Sustainability efforts to be explored
at five-campus meeting

he Academic Affairs Office in the President's Office and the five University campuses are jointly producing a conference on community, the environment and the interactions between the two Nov. 15 at the Worcester campus.

     The forum is designed to bring together faculty, staff and students from the five campuses who are doing innovative teaching, research and outreach in these areas.

     "At present, we have too few opportunities to learn what each other is doing or to hear about the exciting developments on the individual campuses," said Selma Botman, vice president for Academic Affairs. "[This] conference will be a working meeting intended to help us learn enough about each other's work so that we can identify ways to collaborate with each other and with partners from the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

     "Knowledge of similar work being carried out on other campuses will help inform environmental researchers, promote collaboration between disciplines in integrated approaches to environmental problem-solving, and strengthen the ability of the University's capabilities and strengths in this area."

     "State sustainability programs are now mandated by [Acting] Governor Swift with the signing of Executive Order 438," said Richard Pease, of Environmental Health and Safety.

     Because the order indicates that all state agencies must review their operations and their impacts on the environment, and establish short-term objectives and a long-range plan for improving their relationship with the environment, the work of this conference and its attendees is highly important, Pease said.

     "This conference is exploratory," Botman said. Participants will consider four areas of inquiry: enhancing education for sustain-ability, promoting sustainability in research and technology development, building sustainable campuses, and supporting social and community sustainability, she said.

     For further information, contact Guy Lanza, director of Environmental Science (glanza@fnr.umass.edu), Rick Taupier, acting director of The Environmental Institute (taupier@tei.umass.edu), William McComb, head of Natural Resources Conservation (bmccomb@forwild.umass.edu), or Steven Goodwin, associate dean of the College of Natural Resources and the Environment (sgoodwin@microbio.umass.edu).