Sustainability Events at UMass Amherst, Spring 2010
The UMass Amherst campus is addressing sustainability across many fronts on campus and TEI is organizing or participating in many related events, including those listed below. Details and links will be posted on the TEI website as they develop. Please contact TEI to get involved in any of these initiatives, to find out more, or to share other sustainability events planned around campus.
February 17, March 9, April 27, May 5
TEI Environmental Lecture Series (Series Web Page)
The Spring 2010 TEI Environmental Lecture Series kicks off February 17th and will feature a writer/farmer, a geoscientist, an ecologist, and an artist/designer addressing respectively: agricultural and community landscapes; the history of hurricanes and climate change; the forest canopy and communicating research to non-scientists; and art and the environment in the public realm. All lectures touch on sustainability and a key theme that links the talks is an exploration of what makes an expert able to effectively communicate and engage audiences outside of their respective disciplines.
Feb. 25, March 11, March 25, April 15 , April 29
Double Bill on Thursdays
3:30 - 5:00 pm
Designing the Built Environment at UMass Amherst Environmental Seminar Series
Each seminar will focus on a new campus building and pair a designer/architect and a UMass Amherst researcher Sponsors: Facilities and Campus Planning, TEI, Environmental Advisory Performance Committee, Vice Chancellor Research and Engagement, Western Mass AIA)
7:00 pm
Greening the Valley Exhibition and Speaker Series
For the first time in our region, a landmark exhibition on sustainable contemporary architecture and environmentally sensitive building practices will take place at The University Gallery, Fine Arts Center. The exhibition, its related lecture series and the Green Lounge are designed to deepen the publicʼs understanding and use of ʻgreenʼ design, and to demonstrate that the key elements of sustainability can be accessible to all. (Organizer: University Gallery)
April 8
Monitoring and Responding to Water Resources Challenges
7th Annual Water Resources Research Conference - For faculty, students, government agencies, nonprofits, private sector, and other stakeholders throughout the New England region. Will again feature best student posters competition and awards. Complimentary registration for UMass Amherst faculty and students. (More)
April 24
DAFFODIL LECTURES
3:00 PM, Auditorium, Integrated Science Building - Reception Follows
In this year celebrating the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, and on the heels of the UN Climate Change Conference, come hear more about current climate science and environmental issues in Commonwealth Honors College's inaugural Daffodil Lectures - featuring UMass's own Raymond Bradley, Distinguished Professor of Geosciences, former New York Times environmental reporter Andrew C. Revkin (now a senior fellow at Pace University), and Bron Taylor, Professor of Religion and Nature, University of Florida. To mark Commonwealth Honors College's 10th anniversary, students planted hundreds of daffodils by the Old Chapel over Homecoming Weekend to bloom in time for the Daffodil Lectures and Honors Reunion.
Raymond Bradley is a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Director of the Climate System Research Center, with over 30 years of experience in research on climate variations. In 2006 he was awarded a D.Sc., honoris causa, by Lancaster University, England, and in 2007 he received the Hans Oeschiger Medal of the European Geosciences Union. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Americal Association for the Advancement of Science and a Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Dr. Bradley has been an advisor to various government and international agencies, including the World Bank, U.S., Swiss, Swedish, German and U.K. National Science Foundations, NOAA, the National Research Council, the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the US-Russia Working Group on Environmental Protection, and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). He has testified in the U.S. Congress before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, chaired by Senators McCain and Kerry, and has briefed Congressional staff members and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on global warming issues. Dr. Bradley has written or edited twelve books on climactic change, and authored more than 180 articles on the topic.
Andrew C. Revkin is a Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace University and a 15-year environmental reporter for the New York Times. He continues to write the Dot Earth blog for the Times. Mr. Revkin has a biology degree from Brown University and a Master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He has spent a quarter of a century covering subjects ranging from Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami to the assault on the Amazon and the troubled relationship of climate science and politics. He spearheaded a three-part Times series and one-hour documentary on the transforming Arctic and another series, "The Climate Divide," on the uneven impacts of climate change.
Mr. Revkin has written books on the Amazon rain forest, global warming and the Arctic. He has also served as senior editor of Discover, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, and a senior writer at Science Digest. Now part of Pace University's new Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, Mr. Revkin's focus is on education and exploring new ways to connect ideas to advance human beings' relationships with the environment and each other.
Bron Taylor is Professor of Religion and Nature at The University of Florida. He is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Environment and Development at Oslo University. As an interdisciplinary environmental studies scholar, and trained in ethics, religious studies, and social scientific approaches to understanding human culture, his scholarly work engages the quest for environmentally sustainable societies. An academic entrepreneur and program builder, he led the initiative to create an academic major in Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, later initiated and was elected president of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, while also founding its affiliated journal, and becoming its editor. Appointed as the Samuel S. Hill Ethics Professor at the University of Florida in 2002, he played a leading role in constructing the world's first Ph.D. program with an emphasis in Religion and Nature. Most recently, he has been involved in an international think tank exploring ways to effectively promote an environmentally sustainable future. He has numerous publications and has written several books. His most recent book is Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (University of California Press).
For more information about Commonwealth Honors College's 10th Anniversary and Honors Reunion: http://www.umassalumni.com/reunions
April 26
Make a Difference -
Environmental Activism Panel Discussion
3:30 - 5:00 PM Honors Lounge, Commonwealth College, Goodell - Reception Follows (5:00-6:00 PM)
Reception follows ~ Sponsored by the Commonwealth Honors College
Sponsors: The Environmental Institute, Political Science, Commonwealth Honors College, Natural Resources Conservation, Asian Arts/Culture Program- Fine Arts Center, Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, Graduate School, Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement
How can students bring about environmental change? If environmental activism is the combined political force of people who take action to protect the environment, how can one individual make a positive impact? What can students learn from the paths others have chosen? What specific skills are necessary to be effective? What degrees, courses and life experiences are recommended?
Students will have a chance to hear from three panelists working to bring about environmental change in different ways, in different fields, and at different points in their careers. One panelistsisa UMass Amherst alum: an environmental lawyer who recently founded a non-profit organization in NYC to encourage high school students of color to enter environmental fields. Two panelists have had long and distinguished careers and are visiting speakers this semester: one is a research scientist and educator based in Washington state who has spent two decades working to preserve forests canopies around the world and one is a writer and local farming activist based in northern New Mexico. The work and careers of all three panelists demonstrate that environmental activism in its many forms is closely linked to issues of sustainability and social justice. Students will have ample time to ask questions following the panel discussion and meet with the panelists at the reception to follow the event. Brief bios of the panelists are included below.
Panelists
Sharonda Williams (’03), Environmental Lawyer and Founder and Executive Director of Environment of Diversity Incorporated
Sharonda Williams graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2003 with a B.A. in Legal Studies. While at the University of Massachusetts Sharonda was a part of the Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology Program, where she worked with Professor Elizabeth Brainerd and Professor William Bemis. She attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and graduated in 2007 with a Juris Doctor and a certificate in Environmental Law, Science and Policy. Sharonda has worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2 office in the Superfund program and has worked at Nixon Peabody LLP, one of the largest law firms in the world in their Environment and Energy Group. Sharonda is the Executive Director and Founder of Environment of Diversity Incorporated, a not-for-profit dedicated to diversity in the environmental profession.
Nalini Nadkarni, Visiting Speaker, Professor, Evergreen State College and National Geographic Speaker
Nalini Nadkarni received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Brown University in 1976 and her PhD in Forest Ecology from the University of Washington in 1983. Nalini Nadkarni has been called “the queen of forest canopy research,” a field that relates directly to three of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: the maintenance of biodiversity, the stability of world climate, and the sustainability of forests. She has spent more than two decades climbing the trees of Costa Rica, Papua New Guinea, the Amazon, and the Pacific Northwest. In 1994 she created a state-of-the-art data repository, the Big Canopy Database, and co-founded the International Canopy Network, a non-profit organization that fosters communication among researchers, educators, and conservationists concerned with forest canopies. She is known for using nontraditional pathways to raise awareness of nature’s importance, working with prisoners, artists, dancers, musicians, and loggers. Her work has been featured in Glamour, National Geographic, and in a giant-screen film, as well as in traditional science publications. She has appeared in numerous television documentaries, and was featured as a canopy scientist in the National Geographic television special on tropical forest canopies, titled Heroes of the High Frontier, which won the Emmy Award for Best Documentary Film of 2001.
Stanley Crawford, Visiting Writer and Farmers’ Market and Local Food Activist
Stanley Crawford is a novelist, essayist, and farming activist who has lived and farmed the Embudo Valley of Northern New Mexico since 1970. His degrees include a B.A. from the University of Chicago and an M.A. from the University of California Berkeley. He is currently a visiting writer in residence in the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Crawford is the author of five novels and three nonfiction books focused on the environment -Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico; A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small Farm in New Mexico; and The River in Winter: New and Collected Essays. He has served as an acequia commissioner and mayordomo or ditch boss, in his Northern New Mexico community where acequia traditions have remained strong in river valleys where subsistence farming and livestock production were once the center of village life. Crawford also led the effort to establish a permanent farmer’s market at the city-owned Railyard property in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. The emergence of farmers' markets in Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Taos and across New Mexico has encouraged a new generation of small farmers to stay on the land or return to it and have become recognized forces in downtown revitalization and farmland preservation.
April 27th
Arts in the Arboretum 1:30 - 3:30
The Arts in the Arboretum Walking Tour will be held Tuesday, April 27 from 1:30-3:30 pm, starting at the Tupelo Grove on the west (Chapel) side of the Campus Pond. The event will involve faculty and student projects across campus and will be open to the public. The walking tour will include stops at each tree site highlighting what makes the trees a special part of the campus landscape (e.g., natural history, biology, cultural uses). At each tree site, students and class groups will create site-specific art-related projects. These projects will be photographed and/or video-recorded so that the recorded images can be shared on the University website and through other multi-media after the event. More details to follow.
7:30 PM, Bowker Auditorium
Between Earth and Sky
Life in the Treetops: Three Decades of Forest Canopy Research
Nalini Nadkarni
Professor, Evergreen State College and National Geographic Speaker
Nalini Nadkarni has been called “the queen of forest canopy research,” a field that relates directly to three of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: the maintenance of biodiversity, the stability of world climate, and the sustainability of forests.
May 2
Sustainable Landscapes Tour
(Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning and University Gallery)
June 15-17
EPA/UMass Amherst Green and Sustainable Remediation Conference
Addressing the environmental, energy, and economic aspects of green remediation. Call for posters open. Complimentary registration for UMass Amherst faculty and students (More)
Campus Sustainability LInks
UMass Amherst now has a Green Portal
Environmental Advisory Performance Committee is working on the campus Climate Action Plan
Sustainable UMass Listserve
This list is comprised of a network of individuals actively discussing the support and advancement of sustainability at UMass Amherst. Topics may include (but are not limited to) sustainability at UMass as it pertains to: energy use; building design; waste management; access to healthful foods; educational opportunities; curriculum building; resource sharing; and creating/revising policies and procedures. (More)