The Nelson Institute Blog

Climate Leadership Challenge: “Student Solutions for Sustainability…”

Massive energy and resource consumption…
Steadily growing greenhouse gas emissions….
Rapidly changing patterns of climate…
Increasing threats to the economy, human health and our security…

What’s your idea for building a better future?

Submit it to the SAGE Climate Leadership Challenge, and win up to $20,000!

Don’t miss the information meeting on December 3rd:
SAGE is hosting an informational meeting about the CLC on Wednesday, December 3rd at 5:30 in room 140 of Science Hall.

With generous funding from the Global Stewards Society, the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) invites all UW-Madison undergraduate, graduate, and continuing students to join the Climate Leadership Challenge (CLC). Innovate, create, design, and dream ­all ideas welcome!

The CLC competition is open to all types of climate solutions, submitted by student teams of up to four students (individuals are also welcome to submit). Have an idea for a low-emitting car? Green business idea? Public outreach campaign? Activist art project? Let us know ­ by submitting to the CLC, your idea may change the world, and you may earn big money. In addition to a grand prize of $20,000, sub-prizes will be awarded up to $50,000 in total cash prizes.

All team members must be UW-Madison students, with interdisciplinary teams recommended to ensure your team reflects a good balance of skills to design real-world climate solutions. Submission deadline will be April 10th, 2009, with informational meetings beginning in November 2008.

Important Dates

• December 3rd Informational meeting
• April 10th Submission Deadline
• April 22nd Final Presentations at Nelson Earth Day Conference

Come eat FREE PIZZA and learn how you can win $20,000!
SAGE is hosting an informational meeting about the CLC on Wednesday, December 3rd at 5:30 in room 140 of Science Hall.

Questions? Email CLC Project Coordinator Josh Ghena.

and… Get Twice the Mileage for your Sustainability Solution:

Submit to the UW-Madison Business School’s Burrill competition, too. Although the CLC will have its own submission guidelines (to be posted in coming weeks), the CLC will also accept Burrill formatted submissions to encourage sustainable entrepreneurship. Two opportunities to win, with one great idea! See their web site.

Just published: the latest issue of In Common, the Nelson Institute’s semi-annual newsletter for alumni and friends.  Read it online.

Congratulations to Anne Shudy Palmer!

Anne, a CBSD MS student working with Jon Foley, was recently offered one of the student scholarships to the Conservation Capital in the Americas Conference this coming January in Valdivia, Chile.

The conference will include one hundred conservation finance practitioners, educators, and students from North and Latin America. Topics ranging from conservation investment banking to ecosystem services will be covered by our presenters. The exchange of ideas during the three day conference promises to be quite substantive and wide-ranging. In addition, the book that will emerge from the conference case analyses and discussions, to be published in 2009, should make a lasting contribution to the field of conservation finance.

Anne’s scholarship will cover: (1) round trip airfare between the United States and Valdivia, (2) accommodations in a student hotel in Valdivia, including most meals at the conference itself, and (3) free-of-charge participation at the conference.

Nelson Institute students, staff, and faculty have recently been invited to a retreat on Friday, January 23rd, 2009, at which we will begin to develop a strategic framework and action plan to guide the Nelson Institute for the next few years. In preparation, we’ve invited you to participate in a brief survey that will provide us with information that should make that retreat more productive and enjoyable.

The survey has two parts. The first part is a brief online questionnaire that is available at: http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/survey/event_survey.asp?id=2412. It asks you to tell us about the Nelson Institute now, as well as what you hope it might become. The survey will be active through Friday, Nov. 21st, so please take the time to complete it before then.

The second part of the survey is simply a “map” of the Nelson Institute by activity (available in PDF form here). We are asking everyone to locate themselves on this map so we can better understand how the Nelson Institute has self-organized. Please print out this PDF, follow the instructions for filling it out, and send it back via campus mail to Andy Wetzel at 122 Science Hall by Friday, Nov. 21st, 2008.

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey, and thank you to all those who have responded already! The future of the Nelson Institute will be built on the ideas, analyses, and hopes revealed in this survey and at our retreat.

EPA’s National Network for Environmental Management Studies (NNEMS) Fellowship Program

Each year, the NNEMS program offers fellowships developed and sponsored by EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and in EPA’s 10 regional offices and laboratories throughout the United States. The projects are specifically narrow in scope, allowing students to complete the fellowship while working full-time at EPA during the summer or part-time during the school year. NNEMS fellowship recipients receive a stipend based on the student’s level of education and the duration and location of the project. The application deadline is Tuesday, February 2, 2009.

The purpose of the NNEMS program is to

• provide students with practical research opportunities and experiences in an EPA office or laboratory;
• increase public awareness of and involvement in environmental issues;
• encourage qualified individuals to pursue environmental careers; and
• help defray the costs associated with the pursuit of academic programs related to the field of environmental protection, such as pollution control, science, engineering, technology, social science, and specialty areas.

Although these awards are labeled as fellowships, the appointments might be more accurately described as research internships. In 2009 it is anticipated that approximately 20-30 research projects will be offered in the following categories:

• environmental policy, regulation, and law;
• environmental management and administration;
• environmental science; and
• public relations and communications.

For more detailed information, including links to the program catalog, the list of research projects, FAQs, and the application form, see the web site.

For Additional Information:
If you have project-specific questions, please check the web site for contact information regarding those research projects. For more general questions, send an email message to EPA-NNEMS advisor, Carolyn Pitera, with ‘NNEMS Fellowship Program‘ in the subject line, or call the EPA-NNEMS toll-free phone number at 1-800-358-8769.

It is my pleasure to announce that we are now ready to begin the process of identifying the next Gaylord Nelson Distinguished Professor.  The competition is governed by Governance Faculty-approved guidelines.  The guidelines indicate that the desired time frame for a regularly held process should be in the Fall.  We are not quite on that time frame due to the early relinquishment of the chair by Jon Foley when he left for Minnesota.

The professorship carries the honorific title and a stipend that is based on the yield of the endowment that supports the professorship.  In the past this has provided the holder with about $20K/yr in discretionary funding; current market conditions are likely to have a negative impact on that.  The non-renewable term of the chair is 4 years.

As specified in the guidelines, Gregg Mitman has appointed a committee to over see the nomination process.  That committee is composed of faculty members from the Affiliate Faculty:

• Jean Bahr
• Sharon Dunwoody
• Jamie Schauer
• Janet Silbernagle

As stipulated in the guidelines, the committee is chaired by the Associate Director (me).  We are charged with delivering recommendations to the Director of the Institute who will make the appointment.

As spelled out in the guidelines, the criteria for candidates are the following:

1.    is a tenured member of the University faculty;
2.    has a recent track record demonstrating innovative thinking and continuing career momentum;
3.    has advanced a fundamental vision of the Nelson Institute through their work: the imperative of including humans in our understanding and management of Earth systems;
4.    has made outstanding contributions to the Nelson Institute;
5.    has made a strong contribution to research / scholarship.

The nomination process is:

• Candidates must be nominated by one or more members of the Nelson Institute Faculty (the Affiliated Faculty or largest set of faculty members).  If several faculty wish to nominate a single individual, the chair of the Nomination Committee will be free to coordinate a collective nomination.
• The nomination should include the following materials: a) a letter advancing the candidate in the context of the criteria; b) the candidate’s CV; and c) a list of highlights detailing the candidate’s service to the Nelson Institute.
• The nominations will be reviewed by the Nelson Professorship Committee.  Based on its review, the committee will forward a recommendation to the Director.  The form of the committee’s advice to the Director is left to the committee’s discretion.
• The Director will award the Professorship.

Completed nominations should be sent to Andy Wetzel.  As noted above, part of my responsibility as chair is to coordinate development of nominations.  In particular, if several groups are working on the nomination of the same individual, I can bring those efforts together.  With that in mind, please let me know as you are considering preparing a nomination so that I can orchestrate as called for.

We would like to have the nomination packages by the end of the holidays.  The committee will review the packages in January to deliver a recommendation to the Director by early February.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.  We will have a brief opportunity to discuss this at Monday’s Governance Faculty meeting.

The Water Resources Management MS Program Committee met on Monday, November 3. Here are the minutes from that meeting. If you have any questions about the minutes or the meeting, please contact Jim Miller (608-263-4373).

Presentations from the Second Yahara Lakes Conference have been posted on our multimedia page.

We hope the videos and presentations will be of interest to those who were unable to attend as well as those who participated. We will post more of the sessions as those videos become available to us.

The Nelson Institute would especially like to thank the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Madison City Channel, and our student volunteers who taped all of the sessions.

– The Nelson Institute Outreach Staff