School of Environmental and Life Sciences

The School of Environmental and Life Sciences (SELS) is a unique and collaborative scientific research-focused division within Kean University that includes the greatest breadth of scientific disciplines and research scientists working with students at the University. The SELS faculty integrate their scientific research into the training, education and mentoring of students who are destined for science research careers in local, state, and federal government agencies, regional biotechnology, health care, pharmaceutical industries and other private sector areas, and academia.

The SELS has been designed to provide the training and experience necessary for future generations of environmental and life scientists to be able to recognize and reconcile the highly complex and integrated nature of environmental, ecological, and health-related problems, issues, and questions facing the world today and in the future. These problems, issues and questions are often associated with an impressive diversity of disciplinary content, environmental resource use/demands, and societal concerns and controversy, all juxtaposed to one another. This can often lead to intensive disruptions, impacts, and conflicting as well as competing interests when resolving local and regional issues in the environmental and life sciences. Traditionally single discipline-trained scientists are often not adequately prepared to address such contemporary problems as they do not have the critical multi-scale and trans-disciplinary background and perspective, or the awareness of the needs/concerns of society with respect to the sciences.

Consequently, the SELS Faculty Mission is to provide a unique, transformative, and global model that connects research and education in the environmental and life sciences to give students a strong scientific background, powerful research skills, critical thinking abilities, communication expertise, and an important awareness of how these necessarily connect to our global society. We believe that this perspective allows us to achieve the primary educational objectives for SELS program graduates, which are to understand and appreciate the connections among all of the basic and applied  sciences, and between science and society; have the ability to design, implement, and evaluate research studies; are adept at identifying and resolving local to global issues across the environmental and life sciences; and communicating scientific results and conclusions to scientific, public, and governmental private sector and governmental audiences; and as such, will be the next generation of scientists who will be able to address highly complex environmental and biological challenges now and into the future.

The educational objectives are delivered in bachelor of science degree programs in Biology, Chemistry, and Earth Sciences