"Environmental problems don't come neatly packaged as just biological problems or just economic problems," says Peter Wilcoxen, the new director of Maxwell's Center for Environmental Policy and Administration (CEPA). "They arise in ways that cross these boundaries." A prime example is climate change. Neither its causes nor its global effects can be fully understood through the lens of a single discipline. "Trying to consider the technical, economic, political, and sociological aspects all at once," Wilcoxen says, "is the only viable way to do anything about the problem."

That kind of interdisciplinary thinking is precisely what CEPA facilitates. In the area of climate change, for example, at least seven Maxwell professors do research on different and complementary aspects of the problem, and CEPA provides a focal point for communication and collaboration. "The nice thing about an interdisciplinary group like CEPA," says Wilcoxen, "is that people who focus on the economics, like David Popp or myself, can talk to people like Sarah Pralle, who knows all about the role of interest groups in the political process, or people like Steve Brechin, who studies what happens to these issues as they go through the media."

CEPA also reaches beyond Maxwell to forge connections with scholars in biology, earth sciences, law, engineering, and other disciplines on the Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry campuses. These relationships pay dividends not only in research but in the classroom. In 2006 Wilcoxen will join with faculty from natural sciences, law, and ESF to teach a course on climate change. The goal is not only to shed light on climate change issues, Wilcoxen says, but "to show students how interdisciplinary thinking can be applied to other problems."

Climate change is just one of dozens of environmental topics investigated by CEPA faculty, who come from across Maxwell's disciplines. Allan Mazur, professor of public affairs, studies public attitudes toward the environment and how perceptions of risk square with reality. Rosemary O'Leary, from public administration, does research on environmental governance and conflict resolution. Geographer Robert Wilson brings an historical perspective with his research into the environmental history of North America.

David Popp, assistant professor of public administration, specializes in environmental policy and technological change and is affiliated with CEPA and the Center for Technology and Information Policy, which share office space in Eggers Hall. The value of research centers like CEPA, Popp says, is "having varied viewpoints around and access to people who have information and expertise in other disciplines. They're not cloistered in the economics department or the political science department or wherever. It makes it much easier to work together."

Wilcoxen, an associate professor of economics and public administration, came to Maxwell in 2003 from the University of Texas at Austin specifically because of his long-standing interest in interdisciplinary work on the environment. As a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Wilcoxen has collaborated with Australian economist Warwick McKibbin to build a global economic model of the international impact of environmental policies. Their current focus is energy and environmental policy in India.

CEPA, says Wilcoxen, creates "an exciting and stimulating atmosphere to work in. It's much more interesting to see a problem from multiple sides than just to spend your time looking at smaller and smaller nuances of the same topic."

In the coming years, Wilcoxen says, CEPA will continue to nurture environmental research by faculty and students, while functioning as a "one-stop information clearinghouse" regarding courses, lectures, fellowships, and grants related to the environment. "The vision is that CEPA will be very broad," he says. "We want to reach out to everyone who's interested in these issues, not just people who are focused on government policies."

                                                                                                       —Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers