Dear friends and alumni of ENVSE,
After seven years of service as the Environmental Systems Engineering (ENVSE) program chair, Bill Groves has stepped down and returned to life as a “regular” faculty member, continuing to teach courses in environmental health and safety and air pollution. I have now stepped into those big shoes and am excited about the possibilities of connecting with all of our current students, alumni, and industry partners.
In a continuation of high interest in our program, we have eighty-two pre-majors and forty-seven current ENVSE majors for a total of 129 affiliated students. Of special note to our students, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and EME recently committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate the laboratory space in 140 Hosler that is now the primary home for ENVSE 404W and ENVSE 412 activities. This investment in the continued excellence of the program is invaluable for the education of our current and future students.
The student Society of Environmental Systems Engineers (SESE) remains active, hosting bi-weekly meetings, social events such as the October Halloween outing to Harner Farms, and activities with other student societies. SESE also offers unique opportunities to explore environmental engineering applications through field trips to wastewater treatment facilities, acid mine drainage locations, the Penn State nuclear reactor, and recycling plants, among others. Additionally, SESE has maintained its tradition of inviting program alumni as guest speakers and has found the SESE Group on LinkedIn and Instagram to be very useful for maintaining ties with ENVSE alumni. The group has roughly thirty members, and all current and former ENVSE students are encouraged to join and network.
A revised ENVSE curriculum goes into effect for the Spring 2025 semester. Revisions have added GIS and data analytics content, along with a combination of the previous two option structure to return to a single set of requirements for all ENVSE graduates. Faculty implemented these changes to strengthen the skills of current and future students and better serve their needs and our industrial partners. We look forward to the continued value that we can provide to our students’ careers.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Gernand,
Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Safety Engineering, Undergraduate Program Chair of Environmental Systems Engineering