The MSU College of Engineering is moving forward with its plans to launch a new environmental engineering major this fall.
Students who previously only had the opportunity to take a concentration in the field now will have the chance to earn an undergraduate degree, with very little deviation from the previous specialization’s benchmarks.
“The class requirements for the concentration as opposed to the degree are really pretty similar,” said Richard Lyles, a professor and the associate chairman for undergraduate studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The university had offered graduate programs in environmental engineering for more than four decades, but new demand from employers for environmental engineers pushed them to move the undergraduate degree program forward.
Increased student interest also necessitated the creation of the program.
“As the demand for graduates increases, there are employers interested in hiring these people,” said Tom Voice, a professor of civil and environmental engineering who spearheaded the undergraduate degree program’s creation. “We just felt that this was the time to do it.”
In the program’s first full year, Lyles expects some students to transfer from the college’s civil engineering program to the new degree option, and he anticipates as many as 15 students could end up joining this fall.
Two or three students most likely will graduate from the program this year, having already completed a majority of the requirements for the degree.
In the near future, Lyles said 10-15 students could leave MSU with an environmental engineering degree in an average year.
The addition of the new program comes at almost no cost to the university, as many faculty members already teach courses related to environmental engineering.
“It was in that sense a no-cost kind of thing,” Lyles said.
With the degree program addition, MSU joins a small number of institutions offering the program across the country. MSU is just the second public university in Michigan to establish an environmental engineering major, behind Michigan Technological University.
In that way, some think the MSU program is unique. That aspect already has led to relatively high interest from students, said Susan Masten, a professor in the department.
“We will be the only environmental engineering program in the entire Lower Peninsula area,” Masten said. ”We’ll have our first graduates in the fall, which is phenomenal.”
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