Southern Utah University’s new public lands and national parks studies minor was created by University of the Parks Committee co-Chair Kevin Koontz and professor Ryan Paul. The new 18-credit minor is designed for students that value and want to learn about nature or national parks in general. Selected classes provide an understanding of stewardship, conservation and preservation of national parks, forests, historic sites and other subjects.
“[The minor] is really interdisciplinary, so it pulls from all different areas in colleges on campus to compile information and content that is relevant to public lands, whether they be national parks, national forests, BLM, city parks, nature or wilderness,” said Koontz. “All of those areas of study are kind of combined.”
Although this new minor is similar to the current outdoor recreation in parks and tourism minor, there are some key differences.
“Outdoor recreation really focuses on the recreation side of public lands and the activities that go on there, and this [PNLP] minor is potentially less intimidating to students,” explained Koontz. “The minor looks at how these areas are managed and the benefits that they provide rather than focusing a little more intently on the recreational aspects.”
As of right now, the goal of this minor is not only to demonstrate the value of national parks close toSUU and its community but also to simply increase the enrollment of students. While the minor itself has just now begun showing up on Degree Works, it’s actually been in development since 2021 and became official in fall 2023.
“It is still very unknown, so it’s very unlikely that [students] are even aware of it,” shared Koontz.
Koontz hopes that, as the enrollment of the new minor increases, it can someday become popular enough to gain recognition as a major.
“I’m interested in tracking where we are next year and watching it grow exponentially,” said Koontz. “I believe that we have enough people passionate about national parks that, once it does start to become more commonly known about, the [popularity] of it will increase.”
For more information on the new minor that SUU has to offer, see here.
Author: Gentry Wolf
Photographer: Lukas Hassell
Editor: Lily Brunson
outdoors@suunews.net