Stories in Sustainability
From opening a bike shop to fertilizing the Quad with organic compost tea to exploring environmental issues in the classroom, everyone on campus is involved with Willamette’s sustainability efforts. Read an overview in “Cardinal and Gold — and Green."
Student Stories
- Environmental science and politics students head into the woods to find a balance between ecology and policy in saving the nation’s forests.
[Full Story] - Students address environmental destruction, social justice and equity through the Take a Break alternative spring break service learning program.
[Full Story 1] | [Full Story 2] | [Full Story 3] - The nearby Zena forest gives students hands-on lessons about sustainable forestry.
[Full Story] - The Student Global AIDS Campaign takes on equity issues by shining a light on the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
[Full Story] - Kirsten Nelson ’08, an active member of Willamette’s Sustainability Council, received a prestigious Udall Scholarship for students seeking careers related to the environment.
[Full Story] - Lucas Nebert ’08 heads to the Netherlands on a Fulbright Grant to research sustainable agriculture and soil biodiversity.
[Full Story] - Jennifer Bufford ’08 researches climate change by examining plants at the cellular level with the help of a national Goldwater Scholarship.
[Full Story] - Tye Sundlee ’08 uses his Fulbright Grant to Ukraine to apply his economics degree toward the study of resource allocation in the country’s struggle against HIV/AIDS.
[Full Story] - Ariel Grubb ’08 fights non-indigenous species in the Galápagos by spaying and neutering pets.
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Faculty Stories
- Joe Bowersox, professor and Dempsey Chair in Environmental Policy and Politics, leads many of the campus conversations on sustainability.
[Full Story] - Economics Professor Don Negri studies the challenge of managing water resources in the parched Western landscape.
[Full Story] - Keith Cunningham-Parmeter, assistant professor in the College of Law, fights for equity for Oregon’s immigrant farmworkers.
[Full Story] - Economics Associate Professor Nathan Sivers Boyce, chairman of the Sustainability Council, analyzes the economics of sustainability and tracks the University’s ecological footprint.
[Full Story] - Joyce Millen, assistant professor of anthropology, fights the health effects of globalization as she researches the relationships between inequality and infectious diseases.
[Full Story] - Biology Professor Susan Kephart restores threatened plants on the Pacific Northwest coast.
[Full Story] - Sue Koger, psychology professor, raises public awareness about the health risks of common household chemical agents.
[Full Story] - English Professor Michael Strelow poses larger ecological questions in his novel The Greening of Ben Brown.
[Full Story] - Education Professor Karen Hamlin helps students in the Galápagos learn to protect their islands’ ecosystem.
[Full Story] - Bob Collin, senior research fellow with Willamette’s Center for Sustainable Communities, explores issues of environmental justice.
[Full Story] - English Professors Gerry and Linda Bowers work for social justice by providing educational opportunities to Zambian students.
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Alumni Stories
- Eric Brody ’96 explores ways to incorporate sustainability in businesses.
[Full Story] - John Waldo, class of 1863, left a wilderness legacy that stretches across Oregon as he successfully introduced legislation to protect the Cascade Mountain range.
[Full Story] - Democratic Congressman Sam Farr ’63 has been named one of the country’s foremost champions of the environment for his landmark legislation to protect California wilderness.
[Full Story] - Jacquie Grace ’07, studying for her PhD at Wake Forest University, investigates the behavior of young birds with the help of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
[Full Story 1] | [Full Story 2] - Mara Burstein ’06 helped form a Mill Creek Watershed Council to protect the watershed from pollution, erosion, invasive species and flooding.
[Full Story] - Darrell McGie ’06 believes Oregon’s energy future lies in producing limitless hydrogen from what is now river-polluting wastewater.
[Full Story] - Ron Gray ’98, MAT’01 helped rewrite the national school curriculum in Namibia, Africa, to incorporate lessons on the endangered cheetah.
[Full Story] - Malia Dong ’06 went on to the plant molecular biology doctoral program at Michigan State University to continue her research on climate change and heat stress on plants.
[Full Story] - Lindsey Young ’06 won Salem Audubon’s Green Award as a student for her work educating area school children about birds.
[Full Story] - Suzanne Torre ’06 researched the possibility of introducing a native flowering plant into a man-made mitigated wetland.
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Staff and Administrator Stories
- Administrators, staff, faculty and students gather at an annual retreat to track Willamette’s sustainability efforts.
[Full Story] - Grounds Manager Jim Anderson and his crew keep the campus green in more ways than one.
[Full Story] - Sarah Evans, an administrator in the Office of Communications, joins students in learning about sustainable agriculture and social justice.
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