As the flagship university of the State of Connecticut and a Land/Sea Grant university, the University of Connecticut (UConn) has a mission to be an Engaged Institution, developing and sustaining meaningful, mutually beneficial engagement with the communities of the state.

In the course of our research and Extension work, we’ve become aware of the enormous pressures that our state’s communities are under – some of which relate to protecting their town’s natural resources and responding to a long list of environmental requirements. UConn is also committed to providing Life Transformative Education for its students. And as instructors, we continually marvel at the quality of work that can be done by undergraduates once they are given the knowledge and tools to tackle a particular problem. The E-Corps is our attempt to marry these two factors to the benefit of the students, the communities, and the university.

The first E-Corps course, Climate Corps, was developed in 2016-2017 by a small group that included the Directors of all three environmental major programs and Extension faculty with extensive experience in working with towns on environmental issues. Climate Corps was first offered in the Fall of 2017. From there, the Brownfields Corps (2018) and Stormwater Corps (2020) followed, developed by faculty on their own initiative.

The effort was consolidated into the Environment Corps by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program. The goals of the NSF project are to: improve and enhance the E-Corps pedagogical model; study the impact of the program on students, faculty, and the university as a whole; conduct meaningful and actionable projects that help Connecticut communities to address pressing environmental problems; make the program sustainable at UConn, and; assist colleagues at both UConn and at other institutions in adapting the E-Corps model. An overview article on E-Corps is here, or if you're more in the mood for a brochure...

E-Corps is not housed in one department or even in one college. This is because the program team currently involves 6 academic departments in 4 major schools/colleges, the 3 environmental majors, 4 university-wide Centers, and the Office of the Provost. Scroll to the footer below to see the complete list. A program “systems map” was created by the team to try to capture the many considerations and interactions comprising the E-Corps program, both within and outside the university, and to help identify where challenges and opportunities might exist. Click on the diagram to view. [An article on the university setting that engendered E-Corps development is here.]