Welcome
The Regents governing UNLV created a new School of Environmental and Public Affairs (SEPA) in September 2009. The new school merges the departments of Environmental Studies and Public Administration, along with the PhD in Public Affairs, into what we think is an exciting new interdisciplinary synthesis of environmental science and studies, public administration and non-profit management, public and urban affairs, collaborative governance, and policy analysis. A key theme that ties us together is our faculty’s strong track record and interest in applying our expertise to real world problems.
We believe that
- responding wisely to, and developing effective long-term problem solving capacity for, public problems and management challenges will require new levels of cooperation among experts across the public, non-profit, civic, and, in many cases, private sectors.
- our primary purpose is to use our expertise to serve others. This means delivering value as teachers who train future leaders. It means advancing knowledge in meaningful ways in our respective disciplines and using our expertise to help society resolve and better manage important public problems. And it means serving those in society and government with problem sets and educational demands specific to our areas of expertise.
All of this is done with an emphasis on providing INSIGHT, EXCELLENCE and LEADERSHIP for the present and future. Toward these ends, we offer students a variety of undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate options in Environmental Studies/Science, Public Administration, and Public Affairs.
The timing has never been better in these areas of study. In the general fields of public administration and public affairs, the demand for such expertly trained employees is higher than ever given the expected retirement of roughly half the federal agency workforce in the next ten years, along with the explosion in non-profits across the world. Much the same is true for environmental and natural resource careers. As many already know, the world is changing rapidly and the future is now for both the green economy and developing expertise in the environmental studies field. We can help to pave the way for you to be successful in this exciting new world.
We hope that you decide to join us.