I can tell you one course they don't take, and that's statistics.
As with global warming, they have no numbers that rise above the statistical background noise to show that anything is happening, much less that it's man made.
If we have no idea how many species are out there, we have no idea of how many are "disappearing", unless it's something large and noticeable, like the dodo bird or passenger pigeon. Too bad they're gone, but the world is doing okay without them.
Most "species" out there are bugs and bacteria that we will never notice, or miss, even if they're under our feet. We don't even have enough DNA evidence on them to determine whether they're vanishing, or just evolving into another bug or bacterium.
These "ecology professors" are amazingly weak on hard science and mathematics. They spout vague numbers about species, and then "hard" numbers on how many are being killed by American SUVs. That does not compute.
But I'll bet they take Grant Applications I, II, III and IV! ;-)