- On Campus; Faculty
Professor Paul A. Barresi’s fascination with the environment began early in life – in fact, he wrote his first paper about pollution in the fifth grade.
Before becoming chair of SNHU’s Department of Environment, Politics, and Society, he studied Midland painted turtles in upstate New York, helped advise Fortune 500 companies on environmental compliance, researched forestry law and policy in Albania and Poland, and much more.
The onetime certified associate wildlife biologist switched to environmental law when he realized – after a summer slogging through mosquito-infested drainage ditches in leaky hip waders – that field work wasn’t his passion. He went to law school, served as a visiting scholar at a United Nations agency in Rome while earning his master’s degree in law and diplomacy, and eventually earned his Ph.D. in political science.
"I’ve always believed that theory and practice ought to go together," he says. "If I spend too much time focusing on just one or the other, I get bored."
His unusual and wide-ranging experiences enable him to bring a number of different perspectives into the classroom. He teaches a variety of courses, including American politics, environmental law and sustainable development, international relations, and more. (This variety also distinguishes SNHU’s environment and politics majors from those at many other schools.)
"We dig down much deeper than policy," he says. "Students learn how to analyze a situation in politics or law in order to explain how it came to be the way it is now, and how it’s likely to play itself out in the future."
