Up to this semester, the average University humanities student looking to fulfill the lab requirement was limited to about three courses — "Physics for poets," "Rocks for jocks" and "Shake 'n bake."
This term, however, visiting geosciences professor Gregory van der Vink GS '83 has been added to the list. His new course, ENV 299 / GEO 299: Setting the Environmental Agenda, is quickly becoming known among undergraduates as "Rocks for Politicians" — and he is proud of it.
While some professors may strive to avoid nicknames belittling their courses, van der Vink says he likes the distinction.
Like their peers in other environmental studies classes, students in van der Vink's course study environmental regulations and issues like natural hazards, nuclear proliferation, global warming, beach erosion and ozone depletion.
Unlike the other courses, however, there are no books for the classes. Rather, by examining scientific data, journal articles, presidential decisions and directives and congressional reports, students in the class are exposed to the politics of environmental policy.
These materials — organized in a case study structure — help them understand the thinking behind regulations and programs created in Washington, and to come to their own conclusions about what course of action should be taken.
For example, one recent case study in the class involved looking at whether a restaurant corporation should use paper or styrofoam containers, said Heather Swanson '01, a student in the class. After looking at the scientific data, she decided that the company should use styrofoam since it had a shorter lifetime — "sperm-to-worm" — impact.
But other students, taking into account that some consumers prefer paper goods for their appearance of ecological sensitivity, suggested that the company use paper in order to attract and maintain a customer base, Swanson said.
Though van der Vink is trained as a scientist — he received his Ph.D. in geosciences from Princeton in 1983 — he intends the class to have an interdisciplinary approach.
"The very nature of this work requires broad interdisciplinary measures," he said, explaining that an understanding of politics and economics is necessary for environmental studies.
"The purpose of this class," he said, "is to teach students to be sophisticated consumers of environmental information."
Van der Vink's colleagues agree there is a lack of environmental and scientific education for people without scientific backgrounds. According to geosciences professor Lincoln Hollister — who is a lab instructor for ENV 299 — people often have strong feelings about environmental issues, but these feelings are not reasoned responses to the complex issues. Thus, a gap exists between what people feel and what's actually going on, he explained.
Part of the problem is that there is a lack of comprehensive public education on environmental issues, said lab instructor Robert Phinney, a geosciences professor. "The problem of getting citizens to deal appropriately with the hazards and the environment in society is one of general scientific literacy," he noted.
To that end, Van der Vink is on a crusade to encourage departments to offer more science courses targeted at non-majors. While there is a tendency — and a need — for science departments to nurture future researchers, there is also a great need on campus for science courses designed for non-majors, van der Vink said.
"You've got future CEOs, cabinet members, authors, educators here," van der Vink noted, adding that science departments should take advantage of the opportunity to educate these students.
The geosciences department has shown full support for this effort. Three distinguished senior geosciences professors help teach the class; along with Hollister and Phinney, W. Jason Morgan GS '64 is a lab instructor.
"[Van der Vink] doesn't lower standards. [The course] has relevant content," Hollister said. "We're there because we believe we're committed to what he's trying to do in this course."
ENV 299 was specifically created to appeal to humanities majors. Though he originally expected to have 20 students in the class, van der Vink said the class was expanded after a large number of students expressed interest in it. 240 — of which only four are geosciences majors — are now enrolled in the class, making it necessary to run labs five days a week, he said. For many of these students, a main draw is that the course fulfills the A.B. science and technology requirement.
Another main attraction might be Van der Vink himself, who is honored by the University as a 250th Anniversary Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching. To students, he is known as an extremely entertaining teacher who is truly committed to relating to and teaching undergraduates.
"He really plays to the class as if we're an audience and he's a performer," Swanson said. He serves as a faculty advisor to Butler College and the Graduate College as well as to the women's golf team, she noted.
In one class, van der Vink demonstrated the mechanics of an earthquake through dance, Swanson said. He often starts each class with music — the Temptations — and has a limbo contest planned for later in the semester.
"You get in there and learn and don't even realize it," Esty Dwek '04.
Van der Vink has taught upper level geosciences courses at Princeton for the past nine years as a visiting professor, but has spent virtually all of his career in Washington, where he serves as director of planning at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology. He was also appointed by former president Clinton to a state department advisory board on science and technology, and has made contributions to the Senate and House Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees.
Here at Princeton, by the end of the semester, van der Vink expects the students to have an idea of what — and why — the new environmental agenda should be. Though he has his own ideas about the issues the class looks at and the larger patterns that he hopes will emerge, he is looking forward to the final conclusions of the class as "a big surprise ending."
"These are the big issues," he said, "the ones that people struggle and grapple with in Washington, D.C., and there are no [clear] solutions."
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