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Environmental Studies Department |
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A Publication of Macalester's Environmental Studies Department
Dear Friends of Environmental Studies, The 2007-2008 academic year was a great year for the Department of Environmental Studies. As you’ll see in this newsletter, the students, faculty and staff have been busy! The 2008 Macalester graduating class included 17 Environmental Studies majors. This is up 4 from 2007 and is second only to 2002 (21 graduates) for the number of graduates in the past 10 years. Among the most exciting accomplishments in 2007-2008 was the expansion of the Environmental Studies Department. The Department was granted a new position for a climate scientist. After an exhaustive (and exhausting!) search, we were fortunate to hire Louisa Bradtmiller. As you will see in her bio below, she will bring a much-needed area of expertise to the Department – the study of climate change. Louisa will join us in the fall of 2009 after completing a post-doc. In 2007-2008 we also started implementing the Department’s new curriculum. This curriculum includes a set of new requirements and some new courses. Included in these new courses is the Environmental Leadership Practicum, taught by Roopali Phadke. This course is meant to provide students with the opportunity to reflect on their internship by interacting with other students doing internships at the same time. Another new course is Environmental Classics, a course designed to examine class papers and books in Environmental Studies. We were fortunate to have Christie Manning teach this course for us in Spring 2008. We’re even luckier to have her returning to teach it again next spring! The Senior Seminar this year focused on preparing a carbon audit of Macalester. As part of President’s Climate Commitment (a nationwide program to encourage colleges and universities to become carbon neutral) Macalester needed to conduct an audit of our past and current carbon footprint. Chris Wells and the College’s new Sustainability Manager, Suzanne Hansen, co-taught this course. You can view the class’ report here. Our Environmental Studies Student awards went to Carolyn Loeb and Jeff Jay. Carolyn had a biology focus in ES and Jeff had a Political Science focus. Both Jeff and Carolyn were tireless workers for the ES Department – serving as student representatives to the Department and as representatives on faculty hiring committees. In 2008-2009 we are looking forward to another productive year. We will have two new visitors with the Department, Stephanie Rutherford and Greg Downing. Stephanie is filling in for Roopali Phadke who will be on sabbatical. Stephanie will teach Environmental Policy and Politics and Environment and the Media in the fall. Greg is filling in for Louisa Bradtmiller, while she is finishing her post-doc. In the fall Greg will be teaching Global Climate Change. We are also expecting two new additions to the Department late in the fall – Chris Wells and his wife Marianne are expecting twins! If I have my calculations correct, they should be members of the Macalester class of 2031. Dan Hornbach
Art Explores People and the River Environment at Macalester This school year, the Environmental Studies Department is sponsoring the Olin-Rice Smail Gallery with the theme "Born by the River." The gallery opening will take place on Friday, September 19, at 4 p.m. At the opening event, artist, Ron Merchant, and art historian, Roslye Ultan, will discuss how art becomes a lasting statement and helps people understand their environment and their impact on the Mississippi River. Through shared stories, insightful observations and comparisons to the past, our personal connection to the largest and most important river in North America is revealed. Fifteen prints of Ron Merchant’s paintings showing scenes from the river cities, six photographs and first-person interview excerpts are featured in the Olin-Rice Smail gallery. Other events in the series, which runs through May 2009, include presentations by experts from the the U. of M., the National Parks Department, and other visual artists and environmentalists.
Senior Graduation Pledge This year we had a record number of Macalester graduates signing the Senior Graduation Pledge and wearing green ribbons at this year's commencement ceremonies, thanks to the work of ES seniors Anna Goldberg and Anna Peschel. This year 195 graduates of the class of 2008 signed the pledge. The graduation pledge states, "I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider or any organization for which I work."
Macalester's Three Rivers Center In July 2008 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a grant to Macalester College to support the development of the Three Rivers Center. Three very different rivers are located near Macalester: The Mississippi (a prime conduit for transportation of crops and goods, as well as for recreation and the location in the Twin Cities where the most intensive development taking place); The Minnesota (runs through some of the richest agricultural land in Minnesota which has resulted in 90% of the wetlands that existed before settlement being drained), and The St. Croix (one of the original 8 rivers to be protected by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968, the river flows through some of the least developed country in the Upper Midwest). The aim of Three Rivers Center is four-fold:
During the 2007-2008 academic year a number of activities have taken place in connection with the Center. These include:
Additional activities are planned for the 2008-2009 including the development of new curriculum in Geography, English and History. Also, the 2008-2009 art display in the Smail Gallery in the Olin-RIce Science Center will be “Born by the River,” which will communicate the connections between the natural and built environment along the upper Mississippi region in Minnesota. Keep up-to-date with the Center activities at www.macalester.edu/environmentalstudies/threerivers/index.htm
2007 Distinguished Speaker - Fred Pearce The Environmental Studies 2007 Distinguished Speaker this year was freelance journalist, Fred Pearce, who spoke on November 6, 2007, to a packed crowd in the Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel. The title of his presentation was "Water Wars or Water Peace? How Scarcity of Our Most Vital Resource Can Shape the 21st Century." A freelance journalist and author based in London, UK, Fred Pearce has reported on environment, science and development issues from 64 countries over the past 15 years. He is an environment consultant for New Scientist magazine and a regular contributor to the London Daily Telegraph, Times Higher Education Supplement, Manchester Guardian and the BBC. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Audubon magazine, Popular Science and Time, among many other multi-media outlets. Fred has published more than a dozen books including, most recently, When the Rivers Run Dry and With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. He has also authored reports for the World Bank, WWF International, the UN Environment Programme, Red Cross, UNESCO, European Environment Agency and the UK Environment Agency.
EnviroThursdays
There were 23 EnviroThursday presentations during the 2007-08 school with with over 925 in attendance.
You can read more about these presentations at www.macalester.edu/environmentalstudies/envirothursday/envthurs.htm and click on the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 links. EnviroThursdays take place every Thursday during the school year in Olin-Rice 250 at 12 noon.
Student Lounge In the spring of 2007, the Environmental Studies student lounge was created from an unused room next to the Olin Rice 250 lecture hall. Since it's opening, it is used quite frequently by ES students for studying, holding meetings, and a quiet place to relax. It contains comfortable furniture, a bookshelf filled with ES-related books, a sink, refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker and is stocked with coffee, tea, and hot chocolate for students to use. Check it out in Olin-Rice 253.
Environmental Studies Faculty News
This past year Dan taught Environmental Science and a new course, Lakes, Streams and Rivers. During both summer 2007 and 2008 he did research related to the conservation of freshwater mussels in the St. Croix River. In 2007 five students worked with Dan, Alese Colehour, Suzy Szumowski, Skadi von Reis Crooks, Lucia Wang and Cael Warren. All of the students gave presentations at the St. Croix River Research Rendezvous sponsored by the Science Museum of Minnesota. During summer 2008, he worked jointly with Kelly MacGregor from Geology and three students, Carolyn Loeb, Robin Major and Leah Ritz. They had a great summer investigating the impact of changing sedimentation patterns on the mussel populations including two endangered species. Robin and Leah will be giving presentations on their work this fall. Carolyn graduated in May and will be spending the upcoming year teaching English in French Guyane. During the summer of 2007 Dan traveled to Vietnam with a number of faculty members from various US colleges and universities to visit the SIT Mekong Delta: Natural and Cultural Ecology Program. The experience was one he will not soon forget. The welcome from the Vietnamese people he met was moving. Later in the summer he attended the World Malacological Congress in Antwerp, Belgium, where he presented a paper on our work on the St. Croix. In May 2008 Dan attended the North American Benthological Society meeting in Salt Lake City, where he co-authored a presentation given by Dr. David Smith from the USGS. During the 2007-2008 academic year, Dan was on two teams reviewing Environmental Studies Programs. These included reviewing the School of Environmental Studies at Queens University in Canada and the Environmental Studies program at St. John’s and St. Ben’s Universities in Collegeville, MN. Both of these programs have great strengths, but it made him proud of the quality of the ES program at Mac.
In addition to her regular suite of environmental policy courses, this past year Roopali taught a new course called the Environmental Leadership Practicum. This course combines an intensive internship experience with a weekly seminar. The goal of this course is to help students explore their professional interests, as well as prepare them for a job and graduate school search right out of college. The first class of 21 juniors were placed in internships in non-profit organizations, government agencies, corporations and educational institutions. Roopali also launched a new research project this year on the visual impacts of wind energy. With a two year grant from the National Science Foundation, this project examines how visual impact is being measured and mitigated and the ways that communities are engaged in the debates about the aesthetic impacts of wind energy on their local landscapes. During the summer 2008, three Environmental Studies students, Avery Bowron, Asa Diebolt and Kai Bosworth, assisted with this research. Their work can be seen at the project website – www.macalester.edu/windvisual. These students will be presenting posters based on this summer research at the October 11 student poster fair in Olin Rice. Roopali will continue working on this research will on sabbatical during the 2008-09 academic year.
With the end of the Spring semester, Project EcoHouse wrapped up its busy first year of existence, which was marked by exceptional press coverage, participation in a wide range of civic engagement activities, and the installation of the house's new forest permaculture garden. We're looking forward to another exciting year beginning this Fall when four new residents--Zoe Hastings, Annie Pasbrig, Ana Begej, and David Schmoeller--make the EcoHouse their home. Read all about the project at www.macalester.edu/
During the 2007-08 academic year, Prof. Dosch taught courses in ecology, ornithology, and winter ecology. The two-part winter ecology course was taught as an advanced topics seminar during the fall semester and an intensive 9-day field course in northern MN during the January break. Jerald and four students from the 2006-07 winter course (Janet Aubin, Ben Dickinson, Liz Goldsmith, and Anna Shamey) presented their research on the daily movement of zooplankton beneath the ice of Lake Itasca at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in August 2007. This summer Jerald continued pursuing his research interests in post-agricultural forest succession in Costa Rica and historical levels of heavy metal pollutants in Common Loons collected in Minnesota. The Costa Rica project team, lead by Chris Peterson from the University of Georgia, published two papers in 2007 and will be submitting another late in 2008. The loon project is a collaborative effort with Prof. Keith Kuwata and a student, Mandy Hulke, from the Macalester Chemistry Department. Jerald published a paper about using museum specimen feathers as historical archives of environmental pollutants in the journal Environmental History and presented an overview of their work at a Café Scientifique event hosted by Roopali Phadke’s Citizen Science class. Mandy presented her research at the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science Physical Sciences and Mathematics Symposium in Chicago. She was also one of 21 students across the nation awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded fellowship through a Lewis & Clark College initiative on advancing environmental studies via interdisciplinary student research. Jerald will teach Environmental Science and Ecology during the 2008-09 school year.
Christie joined the ES department as a Visiting Assistant Professor in January of 2008. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive and Biological Psychology in 2000 from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the psychological factors that influence sustainable behavior. In the spring Christie taught two courses: "Environmental Classics" and "Conservation Psychology." This fall she is teaching the "Environmental Leadership Practicum" as well as an upper level psychology course about consumerism called "Psychology in the Material World." Christie spent her summer working on research, collecting data on
Minnesotan's motivations to live a greener lifestyle. She will be
presenting the results of her research at several different
conferences this fall, such as the Society for Human Ecology and the
online Scientific Climate Conference "Climate 2008"
Greg joins the ES Department as a Visiting Assistant Professor for 2008-09. He will be teaching Global Climate Change in the fall and Environmental Science in the spring. Greg received is B.A. in Anthropology at the University of MN in 1997, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Isotope Geochemistry from Columbia University. Prof. Downing is an isotope geochemist and paleoclimatologist with a particular interest in abrupt climate change. His research is currently focused on sudden and massive collapses of large continental ice sheets ("Heinrich events") during the last several glacial intervals, and the impact of those collapses on regional and global climate. He is also interested in means of mitigating anthropogenic climate change, including carbon capture and sequestration and non-fossil fuel energy sources. Greg grew up in Duluth, and used to live a few blocks from Macalester while working in downtown St. Paul. After living in New York for 8 years, he is excited to be back in Minnesota, even if the winters are a bit chillier than he remembers. When not studying icebergs, he enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and three kids, Milla (2-1/2), Henry (11 months) and Ruby (11 months). Prof. Stephanie Rutherford Stephanie received her B.A. in Sociology and Criminology from the University of Toronto in 1997 and a M.Sc. in International Development Studies from the University of Guelph in 2003. This past May, Stephanie completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Studies at York University, with a research focus on how ideas of nature are produced and disciplined in sites of popular culture. She has taught in a range of areas, including Global Environmental Politics.
Louisa’s research exams paleoproductivity changes in the equatorial and southern oceans during the last glacial maximum, and their possible linkage to glacial-interglacial changes in atmospheric CO 2. She is also exploring the “Glacial El Niño” Hypothesis that suggests that the equatorial Pacific region was in an extended El Niño-like state during the last glacial period. Louisa’s research is important to the questions surrounding modern CO2 emissions by allowing us to use accurately reconstruct past mechanisms for CO2 control. This will allow us to better understand the fate of anthropogenic CO2 in the future. Louisa will teach Environmental Science, Climate Change, and other courses in her specialty and will participate in teaching the ES Senior Seminar. She will also include Macalester students in her ongoing research projects. Louisa states, “My favorite part of teaching earth and environmental science has always been the ability to change the way students view their surroundings. Not surprisingly, understanding the landscapes and processes around me, as well as my own impact on those processes, is also what drew me to the discipline as a student." Louisa is no stranger to Macalester: her brother Carl graduated from Mac in 2005.
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Prof. Dan Hornbach, Chair
Prof. Roopali Phadke
Prof. Chris Wells
Prof. Jerald Dosch
Prof. Christie Manning
Prof. Greg Downing
The Environmental Studies Department would like to welcome and introduce our new tenure-track Climate Scientist, Louisa Bradtmiller. Louisa is a graduate of Smith College and has completed an M.A. and M.Phil. at Columbia University. She completed her Ph.D. in Geochemistry at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia. She will undertake post-doctoral research at Lamont-Doherty and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before joining us in Fall 2009.|
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