Rachel Mak, Photography Editor
Starting in August, the School of the Environment will welcome students to new Executive Master of Environmental Management and Executive Master of Forestry programs.
These two degree programs are structured on an accelerated timeline and invite professionals with a decade of experience for a year of residential education.
“Our traditional two-year degree programs offer an unparalleled educational experience for early-career professionals,” Dean Indy Burke wrote to the News. “The executive master’s degree programs will provide the same, high-touch immersive experience but in a highly personalized program that is designed specifically for senior leaders and mid-career professionals.”
The idea of a one-year accelerated master’s program isn’t entirely new at the school.
According to Mark Ashton ENV ’85 GRD ’90, the director of Yale Forests and senior associate dean for The Forest School, the EMEM and EMF programs are revivals of the School of the Environment’s original one-year Master’s of Environmental Management and Master’s of Forestry programs, which had the same name as the two-year programs.
Agustín Carbó ENV ’12 was a student in the 2011-12 mid-career residential program. He completed 24 credits in two semesters. He went on to work for the Environmental Protection Agency and was appointed in 2022 as the inaugural chairman of the Puerto Rico Energy Commission — now named the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau.
“This was an amazing experience,” Carbó wrote in an email to the News, adding that he wished he could have stayed and taken more classes. “Like my advisor, Prof. Brad Gentry, told me, ‘This is like a candy store.’”
Carbó, who is from Puerto Rico, described the School of Environment’s atmosphere as “very tight” and credits the classes and faculty for providing him with a holistic perspective on environmental and energy-related issues.
He provided an example from when he was appointed executive director of the Puerto Rico Solid Waste Authority.
“There, I was able to have a more integrated approach connecting areas like climate change to resolve important issues of waste management,” Carbó said. “This was like working with many intersections to resolve an environmental problem.”
Like the MEM program Carbó graduated from, the new executive programs will require experienced individuals to already have established environmental careers.
For example, the EMF program requires applicants to have already worked as foresters — with a degree in forestry, natural resources or any other environmental field and ten years of work experience related to natural resources.
“Once you are in a job and in the daily routine of work, it is very difficult to take time out and catch up on the tremendous advances in knowledge on the science and management of the environment — having a one year period of immersion can be a very refreshing and restoring experience that can advance someone’s career in new ways,” Ashton wrote.
Another hallmark of the program is that it will be fully residential, offering students the chance to spend a year on Yale’s campus.
According to Kenneth Gillingham, the School of the Environment’s senior associate dean of academic affairs, faculty hope that bringing experienced, mid-career environmental leaders to the program will add to the intellectual experiences and diversity of the school.
“There has long been an interest in bringing in a small number of mid-career environmental leaders to the Yale School of the Environment, as they add greatly to intellectual discourse and provide keen insights to help our existing master’s students learn about career opportunities,” Gillingham wrote in an email.
The School of the Environment was founded in 1900 as the Yale Forest School.