This semester the Mississippi State College of Arts and Sciences launched a new initiative, EDGE, which will promote environmental friendliness and other educational themes.
EDGE is an acronym for enquiry – which promotes research – diversity, green for environmental friendliness and ethics.
Dean of the college Gary Myers said the initiative unifies the College of Arts and Sciences, which is the largest at the university, through common goals.
“The EDGE initiative is basically a way of unifying the college and presenting the students with larger concepts to think about as they’re getting their [degrees],” Myers said. “We’ve got 14 departments, five centers and institutes and over 4,000 students. It’s very diverse; you go from physics on one hand to philosophy on the other.”
EDGE is the first collegewide initiative of its kind at the university and has received positive feedback from the deans of other colleges at MSU.
“I’ve announced it in Deans Council, and everybody said, ‘Oh, that’s good,’ and they [said they] would probably consider it too,” Myers said. “I was trying to encourage them to consider [adopting similar initiatives] – I think the university should be a green university.”
Myers said the program will introduce EDGE ideas to students as part of their curriculum.
“The idea is that a student could come into arts and sciences and no matter what major [and] could have exposure to at least one or all of these concepts in a bigger sense,” Myers said.
He said as soon as the beginning of the spring semester, the initiative will begin to be included in arts and sciences course curriculum and degree programs.
“Our goals for all of these is to integrate them into our present operation,” Myers said. “If we’re teaching classes where diversity can be mentioned, we’re going to mention diversity.”
Alan Marcus, head of the department of history, contributed to the EDGE initiative’s conceptualization and said the program could unify what many of the departments have been working toward separately.
“I was primarily interested in the enquiry aspect of EDGE. As a department we do research, and we have to teach students to ask questions and how they can find the answers to those questions,” Marcus said. “Enquiry is one of the most important things we do.”
Myers said the program will also enrich students’ college education and increase their exposure to concepts they may need in the future.
“This concept of the EDGE program is to provide bigger context for the work that students are doing,” Myers said. “If we can get students to think in those terms, their education and their discipline is going to be more meaningful.”
Myers said students have expressed interest and approval of the initiative, especially about the green aspect.
“[The] Dean’s Student Advisory Council has taken up the challenge of the green initiative, and we do different things that are sustainability . and we have recycling bins at our tailgate, and [we’ve] been to several meetings and a lecture on that issue,” Myers said.
Senior physics major Steve Mann, president of the DSAC, said its members are working to make the school more aware of the environment and recycling.
“We have a plan for next semester,” he said. “We hope to make these events more geared toward being environmentally friendly.”
Mann said in the past the council has hosted events for students and charitable groups, but because of the initiative, they will put more emphasis on environmentally friendly practices.
“We look forward to doing something fun for students or supporting causes, but now it can be fun for the students [while] putting an emphasis also on being a greener campus,” Mann said.
Myers said the program is creating a larger context for students and the university and coordinating them under the EDGE umbrella.
“We’re already doing a lot of this stuff, and it’s just organizing it so that we all know what we’re doing and if you get it focused like that, then all we can do can be pointed in that direction,” he said.