The Nelson Institute Blog

The Doris Duke Fellowship committee has selected recipients of the 2008-2009 Doris Duke Conservation Fellowships. The fellows will be:

• Emily Aker, Land Resources (advisor: Paul Zedler)
• Ann Carlson, Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development (advisor: Karen Strier)
• Julia Ferguson, Water Resources Management/Geography (advisor: Jim Knox)
• Paul Heiberger, Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development (advisor: Richard Chenoweth)
• Nina Mukherji, Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development (advisor: Harvey Jacobs)
• Ruth Person, Water Resources Management
• Ashleigh Ross, Land Resources (advisor: Lydia Zepeda)
• Debbie Seiler, Land Resources (advisor: Sharon Dunwoody)
• Rebecca Zug, Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development (advisor: Adrian Treves)

Duke Conservation Fellowship awards provide each fellow with:

• a project assistantship for one academic year
• a generous stipend for a summer internship at a nonprofit conservation organization or government agency
• and funding for participation in an annual fall fellowship retreat.

The fellowships are supported by grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to selected universities and is administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Universities are chosen for the grants based on their superior interdisciplinary environmental programs and a commitment to educating conservation practitioners.

Congratulations!

Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) and the Wisconsin Radio Network both interviewed Nelson Institute assistant professor Tracey Holloway this week about her discovery that a significant percentage of ground-level ozone pollution in the U.S. comes from overseas.

Holloway discussed her research findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Read a news release about her research and listen to the WPR story.

Two finalists have been named for the director of the Nelson Institute. They are:

— Robert Costanza, director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics (GIEE) at the University of Vermont (UV) in Burlington; and

— Jonathan Taylor Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth (ISPE) at the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson.

Read the university’s news release about their selection.

As a first-time homeowner, and hence quite inexperienced snow-shoveler, I have gained even higher regard for the value of a really good Super. (A 13 yo daughter helps, but it is really not the same.)

As part of reaccreditation theme team 3, I have spent the last couple of Saturday mornings engaged in truly exciting conversations regarding how our University can evolve in order to rise to the challenge of shaping the global agenda. The group is an impressive set of thinkers and we are working hard to form ideas about how our institution can become more nimble in our response to the knowledge needs of our planet.

At our annual holiday / mid-year graduation reception I reflected on the many changes that have occurred in the last year. In particular we continue to carry much of the momentum that Frances instilled. I encouraged our graduates to continue to learn and to be open to new frontiers in partnerships - in particular to be open to opportunities in the private sector. Thanks to Sara, Danielle, Alison, Aisha, and Becky! for their work in preparing a lovely event!

I had intended to announce the launch of Sustainability@Wisconsin at our Holiday reception, but I forgot. So I do it now! Please take a look and feed comments back to Tom Sinclair. This will be a living page and input will make it stronger.

Related to this, the Business, Environment and Social Responsibility group met recently. Following on the advice of the BOV in November, a proposal for a certificate is developing as is our thinking related to a degree focused on Socially Conscious Organizations is advancing as well.

I spoke yesterday to a large contingent of Chinese environmental officials who were visiting Wisconsin as part of tour of US institutions. The visit was organized by Jeff Smoller from the DNR and we hope it lead to further exchanges around issues of water management and other conservation issues.

We met with Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton to begin planning for our Earth Day conference. There is some novel thinking regarding how to approach that event and our engagement with her office is quite positive. More detail is reported in the Outreach Update post below.

I met with Amy Singler recently and she reports that MEG is doing well. In particular the Student Committee of MEG has some new members and this new group is gaining stronger sense of its role and identity. Phil Townsend has taken on the role of chair for this year and Monica Turner is working with him as chair-elect for next year. Amy will be graduating at the end of this academic year and we are beginning to think about the (*great*) challenge of filling in behind her. Our current strategy is to “pass the Notebook” at the end of the semester.

The search for the Director is advancing. Rumor has it that a short list is close. Perhaps we an announcement will be made before Christmas, but I have no concrete information on that front.

I noted ice creeping out from the edge of Mendota as I came down the hill yesterday. It will be warmer for a few days so I suppose we won’t see the lake close this week, but I gather we are more normal this year than last. That said Chancellor Wiley commented at Howard Martin’s retirement reception just before Thanksgiving that this was the first year in his time in Madison that there had not been a significant snow before Thanksgiving. My experience is that we have been making up for that slow start in the last week or so.

Enjoy the Holidays - Travel Safely and Best Wishes to you and your Loved Ones!

Promoting environmental, economic, and social sustainability is an emerging priority in teaching, research, outreach endeavors across the UW-Madison campus. It is also an increasingly important goal of the university’s self-management, as exemplified by the We Conserve campaign.

The Nelson Institute has created a Web portal, Sustainability@Wisconsin, at sustainability.wisc.edu, to provide a single entry point to UW-Madison programs, units, projects, and groups that significantly address sustainability concerns.

Sustainability@Wisconsin is a work in progress. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Contact Tom Sinclair.

The Nelson Institute’s public visibility and interactions with other organizations and agencies continued to expand and deepen through the fall semester. Here’s a rundown of our major outreach activities, and what’s on tap for spring:

The Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) continues to develop at a rapid pace. The Science Council, its governing body, recently elected as co-chairs Emeritus Professor John Magnuson and Richard Lathrop, a DNR research limnologist. A Working Group on Wisconsin climate has already begun to operate; other Working Groups will soon be up and running, focusing on impact-related questions specific to Wisconsin. We’re working on funding to support both administration and scientific work; the UW-Madison Office of the Provost has pledged $60,000 of its limited discretionary funds to help support WICCI over its first three years — a measure of the importance placed on this project by University leadership, and a recognition of the value of our partnership with the Department of Natural Resources.

“Tales from Plant Earth,” our three-day environmental film festival in downtown Madison November 2-4, was an enormous success. Attendance on opening night exceeded 1,100 at the Orpheum Theatre; total weekend attendance topped 3,100 moviegoers, and media coverage was outstanding. The festival was the opening act for our new Center for Culture, History and Environment (CHE).

The Nelson Institute Community Environmental Forum completed its third semester-long series last Friday with a presentation by Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. The series topic was “Working Toward Regional Sustainability,” and attendance at the six lunch-time sessions was at or beyond capacity each time, with a healthy cross-section of business, government, non-profits and academia, along with grad students in a special seminar taught by Tom Eggert. The spring topic will be “Transportation Options and the Environment;” speakers are nearly all lined up and corporate sponsors are being sought. Once again, the series will serve as both a community event and part of a graduate-level seminar, this time through our Transportation Management and Policy Program.

The Gaylord Nelson Lecture Series is focusing on environmental justice issues this year. Peggy Shepard of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc., and Devon Peña of the University of Washington spoke this fall; Douglas Brugge of Tufts University and director of the Navajo Uranium Miner Project will be the first speaker this spring, followed by Michel Gelobter, president of Redefining Progress.

We’ve held conversations with Sen. Mark Miller, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, about possible collaboration early next year on the topic of the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact; nothing firm yet, but talks continue.

Finally, some exciting news about our second annual Earth Day conference on April 16. We’ve entered into partnership with Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities to develop a conference focusing on climate change and Wisconsin. The program is in development, but it’s likely to have a local-to-regional focus, with regional teams of legislators, mayors, business people, media representatives, non-profit groups and so on coming from each region of the state. We anticipate a workshop approach, connecting UW-Madison expertise and resources with practical outcomes for municipal and business leaders, a real expression of the Wisconsin Idea. We’ll have more information as this develops in coming weeks.