Meet Amos Pomp, who graduated from Northwestern University in 2020, and received a major in the American Studies Program and minor in the Environmental Policy and Culture (EPC) Program.
What inspired you to pursue study in the Environmental Policy and Culture (EPC) Program?
When I got to Northwestern I sort of knew three things: 1) that I was a humanities and social sciences person; 2) that I wanted to be in environmental studies; and 3) that I wanted to be an outdoor/environmental educator in some capacity. I majored in American Studies, as there was only an EPC minor at the time. And though my favorite classes were interdisciplinary humanities courses, I knew that EPC would force me to also take policy and hard science courses, which helped to round out my perspective, knowledge, and thinking on the topic. That broader base of study has proved very valuable in my teaching and graduate studies, where knowing only environmental literature, for example, would not have been as helpful as having the broader, interdisciplinary funds I had due to EPC. When I heard the buzz about the EPC program and the excellence of the affiliated courses and professors, I signed up pretty immediately. I declared the EPC minor a year and a half before I declared a major. It’s very exciting to hear that there is an option to major in EPC these days!
How did your studies in the EPC Program impact you personally and/or professionally?
A huge part of EPC for me was my relationships with the other students and with the professors I took courses with and interacted with as part of the program. Professors like Keith Woodhouse and Kimberly Marion Suiseeya supported my peer leadership and my research and writing throughout my undergraduate career. And my peers and I in the program exchanged learning and ideas in courses and at EPC events and made waves with NU Real Food (NURF) events and campaigns.
I also took away so much academically from EPC. Writing a thesis on the DEI movement in U.S. outdoor adventure programming, citing history and policy I studied in EPC courses, has helped me get jobs and apply theory to practice in those jobs. I’ve also, as part of the Wilderness Practices and Principles course at the High Mountain Institute and the School Overnight Program at IslandWood, taught lessons using readings from EPC courses. And, as I just finished a Master of Education at University of Washington, partially through the IslandWood Graduate Program in Education for Environment and Community, having an academic foundation in equity- and justice-focused environmental education was a solid way to enter my graduate studies. I understand more than ever how just and sustainable futures for humanity are inextricably tied to the lands and waters we live in relationship with, and I have EPC to thank for introducing me to that idea.
Is there a specific course, event, or memory associated with the EPC program that sticks out to you from your time at NU?
The first EPC course I took, Environment and Society with Professor Susan Thistle, was framework-shifting for me. It affirmed things about environmental justice and the social construction of wilderness I’d felt in my bones but didn’t know how to explain and had never been taught. It was an introduction to political and social ecology and U.S. environmental history that set me up for deep engagement in the rest of my undergrad courses and beyond.
I also loved the quarter I participated in the EPC book club and we read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, whose oeuvre I have studied and incorporated in my writing and teaching since.
Finally, being in EPC-adjacent/-affiliated clubs, like NURF and WildRoots, was also a large part of my undergrad experience.
What are you working on right now that excites you the most, OR are there any accomplishments you would like to share?
I just finished my master’s thesis, “Putting the ‘Feed’ Back in ‘Feedback’: Nourishing Relationships for Justice”. In many ways it feels like a natural extension of my undergraduate studies and experiences. Orienting my educational and learning relationships toward justice and supporting others in doing the same excites me a lot and feels like a life-long project I am more prepared than ever to engage in.
What fun fact do you want to share with the Northwestern community?
About myself? Well, post-grad school, I’ve found myself employed as a high school Spanish teacher (and backpacking trip leader), the Spanish part of which I never would have predicted three years ago. I quite enjoy it because teaching language is inherently interdisciplinary. In addition to grammar, vocabulary, and linguistics, my students and I get to study history, science, literature, ethnic studies, geography, pop culture and media, and so much more. The opportunities for practicing multimodalities and multiliteracies in a language classroom are boundless. In my second year of grad school, I worked as a research assistant on a project studying justice-oriented multilingual science and literacy education, and it’s just amazing how interwoven ideas are from places as ostensibly distant as EPC and linguistic justice in elementary classrooms when you really look at justice as a true project and goal.