Evaluating impacts on graduate education: The conservation and sustainable development initiative
- Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States)
An evaluation was conducted of the efficacy of a 2-million-dollar initiative, Integrated Approaches to Training in Conservation and Sustainable Development, in assisting 36 academic institutions to educate the ``new conservationists,`` individuals who have disciplinary depth and cross-disciplinary breadth to balance the complex factors in environment/development decision-making. Graduate student learning activities, university support, external funding, an cross-disciplinary linkages were measurable greater at the 11 universities receiving grants than at participating universities that did not. A total of 475 new conservation and sustainable development (CSD) educational activities--courses, seminars, internships, and research projects--were developed for 1988 to 1993. More than 460 faculty were actively involved in the CSD programs, with 60 percent representing the natural sciences. Programs receiving grants developed more interdisciplinary linkages and incorporated greater number of social scientists, physical scientist, and humanities faculty. The number of graduate student enrolled in SCD program sin the participating universities quadrupled to 683 students during the five layers of the initiative, while the number of students peripherally involved more than doubled to 988 students. Increases in student numbers were correlated with grant awards, although total student enrollment was not. Formal institutionalization of CSD curriculum occurred at 60 percent of those institutions receiving grants and 47 percent of those that did not have evaluation process revealed a variety of mechanisms for garnering university and external support for cross-disciplinary graduate education addressing the conservation/development arena.
- OSTI ID:
- 118663
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Professional, Vol. 17, Issue 3; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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