John and Melody Taft and Bill and Sandi Nicholson gifted the Environmental Humanities Education Center, a satellite campus located on 16 acres in the wild lands of Lakeview, Mont. on Oct. 1.
The center fosters a multidisciplinary approach to environmental studies through a humanities lens and it is the first field station in the nation to use this merged method. It will be renamed the Taft Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center.
Heidi Camp, assistant dean of the College of the Humanities, said this approach enables students to see environmental issues with a new perspective and take local action.
“What I see is a great advantage for students. It’s an unusual experience for them, something you can’t get in a classroom,” Camp said. “This campus is a place where you can take what you’re learning in theory and find practical application for it in a real-world situation.”
The U has been testing the center as a pilot project for the past three years. The trial phase consisted of developing class programs for students and workshops for community members.
The classes offered at the Montana campus are available to a variety of students. There are credit courses for graduate and undergraduate students ranging from parks and recreation majors to film majors. Most classes are a week long, but they can also range from three days to three weeks.
Dan Mccool, director of the environmental and sustainabilty studies program and political science professor, will be teaching his first class at the center today. It is an environmental and sustainability studies class offered to undergraduate seniors to complete a capstone project.
“It’s a great place to go and do what we do in a capstone course which is: entertain the big questions, do a survey of what students have learned over the last four years and talk about their future and the planet,” Mccool said.
The campus is also suitably located next to the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Mccool said. This allows students to work with professionals in a rare ecological system that includes not only unique wild land of alpines, sand dunes and wetlands, but also a diverse population of wildlife.
The U has been sharing the Montana facilities with Weber State, Montana State University and SUU.
Counting both the student occupants and visiting corporations, about 250 people visit the center per season, Camp said. The season lasts from mid-June to mid-October, weather-permitting. Approximately 14 different courses are offered.
Mary Tull, the director of the center, believes the center to be a great place for all to learn, including herself.
“I feel very fortunate to be working on this project, to be in the valley, to be able to facilitate and interact with such wonderful faculty and students. It’s been an education for me. I’ve gained a tremendous amount personally in knowledge and understanding,” Tull said.
Tull has been director of the satellite campus for the past three years, and said she tries to make it cost effective for students. Each class varies in price, and there is a fee for room and board in the cabins.
The Taft and Nicholson families started the nearly $5 million project in 2005 in a remote location that lies east of West Yellowstone. After an estimated 30,000 hours of reconstruction, the site was ready to give its services to students. Not all services are available, however, as the campus is 25 miles any direction on a dirt road and lies out of range for both cell phone service and wireless internet.
Camp feels the isolated campus gives students the opportunity to truly immerse themselves in the transformational beauty of the surrounding landscape.
“It’s a place where you’re disconnected. It’s quiet and you have time to think and talk and learn differently,” Camps said.
Tull hopes this type of learning will inspire environmental activism in U students to solve complex ecosystem problems.