An Associate Professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences at HSU since 2003, Dr. Ward teaches environmental interpretation and lives her department’s commitment to “connecting people with natural resources.”
She has trained many of the individuals who work on the Redwood Coast and prepare the interpretive cultural signage that everyone depends on for information and education in the region’s national and state parks.
In the last two years, Professor Ward and her students teamed up with area Tribal leaders to create signage that provides information about the history and culture of local Native American Tribes. These signs now grace the 15 new kiosks that have been placed around the HSU campus to guide the campus community and its countless visitors.
Carolyn Ward’s teaching philosophy is as plain as day. “Imagine,” she says, “a guide who leads you down an unfamiliar trail in a foreign environment. The guide leads you, but the footsteps are your own.”
She considers herself “a leader down the trail of a particular topic, but it is the student, the learner, who must walk the path. The teacher can help to interpret, reveal and direct, but mostly make the trail so enticing that the student wants to traverse its length. Eventually, the student forges a new trail in a different direction. To make explorers out of followers—that is my ultimate goal as a teacher.”
Professor Ward weaves hands-on projects, such as interpretive signage, all through her teaching to equip her students with personal and practical experience. “Students truly come to know and understand something when they apply it,” she emphasizes. “Knowledge and understanding are not static. I do not want learning to stop after my class or lecture, but to keep occurring. I want students to question, to wonder, to examine. It is through the application of knowledge that students truly begin to appreciate the power of learning, experimentation and professional growth. The use of hands-on projects promotes life-long learning and not just learning in my class.”
She quotes the famed 19th century French writer Anatole France (1844-1924), who said, “Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them.”
Dr. Ward conducts extensive research in the field, mentors graduate students and is Editor of the Journal of Interpretation Research. She co-authored a textbook about environmental interpretation. She earned her doctorate in Outdoor Recreation in 1998 from the Department of Forestry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.