Environmental Events at Middlebury College: ENVS Spring 2014 Colloquium Series

 

Thursday, February 20

Landscape Conservation: What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Howard E. Woodin ES Colloquium Series
The Orchard, Franklin Environmental Center 103
12:30 – 1:20p
Bring lunch to enjoy during the talk

Vermont Director of The Conservation Fund Nancy Bell’s twenty-plus-year career emerged from a grass roots activist background that fueled a passion for landscape conservation, particularly for wildlife habitat. With The Fund since 1995, she has built unique partnerships to conserve approximately 500,000 acres across northern New England. Nancy is a recipient of numerous honors for her work including the national Chevron/Times Mirror Magazine Conservation Award and the Vermont Land Trust Community Conservation Award. In addition, Nancy founded, and for 11 years has directed, The Settlement Project, a cutting edge children’s summer camp that focuses on our sense of place, the environment, social responsibility and building community.


Tuesday, February 25

Cameron Visiting Artist: Jake Winiski

Johnson 304
4:30 – 6:30pm

Jake Winiski is an artist on the research and design team for rapidly expanding company Ecovative Design, where fungi is transformed into rigid molded materials. Ecovative is working to replace styrofoam with environmentally friendly mycelia packaging. In his own work, Winiski explores the image as a shared space between the fabrication of the model, its expansion and metamorphosis behind the window of the photograph. His mixed media images underscore the free-associative manner in which internal fantasy can project itself into the world. Sponsored by the Studio Art Program and The Cameron Family Arts Enrichment Fund.


Tuesday, February 25

Mapping Seasonal Pastures in Bayanhongor, Mongolia

McCardell Bicentennial Hall 104
4:30p

A talk by Benjamin Meader ‘10.5. Sponsored by the Geography Department.


Thursday, February 27

The Power of Storytelling

Howard E. Woodin ES Colloquium Series
The Orchard, Franklin Environmental Center 103
12:30 – 1:20p
Bring lunch to enjoy during the talk

How can storytelling help connect us to some of our most pressing ecological challenges? How can we move beyond the issues and information and become more emotionally connected to what’s happening to the world around us. These and other questions will be addressed in this presentation by filmmaker Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee.


Thursday, February 27

Film Screening – ELEMENTAL

Axinn 232
4:30p

Director/Producer Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee will screen his award winning film ELEMENTAL, an inspiring and intimate portrait of modern environmental activism that inter-weaves the stories of three leaders from across the globe who share an unwavering commitment to protecting nature. The film follows Indian government official Rajendra Singh on a 40-day pilgrimage down India’s once pristine Ganges river, now polluted and dying. Across the globe in northern Canada, Eriel Deranger mounts her own “David and Goliath” struggle against the world’s largest industrial development, the Tar Sands, an oil deposit larger than the state of Florida. And in Australia, inventor and entrepreneur Jay Harman searches for investors willing to risk millions on his conviction that nature’s own systems hold the key to our world’s ecological problems.  Sponsored by Franklin Environmental Center and Program in Environmental Studies.


Thursday, March 6

Geology Alumni Panel

McCardell Bicentennial Hall 104
4:30 – 6:00p

A career conversation with Middlebury College Geology alumni representing a diverse array of professional directions including work with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, environmental consulting firms, and science writing.


Monday, March 10

The Sun is Not So Central

Mahaney Center for the Arts 125
4:30p

Illustrated lecture by Michael Cherney, photographer, calligrapher, and book artist whose art combines photography with the subject matter, aesthetics, materials, and formats traditionally associated with classical Chinese painting. In addition to an overview of his artistic process and recent works, he guides the audience through viewing several handscrolls, albums, and other works. Sponsored by the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Program in Environmental Studies, Franklin Environmental Center, and Department of Chinese.


SAVE THE DATE!

Wednesday, March 12

The 2014 Scott A. Margolin ’99 Lecture in Environmental Affairs
Kierán Suckling, Executive Director, Center for Biological Diversity

MBH 216
7:00p

Kierán Suckling founded Center for Biological Diversity. In addition to overseeing its conservation and financial programs, he created and maintains the country’s most comprehensive endangered species database. Kierán acts as liaison between the Center and other environmental groups, negotiates with government agencies, and writes and lectures; he has authored scientific articles and critical essays on biodiversity issues. He holds a master’s in philosophy from the State University of New York at Stonybrook and a bachelor’s from Holy Cross.  More information and details to follow.