Department of Marine & Ecological Sciences

College of Arts & Sciences

Florida Gulf Coast University

Fort Myers, FL

Instructor:

Terry Wimberley, Ph.D., Professor

twimber@fgcu.edu

Phone: 239.405.4164

Office: 189 Merwin Hall

Weekly Consultation Hours (Policy):

9-Noon Thursdays by Phone (239.405.4164) Facetimeor Skype

And By Appointment

Office appointments only scheduled if telephone, Facetime and/ or Skype consultation proves ineffective.

Course objectives.

Students participating in this policy seminar will:

1. Gain an understanding of the concepts and structure of policy and regulatory systems for environmental protection; and how those concepts have been applied in the U.S., including evolution of regulatory systems to address emerging environmental problems and the institutional factors that shape these decisions.

2. Demonstrate familiarity with the scholarly literature and with the types of government agency documents that embody U.S. environmental policy.

3. Demonstrate the ability to critically analyze selected particular policy issues using case study analysis.

This is an advanced course. The readings, discussions, and assignments are structured with the expectation that the student has some understanding of environmental policies and some proficiency in policy analysis.

Required  Texts: (NOTE: All texts are available in electronic format for use on an Ipad, Kindle, Nook or any laptop or desk top computer that can use Kindle, Nook or other ebook reader that supports these texts. What this means is that there is no reason for any student to report to me they are unable to fully participate in this course during the very first class session due to lack of a textbook).

Rosenbaum, Walter A. (2016) Environmental Politics and Policy. (10th Edition) Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Layzer, Judith A. (2011) The Environmental Case: Translating Values into Policy (3rd Edition). Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Wimberley, Edward T. (2018) Homegrown Ecopragmatics. Champaign, IL: Common

 Structure of the Class.

Each week you will be given assignments and reading from the texts for the course and will be asked to complete either short answer homework questions or short papers pertaining to the week's assignment. You will also be required to complete a course paper and a comprehensive exam for the course. All coursework will be conducted online.

Grading basis.

Class Participation and Attendance

Class participation and attendance is measure by weekly turning in assignments posted during each week's session (See Course Overview page for more detail).

Weekly Homework Questions

Students will be assinged a number of discussion questions related to readings that they must answer weekly (See Course Overview page for more detail). Failing to participate in weekly class assignments without instructor permission will result in students being withdrawn from the class. Any work mailed in from any other email source - even if mailed in if mailed to the instructor's Canvas email address - will not be graded for the simple reason that when such work is mailed from an external email account to Canvas it is not received on Canvas in any way that the instructor can retrieve. Consequently, work submitted in such a way cannot and will not be graded. For that matter, any work submitted to the instructor by any email source outside of Canvas that is sent to the instructor's FGCU email address or to any other instructor email addresses will also not be accepted or graded - period. The same applies for any assignment that is simply typed into the email field of any Canvas email homework submission.

Research Paper

The research paper will address a topic derived from the case studies found in The Environmental Case by Judith Layzer (2012) as well as from among the cases found in Wimberley's Homegrown Ecopragmatics (2018). Students will develop their research paper around the case study chapter they draw from this text . Students will thoroughly research the literature around which the case has been developed and will update information on the case whenever that information is available. The paper must be written in the case study analysis format provided under the link at the top of this web page which is entitled "Case Method." They will also compare the case they are working on to similar cases that have dealt with similar issues and critique similarities and dissimilarities.  The research case analysis must be well-supported with full citations and references.  The paper should provide a careful critical analysis of the policy and/or scholarly issue you are working on. You should cite (and make analytical use of) supporting documents from the scholarly literature and/or appropriate texts, as well as primary sources for government policy, in addition to the main document you are critiquing. The paper must be no more than 30 pages in length, double-spaced, with ample margins for instructor’s comments (See Course Overview page for more detail).

 Attribution of Ideas and Academic Honesty.

Take care to properly attribute text and ideas when citing published literature or other work, including Internet sources. Directly-quoted text and adapted ideas from previous work must be fully cited and documented. Failure to do this is not only careless scholarship but actually violates academic standards. Students are expected to understand the definitions of all forms of plagiarism. Students who violate the prohibition against plagiarism will fail the course with a “permanent F.” Please refer to in-class discussions, and feel free to discuss with me further, to be sure you understand proper use and attribution of ideas in academic writing.