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2008-2009 Events

Fall 2008 : "Exploring A World of Difference, Seeing A World of Change"

September
Tuesday, September 9

"What's Race Got to Do with It?: Climate Change, Privilege, and Consciousness" (click on for the podcast)
7:30 P.M. Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
For geographer Carolyn Finney "environmental justice" is too narrow a construct for understanding the deepest issues about race and the environment. For Finney, it is the "racialization of space" that's important because it narrows black identity, discourages African American engagement with the natural world, and excludes poor urban gardeners from the band of "environmentalists."
Finney's visit to Mount Holyoke College will add new angles to the campus conversation around Danzy Senna's debut novel Caucasia, the MHC Class of 2012 Common Reading.
Co-sponsored by the Dean of the College, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Tuesday, September 9
"Environmental Leadership Series: Being Brown, Thinking Green: Reflections of a Restless Geographer"
4:15 P.M. Eliot House Lounge
An informal talk and conversation with U.C. Berkeley geographer Carolyn Finney, whose life journey spans an acting career of a dozen years, a round-the-world backpacking trip, eighteen months living in a Nepalese village, and now a professorship in geography. Come talk about race and the environment. Learning about Carolyn's life may just change your own.
Thursday, September 25
Local Gracious Dinner
In all dining halls
Enjoy a healthy and delicious dinner with food from the MHC student organic garden!

Tuesday, September 30

"Lick it Green"
4-5:30 P.M Blanchard Campus Center, Lantern Green
Learn what the Green Partners are doing-- and how you can help- to conserve energy, recycle materials, and reduce MHC's ecological footprint. Ice-cream will be scooped!

October
Friday, October 3

"What's Up, and Down, in the Stony Brook Watershed"
12:15 P.M. Clapp 327
Find out what's happening in the river that flows through our own backyard and what we might do to better protect it. Senior Research Associate Leszek Bledski and Research Assistant Isabelle Castillo '09 present their findings on water quality, pollution sources, and other factors affecting the health of Stony Brook.
Thursday, October 16
"A Spectacle of Wings: Rosalie Winard'
5:00 P.M. Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Rosalie's extraordinary of photographs bring to the fore not only the poetic splendor of these magical creatures, but a heightened awareness of the precarious habitats that support their existence. "With already half of the world's wetlands gone, we need a new mindset that appreciates the wetlands as water's source and storage instead of land to be drained and developed," said Jamie Pittock, of the World Wildlife Fund. As both artist and activist, Rosalie Winard uses these images of what she calls "avian primitives "to heighten awareness of that need.
Co-sponsored with the Art Museum and the Biology Department.
Tuesday, October 21
"Finding Beauty in a Broken World: Terry Tempest Williams"
7:00 P.M. Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
In her most original, provocative, and eloquently moving book since Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams gives us a luminous chronicle of finding beauty in a broken world. Always an impassioned and far-sighted advocate for a just relationship between the natural world and humankind, Williams has broadened her concerns over the past several years to include a reconfiguration of family and community in her search for a deeper understanding of what it means to be human in an era of physical and spiritual fragmentation.
A singular meditation on how the natural and human worlds both collide and connect in violence that dares to find intersections between arrogance and empathy, tumult and peace, constructing a narrative of hopeful acts by taking that which is broken and creating something whole.
Co-sponsored by the Odyssey Bookstore

November
Tuesday, November 13

"The Sublime Hills of Western Masssachusetts: Edward Hitchcock, Geologist and Romantic Naturalist"
4:15 P.M. Kendade 305
Lecture by art historian Robert Herbert

Spring 2009

February
Tuesday, February 3

"Climate Justice: Race, Gender, and Environmental Action"
4:30 P.M. Cleveland L1
Elizabeth Budd '09, Aileen Suzara '06, and Tracy Zhu '08 will present an intersectional analysis that brings social and environmental issues together, and will discuss how this analysis is put into practice in non-profit Environmental Justice organizations that work with local communities (and transnational communities). The Climate Justice perspective is one that often missing in discussions about mitigation and adpatation in the face of climate change.

Wednesday, February 4

"The First 100 Days: Climate Change and the Dawning of a New Administration"
7:00 P.M. Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
In the first week of February, over 600 colleges, universities, and other organizations will participate in the National Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions. The CE will present a community viewing of "The First 100 Days", which features environmental luminaries talking about the science and policy of climate change and possible responses by the Obama administration in its first 100 days.
The webcast will be followed by a community dialogue, led by our own community leaders. We will be joined by Professor Doug Amy (Environmental Politics), Professor Persa Batra (Environmental Studies), Senior Jane Flegal (ES/Political Science Double Major and president of the Campus Democrats), and Todd Holland (Five-College Energy Manager).

Monday, February 9
"Learning and Stewardship: Engaging the Pioneer Valley: Non-Profit Leaders in the Environment Field"
7:00 P.M. Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
We will be joined by Julia Rivera, Director of Community Organizing at Nuestras Raices, Tina Clarke, Campaign Director of Clean Water Action, John Grosssman, manager of the ReStore, and Kristin DeBoer, Executive Director of the Kestrel Trust.

Tuesday, February 17

"Women in Environmental Science: Dr. Paign Warren Ph.D"
4:15 P.M. Cleveland L2
Dr. Warren from Department of Natural Resources Conservation at UMass, Amherst will present a lecture on "From Bottom to Top: Human Impacts on Biodiversity and Species Interaction in Urban Environments"
Co-sponsored by the MHC Department of Biological Science

March

Monday, March 2

"Environmental Leadership Series: Pathways to Careers in Agriculture and Food Policy"
4:15 P.M. Kendade 305
Emily Morgan '06, Fulbright Scholar, Graduate Student in Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Tufts University
"Waste not, want not,: An analysis of consumption and waste of fresh produce in Australia"
Alison Grantham '08, Research Associate, The Rodale Institute Kutztown, PA
"Organic Answer to Global Challenges: Ground-building Research at the Rodale Institute"

Tuesday, March 24

"God Almighty Couldn't Sweep it Away": Lore and Legacy of the Holyoke Dam and South Hadley Canal
4:15 p.m., Dwight 101
Tim Binzen and Tim Barker, Project Archaeologists, UMass Archaeological Services
In the nineteenth century, the Holyoke Dam was called the largest harnessing of hydropower on the planet. The South Hadley Canal was the first waterway of its kind in the United States. Both projects spawned technological innovations and embodied the hubris of the age, but had considerable environmental ramifications, which are considered in this presentation. This lecture will review the complicated legacy of these major historical resources.

April
Tuesday, April 2

Bill McKibben:"350--The Most Important Number in the World"
7:30 P.M. Hooker Auditorium, Clapp Laboratory
Bill McKibben brings his insightful understanding and analysis of community growth, global climate change, and urgency for political action to Mount Holyoke College and the Five-College Community on April 2. Join us for an inspirational evening with one of our most highly regarded environmental leaders, followed by a community discussion of the actions we can embark upon, keeping in mind what we learn about the "Most Important Number in the World."
In addition to serving as the Director of the Middlebury College Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, Mr. Mckibben has written numerical books, including Deep Economy, The End of Nature, and Wandering Home. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Outside Magazine. Bill has been awarded Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowship, and won the lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000.Bill, together with his team, initiated a campaign called 350.org, which has offices and organizers in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, and attempts to spread that 350 number in advance of international climate meetings set for December 2009 in Copenhagen.
Co-sponsored by the Office of the President and Odyssey Bookstore

Monday, April 6

Environmental Leadership Series: Author, Amy Seidl
4:15 p.m. Eliot House
Dr. Amy Seidl received a PhD in Biology from the University of Vermont where her dissertation research focused on the effect of climate change on butterflies. She has taught in the Environmental Studies program at Middlebury College and the University of Vermont. Currently, she is a research scholar at Middlebury College and the Associate Director of the LivingFuture Foundation in Huntington, Vermont. She lives with her family in a solar- and wind-powered home.

Reading and booksigning by Author, Amy Seidl from her new book:
"Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World"
7:30 P.M. Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
Amy Seidl considers the overwhelming problem of global warming from the perspective of a noted ecologist as well as a mother. Her new book, Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World, is a compelling fusion of memoir and science, exploring issues of climate change through family walks in the woods, work in her garden, and seasonal community events throughout the year. In her upcoming presentation, she will tie the reality of global warming to her own experiences with her daughters as well as to the traditions of her quintessential small New England town, the iconic landscape celebrated by Robert Frost, Norman Rockwell and many others.

Friday, April 24

PANGY DAY!
Starting at 11:30 a.m. Pageant and Skinner Green
Pangynaskeia, a word loosely defined as "cultivating the total world of women--physical, intellectual, and moral," was one of the names that Mary Lyon was considering for her new seminary before the name "Mount Holyoke" won out. In 1979, Pangynaskeia (now commonly called "Pangy Day") debuted as a Mount Holyoke College tradition celebrating this "total world of women."
The Green Partners work closely with Dining Services, the Dean of Students office, and the Pagan Wiccan Collective to sponsor this event, which has become part MHC tradition, part Earth Day celebration. Pangy Day has come to mean food, fun and community on the MHC campus. Come and join the celebration!

Tuesday, April 28

"Women in Environmental Science: Dr. Serita Frey Ph. D"
4:15 P.M. Cleveland L2
Dr. Frey from Department of Natural Resources University of New Hampshire and Harvard Forest Researcher will present her research on "Microbial Responses to Chronic Soil Warming and Nitrogen Fertilization"

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To contact the College, call 413-538-2000.
This page maintained by Center for the Environment. Last modified on March 18, 2009.