This has been a spectacular week of Earth Day festivities. Our last lecture in the Nelson Distinguished Lecture Series was last night and featured Lester Brown who gave a presentation full of startling facts, system perspectives and an impassioned plea for action. For those who missed it you might want to buy his book Plan B 2.0 : Saving a Planet in Crisis and a Civilization in Trouble. Not ready for a whole book yet? You can listen to Mr. Brown’s interview on Wisconsin Public Radio, or even download the text of Plan B 2.0 one chapter at a time in PDF form for free! Today, continuing with this theme, we had a capacity audience for a lunchtime lecture delivered by Peter Brown from McGill University on Why Western “Civilization” Has Already Collapsed: Climate Change as An Indicator. Tonight, at the award dinner for Jon Foley he will speak on The Biosphere: To the Brink, and Back Again? Tomorrow there will be the Take Back Our Future teach-in on climate change, the Sierra Student Coalition’s Earth Day Family Fun Fest. Other activities are going on around the community and at the university. Check these out on www.earthdayaction.org
At our Faculty Governance meeting this week we voted in new Governance members for next fall. Welcome to a number of new and returning members (see the complete list coming soon on the blog). It will be great to work with you all.
We also discussed the faculty retreat agenda. As you will remember, the faculty retreat is scheduled for May 11, 2006, at the UW Arboretum, from 9 a.m - 4 p.m. If you intend to come, please contact Eileen, so she knows how many lunches to order. The focus of the retreat will be an update of what we have done since our last retreat in September, a chance to discuss the emerging ideas for program redesign and evaluation criteria and most centrally, creating the parameters for new faculty hires. Please come if you possibly can.
On a more speculative note, I just wanted to touch on two issues: graduate student involvement in Nelson Institute activities and possibilities for alternative revenue sources for the Institute and research centers.
Graduate student involvement: On most occasions I have attended where graduate have an opportunity to express their concerns they mention two: that there are not enough opportunities for community building and that they feel disenfranchised from decision making in the Institute. It seems to me that these are both important issues and that they might be partially addressed if the students themselves had a more formal governance system — perhaps elected representatives who could act to communicate student concerns? We would like to help to facilitate this anyway we can. In the meantime, we do appreciate hearing student views, so please let us know your concerns. In terms of building community, let me add that the group of faculty who have been working on the initial phases of redesign have prioritized community building. They are also eager to get student input as their work moves forward. Stay tuned for more information about this.
Opportunities for alternative revenue streams: There has been much discussion at the level of the Dean’s Council about alternative revenue streams if budget cuts continue (as it seems they will). One possibility is course offerings to “non-traditional” groups (i.e. not undergraduate or graduate students). This might include general interest offerings to alumni, on a course by course basis, or more programmatic offerings, such as a professional master’s in environmental management ( an idea which has been discussed by the Business & Environment group). The course format might run the gamut from eco-tours to online offerings, as long as these were targeted to non-traditional groups. To recover the revenue from these courses they need either to be run through continuing education or through a 501c3, such as the EPD (Engineering and Professional Development) or the Executive Education group in the Business School. It might be possible to apply for a 501c3 for the Institute, although we would have to make a convincing argument. Or we might partner with EPD or Executive Education. I personally think that courses in the Environment would be highly marketable in a number of formats and that this is something we should consider. I hope to put a committee this summer to explore this. Let me know if this would interest you.
Last but not least - we haven’t been getting much traffic in our faculty lounge. Given the scarcity of good office space, we are operating on a “use it or lose it” basis. If no one votes with their feet for the value of setting aside this as a faculty gathering place, we will need to put it to other uses. So please drop by and use the space for your informal meetings or for a quiet spot for an hour or so between meetings.
That’s all for now. Have a great Earth Day.
Frances