Since that time, it has become one of the largest graduate environmental education and research programs in the United States. Dr. Cass T. Miller is Department Chair. ESE is one of the few degree-granting units at a research university that integrates environmental science, engineering, and policy analysis. Faculty hold advanced degrees in fields ranging from chemistry, microbiology, and engineering to economics, planning, and public administration.
Research is conducted individually, jointly, and interdisciplinarily.
Development of the Graduate Program in ESE When Dr. Thorndike Saville arrived in 1919 to serve on the faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering, the history of the Department began. Dr. Baity replaced Dr. Saville as Dean of Engineering at UNC in 1932 and served in that capacity until the dissolution of the School of Engineering in 1936. The consolidation of state educational functions, a result of the depression years, changed the academic structure of UNC from that point forward. At a time when all other existing engineering programs moved to NC State, it was Dr. Baity's determination that firmly rooted a Department of Sanitary Engineering in the new Division of Public Health. The graduate programs expanded and in 1940 the Division of Public Health became the School of Public Health.