivated a shared vocabulary that has tremendous value—almost as if the “School of the Environment” has been at Boise State for a while.
In the summer of 2022, the Idaho State Board of Education approved the official “School of the Environment” within the College of Arts and Sciences at Boise State. The best part is that we don’t have to move faculty, researchers or students into or out of spaces across campus—we’ve been in conversations and collaborating with each other for years.
SOE is built around existing connections and resources at Boise State. Structurally, the School of the Environment is designed around an innovative organizational structure that nurtures connections in support of teaching, learning and research without having to physically move people or reorganize units. From this idea, we can create interdisciplinary opportunities for teaching, learning, research and service for anyone interested in helping to solve the environmental issues facing us today.
Designing the School
In this video, School of the Environment Design Team members Dr. Alejandro Flores, Dr. Kevin Feris, and Dr. Emily Wakild discuss the School of the Environment in the College of Arts and Sciences, how the school was designed, how the school aligns strategically with Boise State and the College of Arts and Sciences, and what’s next for the school.
Closed captions are available and you can access a descriptive transcript at Video Transcript – The School of Environment at Boise State.
