Welcome to EAS 562
This course is designed to provide an intensive graduate-level introduction to the structure and dynamics of the U.S. natural resource and environmental process. It is concerned both with policy formation -- how proposals for action win sufficient support to be approved and policy implementation -- how programs are actually put into effect. The course is intended primarily for students entering graduate or professional study in resource policy, planning, and management or related fields. Its primary objectives are to enable students to develop an enhanced ability to: disaggregate complex political and management situations, assess the feasibility of resource policy and organizational management changes, and build strategies to get such changes adopted and implemented.
The course meets for two 1 1/2 hour sessions per week. It presents several conceptual frameworks for analyzing the political process and uses numerous case studies of federal, state, and local action to practice using the frameworks. Case discussions use our joint understanding of a policy issue to figure out what and why things happened as well as what actors should do given a situation. They provide real settings to probe historical behavior and test strategy. Current cases used in 562 deal substantively with air pollution, wildlife, parks, toxic substances, nuclear waste, and water resources, and with the Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Army Corps of Engineers (among others) as management entities.
EAS 562 has been taught at SEAS each fall since
1982. It typically enrolls 50 graduate students and is a core class
in the Environmental Policy and Planning
Master's degree program
at the School for Environment and Sustainability, The University of Michigan.
For more information about the Environmental Policy and Planning Program,
contact the School's Office of Academic Programs (734-764-6453 or
seas.admissions@umich.edu). For more information about EAS 562, contact
Professor Steve Yaffee ((yaffee@umich.edu)).