From the Directors
Growth is essential to
progress. Uncontrolled growth is unsustainable. Growth can be
managed to achieve sustainability.
These contrasting perspectives lie at the core of what we study and teach in the Environmental Science and Policy program at William and Mary. Our courses consider shortages of drinking water or excesses of rainwater caused by urbanization and suburbanization, drivers of rainforest degradation and patterns of species loss, the chemistry, geology and law of toxic exposures, and how we are going to prepare for, experience, and respond to climate change. In all these cases, we consider how growth can be managed to bring prosperity with environmental protection. To send out tomorrow's leaders with dumbed-down visions or ideological positions on these central conflicts in our society would be irresponsible.
Therefore, "Campus Sustainability"
was the theme for this spring's environmental seminar series of outside
speakers, bringing together a dozen faculty to teach 1-credit seminars with 122
students and many community members. We heard firsthand about Yale's, Virginia
Wesleyan's, and the United Nations' greening initiatives, and from a group that
grades the top 200 universities in America on their environmental performance.
Teams of students developed over 70 innovative "business plans" for greening
the college (see page 3). Meanwhile, a college-wide referendum passed in which
students will tax themselves to help move the sustainability initiative
forward. The college is greening, and program faculty and students are leading
the effort.
Issues of sustainability are also relevant to the growth of our program. Students continue to declare their environmental majors and minors and enroll in our courses in record numbers. Dozens of faculty are engaged in our seminars, lunches, lecture series, courses and planning meetings. Over this year we have hosted and co-sponsored dozens of talks and meetings on campus, including the Virginia Environmental Assembly in October, an event on climate policy and science as part of the nationwide "Focus the Nation" teach-in in January, and hosting the Governor's new Commission on Climate Change in April.
We are launching two new major initiatives thanks to generous support from the Mellon foundation, which has helped us build this program over the last seven years. Thanks to a major challenge grant, each year two young Ph.D.'s will work with faculty and students across environmental disciplines on cutting edge projects. Mellon also seeded the creation of a new Center for Geospatial Analysis, which will open on campus this fall to actively bring Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to faculty and students across W&M.
This year we did a directorial flea-flicker. After leading the program for five years, Timmons handed off directing to John last year, and took a research leave fellowship at Oxford University in the UK. This year John went on his leave to the University of California Santa Barbara, and returns this summer to resume directing. We are looking forward to exciting times ahead: we hope to hear from you and we welcome your participation and support.
TIMMONS ROBERTS, interim director and professor of sociology
JOHN SWADDLE, director and associate professor of biology
