“Oh things ain’t what they used to be, no no
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows…”
That’s how America’s “Prince of Motown,” Marvin Gaye, begins his 1968 song “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).”
It’s also how Dr. J. Drew Lanham, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University, likes to begin his wildlife policy class. “By playing that for students,” he says, “I hope they get some form of understanding that art can inform life and art can inform science.”
Though Lanham is a trained zoologist and ecologist, he’s not afraid to tap into the right side of his brain. In fact, Lanham is a passionate advocate for STEAM — an acronym that modifies STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) by throwing “arts” into the mix.
“I think the concept of STEAM adds a different kind of energy,” he says. “Science is certainly a creative discipline. You have to think creatively around certain problems and about objective data so you can have some inroads into understanding natural phenomena …. But I think part of STEM has become, in many ways, a narrow track that doesn’t always give credit to creativity.”
