course integrates the students’ entire undergraduate
education and puts that integration into the context of
their chosen profession of arms.
Conclusion
About 1000 students graduate from West Point
each spring, and these students receive both Bachelor
of Science degrees and commissions in the United
States Army as second lieutenants. Virtually all of
these graduates serve five years in the Army, some
serve much longer. Each of these new lieutenants will
be a leader, capable of creating and enforcing change
in the Army as his or her rank grows. Given this
unique opportunity, West Point exposes each cadet to
the ideals of sustainability and environmental stew-
ardship through activities such as the Corps-wide Re-
cycleMania competition, environmental officers at all
staff levels, and the environmental club Green Think.
A subset of these graduates, about 200 per year, has
the opportunity to explore environmental issues in a
deeper academic context by choosing to take the en-
vironmental engineering sequence. A different subset
of graduates, about 40 each year, investigates these
topics in a deep, systematic way by majoring in either
environmental engineering or environmental science.
These two majors allow the cadets to confront the en-
vironmental issues facing the Army today, become
familiar with existing developed world technologies,
and to think about simple technologies that may work
in a developing world hampered by lack of available
infrastructure. These three subsets of cadets take their
awareness of environmental issues with them as they
become the Army’s junior officers. The knowledge
and experiences they have gained at West Point will