ENST: Embracing the Human

The work Dr. Sarah Ray has done is no stranger to those of us who have had the privilege to learn from her. Her classes are always rich, fun, interactive, and exciting places to learn and to stretch ourselves. Because of my experience with her teaching style already, her piece studying affect in the classroom not only made theoretical sense, but also practical sense in how it is applied. I was in her ENST 395 class in November 2016 when so many things changed, both for the country but also for her, her students, and her classrooms.

The Environmental Studies program is a program that changes lives. I truly believe that. Because it is a program that changes lives, it's not surprising in the slightest that it is also an emotional rollercoaster. Who would've thought that discovering not only one's purpose in life, but also a direction in which to guide it involves emotion. I mean we are human right? The ENST curriculum has an emotional impact on the lives of those that enter it, because it changes them in more aspects than one. I have seen so many people who have come into this major as sort of a last try, a last ditch effort to find something they are truly passionate about and gain something of value from their college experience. Whether they started out at HSU, or came as a transfer student, I don't think I know a single person who started out their freshman year as an ENST major. Most of us started out as Environmental Science, or Botany, or some other similar "environmental" field, that more often than not left us feeling depleted, uninspired, and unfulfilled. However, as each of us discovers the ENST program and Sarah's amazing leadership in our own time, each of us falls in love. I have seen more people than I can count who I have shared a classroom with and gotten to know throughout my years at HSU that have truly blossomed and become intelligent, motivated, passionate, and straight up inspirational people because of and through the Environmental Studies curriculum at HSU. Whether she knows it or not, the program Sarah has created here is truly changing lives, both the lives of her students but also the uncountable number of lives that her students will impact.


I believe a critical piece of this life-changing curriculum is it's brutal honesty. As she mentions in her piece, when discussing the types of things that we do in Environmental Studies, there is no hiding from the truth. If you are going to make teaching the subject matter worthwhile you have to attend to it honestly and forthrightly, only then can students truly gleam the lessons that are meant to be taught and learned from the intensely challenging material we discuss. Part of this honesty is dealing with emotions. Being a human being involves emotion, a lot of it. Sometimes more than we would like, for emotions can often make things seems unbearable or overwhelming. No matter how hard Immanuel Kant try's, we are not strictly rational beings and more times than we would like to admit we are governed by emotions. Often times these emotions come up in difficult, tumultuous, or important moments in our lives. As I alluded too earlier, the Environmental Studies curriculum is one of those times. Students enter the program lost and uninspired, and they leave the program as passionate and motivated people who not only have an eye out for changing the world but a realistic sense of where they can start.

The journey that is the Environmental Studies curriculum at HSU is a tough emotional rollercoaster. It pits you against extremely difficult subjects and faces you too confront some of the most uncomfortable matters in our own lives. By confronting these matters head on and allowing the emotions they bring with them to become central Sarah has identified a way of teaching that embraces the human condition. Because of this her program fulfills a role that many other major programs don't, and that is too become even more than a crucial part of the evolution of the student, but rather a crucial part of the life of every student who passes through the doors of ENST 120.