The Space Research Coordination Center, an antiquated Pitt building on O’Hara Street, needs a lot of care. It’s old, in need of repairs, and difficult to navigate — many of the classrooms are puzzlingly subterranean, with many laboratories peppering the hallways between classrooms. Built in the 1950s by NASA for space research, the building has a befuddling aura to it, one that might prompt the need for directions. Enter Mark Collins.
During syllabus week, Collins stands at the entrance of the SRCC, greeting lost students.
“Do you know where your classroom is? Do you need help finding it?” Collins says.
He guides students during syllabus week and even created large tables for the student lounge, putting his thumb on the SRCC, which now houses the Department of Geology and Environmental Science, of which Collins oversees the environmental science major.
Collins’ tables are large, beautiful and functional pieces, made from reclaimed gymnasium flooring and scrap metal.
“I can’t seem to make furniture that’s not practical,” Collins said. “I just don’t seem to have that ability,” Collins said. Making furniture is something Collins picked up in recent years as an opportunity to return to working with his hands after a life of writing.
When he’s not crafting furniture or working on his car, Mark is the dedicated advisor and a beloved instructor of the Environmental Studies major. He teaches with the same care that he puts into his carpentry.
Close friend and fellow professor Ward Allebach, adjunct faculty in the Environmental Studies program, smiles when thinking about the first week of every semester, where Collins directs lost students [through the halls of the SRCC]. Allebach said he’s “never seen another teacher do that.”
Allebach said Collins has an “incredible way with people and an incredible way of showing that he cares. And he thinks about you and how you feel. His level of empathy is just off the charts.”
Coupled with a religious upbringing, Collins’ empathy works in tandem with humility, charity, and service, three things he said he has lived by from the Christian tradition
“I think that’s why we’re here”, Collins said.
Empathy drives Collins as an educator, advisor, mentor, friend, community member, writer, and father. Allebach considers his empathy as out of this world, dubbing him “a poet of life experience, not in a preachy, academic lecturing way, but a real practical way.”
The “poet of life experience” blends empathy and practicality inside and out of the classroom to get his students thinking about advocacy, sustainability, and environmental issues, and his classes are full of vibrant student discussions and practical assignments that strengthen his students not only as thinkers but as environmental empaths.
Classes like his Sustainability Flash Lab get his students thinking about real-world situations and scenarios — students use utility bills to learn how and where their energy is created and go “down the grid” to learn about where other people get their basic utilities, facilitating discussions about global issues and getting them to think about their own impact on the environment.
“I think anything outside the classroom is really worth it,” Collins said. “When I first came to this program, students could do an internship or field experience. I changed that to an internship and field experience. I was too new at that point to know that you really can’t make big changes like that, but I did, and I guess, you know, ask permission later. But I think it makes a big difference to get people out.”
Maddie Dayton, a 2022 graduate with an Environmental Science degree, agreed. She said his course Environmental Issues was really formative for her career and taught her many skills, like interviewing, proper researching, and time management.
“It was one of those classes that looking back on, I feel like actually prepared me in a way for real life,” Dayton said.
Rachel Bukowitz, a 2017 Environmental Studies and Sociology graduate and former student, shared similar sentiments about Collins, with whom she catches up with at dinner every few months. As a sustainability consultant for 3R Sustainability, she appreciates the Communication for Environmental Professionals course she took with him.
“I now write reports for a living, so that was the most applicable class at Pitt that I took. He would say ‘I’m trying to make the classroom experience as useful to real life as possible,’” Bukowitz said.
Collins has had many jobs, so he knows how hard it is to navigate the professional field. His journey to his current position as program coordinator for the Environmental Studies Programis unorthodox but crucial to his development as an educator and mentor.
A Pitt alum, Collins wrote for the Opinions desk of The Pitt News in undergrad, “before they did layout on computers.” He “settled” on an English degree out of spite for being the “sixth best writer in the family.”
“Even the dog was better,” Collins said.
Collins to a weekly newspaper in Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs for a year before coming back to Pitt to pursue his MFA. Halfway through that program, he married his wife, Sandra, and came upon a problem — money, or the lack thereof.
To earn extra coin, Collins began freelance work for UPMC Presbyterian, while also writing for the likes of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, among other publications. While freelancing, he edited a book about Pittsburgh’s own Mr. Rogers, wrote books about his life experiences, and authored a poetry collection.. He bounced around seven departments at Pitt, including Computing and Information, English, the College of General Studies, and even the library school — the Mister Rogers book was for the library school, he said —, before finally landing in the Geology department.
“He’s a fantastic writer,” Bukowitz said.
Eventually, he accepted a job at the Pitt Magazine, where he was tasked with writing about the newly formed Environmental Studies department in 1997. Two years later, he became the department’s first program coordinator and writing instructor.
As program coordinator, Collins oversees the curriculum of the Environmental Studies major , coordinates internships for students in the program, and liaises between alumni and the University, all the while teaching multiple courses and making furniture in his spare time.
There was a learning curve, but he said his background as a writer has made change natural.
“You learn revision and rejection early, and it tends not to bother you after a while,” Collins said.
This year, he’s overseeing about 40 students’ internships. He loves to see what students do and where they’ll go, and is extremely proud of the sustainability progress that they’ve made on Pitt’s campus.
“I’ve been here since the place opened in 1787,” Collins said jokingly, “and have gotten to see a lot of changes happen. It’s really amazing all that students have accomplished in terms of sustainability around this campus.”
He’ll be the first to tell you he doesn’t have a formal science education or even background, but Collins has cared about the environment since his childhood— it came “organically” as true Pittsburgher. Collins remembers the days of the steel industry, where he jokes you’d have to pack two white shirts to get through the day of pollution.
“There were days where you couldn’t see the sun”, he hyperbolized, and says the issues have always remained relevant to him, especially as he has aged with the increasingly alarming climate crisis. He doesn’t appreciate doomerism, though.
“It [the environment] has got to be something you love and be an optimist for, otherwise why do it?” he said.
The same can be said for Collins’ position in the Environmental Studies program. Collins has many responsibilities, and yet he shows up to work with smiles and a full clip of jokes that get people through their days.
Collins loves seeing and helping with the projects and initiatives that his students create for Pitt’s campus. He guides them to their destination while maintaining a hands-off approach that builds confidence and ability in the job market.
Bukowitz can attest to Collins’ empathy, recalling a time where he cheered her up on a rough day of midterms.
“I was going through some midterms or finals stress or something, classic college stress, feeling terrible, and I was walking through the halls of the SRCC past Mark’s door and he said ‘nice shoes!’ It was really nice to have a moment like that in the midst of some stress,” Bukowitz said.
Collins goes above and beyond for the students whom he advises.
“He is very willing to help students find their way, and even former students. I’m a student who graduated eight years ago and we still catch up regularly,” Bukowitz said. “It’s really above and beyond his job description.”
Both Allebach and Dayton love Collins’ unique perspective, one that is always fresh and representative of Collins’ ability to change.
“You know, I think about the world the way he does, and yet he always has a way of framing things that really resonate for me. And really makes me think more about stuff that I might not have thought about otherwise. He just has such unique perspectives,” Allebach said.