The Nelson Institute Blog

Eban Goodstein is an economics professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. He contacted us about a new project he is involved with called Focus the Nation (www.focusthenation.org). Very briefly, Focus the Nation is a major educational initiative that will coordinate teams of faculty and students at over a thousand colleges, universities and high schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion centered around the theme of “Stabilizing the Climate in the 21st Century”. The project will culminate January 31, 2008, in the form of one-day, national symposia held simultaneously on campuses across the country. Working from a firm a base in educational institutions, Focus the Nation will also incorporate participation by religious, civic and business organizations, and has the potential to organize thousands of institutions and, with sufficient effort, millions of participants across the country to focus national attention for a day around a serious discussion of climate stabilization. The goal is for Focus the Nation to become the “Earth Day” catalyzing event that turns the national conversation about global warming from recognition coupled with despair, towards determination to build a clean energy future.

A two-page description of the project is available at www.lclark.edu/~eban/FocusNation.pdf; they will be launching their web site in late July, with a kick-off conference at Middlebury College in Vermont on September 23rd. Prior to any serious organizing, there are already faculty at around 20 schools committed to involvement, and two College presidents endorsing.

Dr. Goodstein will be in the Madison area on Monday, July 17th, and will give a presentation on the Focus the Nation project at noon in 175 Science Hall. He has given similar talks recently at the environmental studies departments at UC Boulder, the University of Denver, and the Institute for the Environment at UC Berkeley. Come hear more about this project! [Listen to the talk here.]

I went to see An Inconvenient Truth last weekend and it set me to thinking about my contributions to the challenges of managing human impacts on Earth’s climate. As members of the Nelson Institute, we contribute to these challenges on at least two fronts: first we have our personal activities and lifestyle choices; and second we have our activities in the Institute. Much has been written about lifestyle choices, so I would like to spend a moment thinking about the impacts that our activities within the Nelson Institute can have.

Nelson Institute impact is going to take the form of decisions that are made by people upon whom we have had some influence. That influence may take at least three forms:

1. Teaching - Students who take our courses and graduate with our degrees and certificates will go into the world and make decisions. They will run households, companies and governments of various scales. In each of those roles they will have direct impacts through purchasing and management and they will have indirect impact through the examples they set for their families, colleagues and fellow citizens.
2. Wisconsin Idea - As we revitalize our interactions with public and private decision makers throughout our region, our collected professional expertise has the potential to affect the evolution of public discourse and regulation and the management of private enterprises.
3. New Knowledge - Our research enterprises develop new understanding about how our planet functions. It is this ongoing learning that enlivens our teaching and vitalizes our contributions to decision-making beyond our boundaries.

As suggested in the last point, success in any one of these forms is entwined with success in the other two. Furthermore, just as the example we set in our families and communities establishes expectations and norms, our decision-making inside of the Institute reflects on the values and norms of our Institute.

With these things in mind, I would simply like to encourage us all to strive for excellence in all of our endeavors and to remember that we are making important contributions to the future of our Planet in both direct and indirect ways.

Science Hall is very quiet with all the students and many of you away. I myself have just returned from a three week trip. The first leg of the trip was to Chicago where, with Steve Carpenter, I had the opportunity of presenting to a group of environmental grantmakers including Christensen Fund (an interesting Foundation on the west coast supporting work on the intersection between culture and environment around the world), MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation and others. We presented some of the approaches of the Resilience Alliance and also the frameworks for training we have been exploring here at the Nelson Institute. MacArthur Foundation expressed interest in the Summer Institute idea which the Land Tenure Center has been developing and we will forward them the proposal. If others of you have proposals you think would meet the programmatic interests of these Foundations, let me know, as I think we could make use of the contacts made.

Following the two days in Chicago, I joined Matt Turner and Lisa Naughton in Washington where we presented the Summer Institute idea to a very receptive audience at Conservation International. Their “human dimensions” group is interested in exploring this as well as on ongoing internship program. This was a very productive meeting and I think some good partnership initiatives will result. I gave a presentation there on the Nelson Institute and our competency approach and received some very good feedback.

From Washington I went to Europe, first joining a research group with which I am working, then heading to Montpellier, where I spent two days meeting with faculty and students at our partner school there. I also presented the Institute and its programs and got a lot of interest in the notion of a competency based approach. They also seek to combine management, social science and natural sciences in their training, using a modular approach.

That’s all for now. Hope you are all enjoying summer.

– Frances

Although it is still early summer, we have started to plan for the new school year and the new graduate students who will be starting this fall. There are three welcome events that are currently planned for the week before classes begin.

• Environmental Studies Library and Student Commons Open House
  Thursday, August 31st, 1:30-3:00 pm (with a brief tour starting at 2:00 pm)
  Room 15 Science Hall
• Environmental Studies Fall 2006 Welcome Picnic
  Thursday, August 31st, 4:00-??? pm
  Picnic Point Site #2
  If you wish to walk or bike with other students to the site, meet behind Science Hall at 3:00 pm
• Environmental Studies Fall Semester Orientation
  Friday, September 1st, 2:00 pm
  175 Science Hall

More information about these events can be found at the Fall 2006 New Student Welcome Packet.

All Nelson Institute faculty, staff and students are invited to the events. Hope to see you there!

Land resources graduate Christopher Vaughan received an honorary doctorate from Grinnell College in Iowa at the college’s commencement ceremony in May. The college cited Vaughan, a 1971 graduate of Grinnell, for “his passion, his activism, and his unswerving dedication to the health of our planet.” (Read the college’s full citation.) Now an adjunct professor of wildlife ecology at UW-Madison, Vaughan earned his Ph.D. in land resources from the Nelson Institute in 2002 after spending many years in Costa Rica, first with the Peace Corps, then as a teacher and scholar at the University of Costa Rica. Congratulations, Chris!

Over 60 people participated in the Nelson Institute Spring Retreat on Thursday, May 11 at the UW Arboretum. Participants heard updates from initiatives that originated at the fall retreat before beginning the main work of the day: addressing how to further the mission of the Nelson Institute by identifying criteria important for new faculty, areas of teaching and research needs and possibilities, and criteria for identifying and evaluating potential hires’ likely contribution to interdisciplinarity. Participants split into small groups to focus on one of these topics before joining into larger groups to combine results. Groups identified and ranked these elements, contributing to a “faculty profile” that can help in guiding hiring decisions. A committee will meet this summer to develop a Position Vacancy Listing based on these results.

In addition, participants brainstormed alternative ways of using funds normally allocated for hiring new faculty. Several new, exciting ideas were suggested, including buying-out time from current adjunct faculty, leveraging funds for four new split appointment faculty, and encouraging innovation in research by establishing an “internal sabbatical.” A second committee will meet this summer to develop these ideas further.

Please read the brief retreat report and feel free to post comments on ideas presented, or new ideas of your own.
Spring ‘06 Retreat Report, no attachments
Retreat Report with Attachments

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Redesign Committee Land Resources Curriculum Revision