Some universities have created environmental studies programs that can be marketed to prospective students but that suffer from too little administrative support, limited faculty resources, and a lack of careful deliberation over the hard choices. In the short term, this institutional strategy can pay rich dividends: at minimal expense a university can lay claim to an environmental studies program and attract new students or accommodate the interest of existing ones, perhaps with the full intention of bringing additional resources to bear in later years. As the number of students in these skeleton programs grows, however, the flimsy administrative and curricular scaffolding begins to buckle, leading to an anything-goes strategy that degenerates into curricular incoherence.

The passage implies which of the following about the relationship between students and environmental studies programs?

A) Students new to a university are more likely to be aware of environmental studies programs than existing students are.
B) Students prefer curricular incoherence in environmental studies programs to rigid administrative decision making.
C) The curricular flexiblity of an environmental studies program is an attraction for new students.
D) If a university offers an environmental studies program, then students will enroll in it.
E) New students will guarantee the success of an environmental studies program.





The passage suggests which of the following about “skeleton programs” in environmental studies?

A) They may fail to attract prospective students.
B) At some point they are likely to collapse into curricular confusion.
C) They may pay rich dividends in the short term.