JCU announces groundbreaking environment course

JCU is making a five million dollar investment in the new course over the next 10 years, and has begun an international search to recruit high-performing academics to teach the new curriculum.

Four teaching positions are being offered, based in either Townsville or Cairns.

The Dean of the College of Science & Engineering, Professor Marcus Lane said the environmental practice program breaks new ground.

“This course builds on JCU’s excellence in environmental science and will ensure the University’s graduates are even more employable.

“Employers in the environment sector have told us what skills they are seeking from graduates, and the new Bachelor of Environmental Practice has been designed with that in mind,” Prof Lane said.

Students will undertake a core of professional practice subjects and choose from a range of majors, which include entirely new majors for JCU: Urban Design and Corporate Environmental Management.

“In an increasingly populated world, answers to environmental problems are becoming more and more complicated.

“Urban Design will combine urban planning with engineering and ‘design thinking’, equipping graduates with the skills to solve the urban management problems of the world, such as providing fresh water and other essentials for rapidly growing cities.

“Corporate Environmental Management will combine business literacy with environmental skills, ensuring large companies and others comply with environmental laws to better manage business impacts on the environment,” Prof Lane said

The Acting Dean of the College of Business, Law and Governance, Professor Ray McNamara remarked that: “Increasingly companies are concerned with ‘triple bottom line outcomes’– environmental, social and economic.”

The Corporate Environmental Management major will also be able to be taught as part of the Bachelor of Business, allowing students to add an environmental focus to their business degree.

“This is a tremendous innovation for our Business degree. It gives graduates a broader range of employment opportunities in business,” Prof McNamara said.