Our Environmental Science Program - Past, Present, and the Future of CTX

This article is a part of a three-part series that ties the past, present, and future of Concordia University Texas together. Including excerpts from the 1980s-90s student-run school newspaper “The Clarion,” this series will highlight the connections between the decades of Concordia and provide insights to be considered as we enter the next hundred years

The Beginnings of the Environmental Science Minor

In the early 90s, Concordia University Texas took a bold step: offering a minor in environmental science. The goal was for college students at Concordia Texas to have an opportunity to gain awareness about the concerns our earth is facing and the reasons behind them.

Dr. Donald Zielke, a professor who was involved with formulating this program, said that students who were majoring in different fields should “still become informed about what the environmental problems are.” To the CTX community of the 90s, he hoped this new, fresh program would open doors for young people to understand how to protect our world.

Environmental Science at Concordia Texas Today

Flash forward to 2026: CTX now offers not only an environmental science minor, but a major in the subject as well. Additionally, all students are required to take an Intro to Environmental Science course regardless of their major. This may seem like just another common core class, but learning about the world around us actually overlaps with a lot of unexpected subjects.

As a psychology major, I had no idea how vital understanding human behavior is to learning how people can negatively affect nature until taking the introductory course. Just like our choices can damage our mental health, we can also damage our ecosystem and, in succession, our economy, physical well-being, and even spiritual lives as well.

Faith and Environmental Conservation

Jason Murphy, staff writer of a newspaper series at CTX in the 90s called “The Clarion,” said in his article that “God has given us this earth to nurture and care for as a garden, not to use as a dump.” Although our campus did not exist at that time on the nature preserve it does now, Concordia still did its part thirty years ago to educate students about environmental conservation.

Learning how to interact with and take care of nature is important for CTX students, especially since we are surrounded by God’s creation at all times. Because our campus is on a nature preserve, we want to be responsible for how we treat the environment around us. How will the preserve look in five, ten, or even one hundred years from now? Whether our campus is still at the Northwest Austin location by that time or not, our presence here right now should leave a positive impact on the Balcones Canyonland Preserve.

An Environmental Legacy for the Next 100 Years

Now that CTX is in its centennial year and we’ve just adopted the endangered Golden Cheeked Warber as a secondary mascot, we students should be proactive in making sure our legacy will strongly last as we march forward into the next one hundred years. What we do for our present students, campus, and environment will be remembered. If we are able to make a small difference now, surely the effect will last in years to come.

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