 (Posted on: 3/7/06) Email Message from ES Summit
Co-Chair: William Freudenburg
From: "Wm. R. Freudenburg" <freudenburg@es.ucsb.edu>
To: Pioneering Participants of Santa Barbara Summit <freudenburg@es.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Words of thanks, and plans for next steps
Date-Sent: Tuesday, March 7, 2006 5:37 PM -0800
Greetings! This is the first of the updates
we promised to send out from Santa Barbara.
First of all, many thanks for participating in a very exciting
summit. Quite a few of you expressed to us the view that, within
a few more years, people will be looking back to the Santa Barbara
Summit as the starting point for a whole new approach to environmental
research and education. If so, all of you will be able to report
with pride that you were part of the energy and intellectual interchange
that brought it all to life. Beyond that, we want to provide you
with links to a bit more information, to ask you for a bit more
input, and to let you know you'll be hearing from us again soon.
Our hard-working web-master, Eric
Zimmerman, has been making a number of additions to the website
(the home page of which is http://www.es.ucsb.edu/essummit). In
particular, it now includes:
- The copies of the PowerPoint presentations from those who agreed
to share them (cartoons and all);
- All the updated profiles on summit participants that have been
provided thus far, along with an initial, lengthy list of important
(and in some cases, less important) "environmental" books,
both at http://128.111.133.50 (You can also go to the Summit "home
page," http://www.es.ucsb.edu/essummit, and check out the "summit
updates" on the right.)
- A gallery of some of the enjoyable photos from the Summit, at
http://www.es.ucsb.edu/essummit/gallery.html
- Links to several fine reports that Stephanie Pfirman has been
kind enough to send along, dealing with a number of the most important
topics that were of interest to Summit participants. Click the "what's
new" links on the right side of the Summit page or go to http://www.es.ucsb.edu/essummit/links.html
The mention of Stephanie's reports brings
up another point. Quite a few of you expressed a strong interest
in learning more about what other places have been doing with
their environmental programs, and it seems highly likely that a
number of you will have thoughts or reports of your own to share.
If you're willing to join Stephanie in sharing some of your own
work, send it along, or pass along a link to a working URL, and
we'll add it to the list. Beyond that, we're looking for several
other kinds of things; if you can help with any or all, please send
them to Dylan Hallerberg <dylanhallerberg@sbcglobal.net> and
Eric Zimmerman <zimmerman@es.ucsb.edu>.
- Notes from Sessions. If you are one of the people who was acting
as a rapporteur for a breakout session ? or if you simply have
good notes from one or more sessions that you'd be willing to share
with others ? please send them in.
- Photographs. If you have other photos that you think might be
fun for your colleagues to see, and you're willing to add them
to the gallery, send them to Eric.
- Other "Classic Works" (or "new works that deserve
to become classics): As long as our initial list of books may be,
it still leaves off some important works. If you want to make some
nominations, send them in. The same request applies for "other
important URLs," for those of you who are more electronically
oriented.
- More cartoons and pictures: There seem to be quite a number of
us who are struggling to make our lectures more lively and visual;
several people have asked us if we know of other pictures and cartoons "as
good as the ones that Monty Hempel used." That may be an unreasonably
high standard, of course! If you have cartoons, photos, graphs,
or other visual props that you've found helpful in your own teaching
and/or professional presentations, and that you're willing to share
with colleagues, send them along, and we'll add links to them,
as well.
For all of the above, send info to Dylan Hallerberg <dylanhallerberg@sbcglobal.net> and
Eric Zimmerman <zimmerman@es.ucsb.edu>.
The
input that we got indicated very strong support for taking "next
steps," combined with an impressive degree of willingness to
chip in on the work that needs to be done. There was also a consensus
that any further steps need to be taken in ways that don't arbitrarily
rule out the participation by a broad and diverse range of people
and programs. Just what the details of that will look like ? well,
that's something that needs to be worked out by a smaller and more
manageable group in the months ahead. We promised at the closing
session that we'd work with other people, in just such a manageable
group, and then get back to you.
Several of you have already sent
us some very thoughtful observations and recommendations about
what the next steps ought to be; we thank those of you who have already
done so, and we invite similar comments from others, if you happen
to have thoughts or preferences that ought to be kept in mind as
the process moves forward.
In particular,
if your campus or institution might be interested in hosting a
similar gathering in the reasonably near future - probably a year
or more from now, to allow enough time for more careful planning
- let us know. We have already heard from colleagues on several
campuses that have very strong and/or growing environmental programs,
who have expressed an interest in "getting on the list" of
potential host sites, but if you might be interested in offering
a host location, please let us know now. Obviously, we're only
talking about initial statements of interest, not iron-clad, final
offers. Still, there was a good deal of interest in setting up
meetings in different types of places and different parts of the
country, and if there is enough interest, it would be good to think
in terms of a set of meeting locations, for the next several years
down the line, offering a range of interesting places to visit, a
broader diversity of places that would be easy and affordable for
students to reach, and a richer set of opportunities for different
places and programs to work together or otherwise strut their stuff.
William R. Freudenburg
Dehlsen Professor of Environment and Society
Environmental Studies Program
University of California |
