Collaboration Toward Climate Action on Michigan Campuses Panel, CCESS2023
Introduction:
I am Tom Wassmer, a dual citizen of the US and Germany and a Professor of Biology. My research studies the timing of animal activities and how climate change may influence these temporal patterns. For the last 13 years, I have worked at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. SHU is a small rural liberal arts college founded by the Adrian Dominican Sisters in 1919. We serve about 1300 students on the ground and online, and the biology department consists of just four professors.
Achievements and Challenges:
As chair of the sustainability committee, I run an Environmental Documentary Series for the last 8 years that incentivizes students by providing extra credit to watch selected documentaries covering all aspects of environmental issues and solutions. I also have been organizing the William Issa Endowment Speaker Series on the Environment for the last 8 years. Our series featured diverse voices from Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson to Project Drawdown’s John Foley to Jacob Lebel, one of the plaintiffs in Juliana vs. the US, and the Sunrise Movement. While we are doing well educating our students about the climate emergency, we fall short in direct climate campaigns and direct action. Yes, several students joined me and a group of Adrian Dominican Sisters to attend the 2017 People’s Climate March in Washington, DC, and we contributed twice to the Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Week, formerly Worldwide Climate Teach-In, organized by Bard College. But we should do more. In two weeks, I will attend a course on Teaching Social Action taught by Scott Myers-Lipton and hosted by the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability in Ann Arbor. I hope to develop a course or extracurricular activity giving students the tools to run successful political campaigns.
Communications and collaboration synergies in the future:
I sincerely hope that today’s event will only be the beginning of more communication and collaboration between faculty and staff of regional universities. We are facing a climate emergency that progresses faster than scientists expected only a few years ago. We owe it to our students to thoroughly prepare them for the world to come and give them the tools to be vital in the solutions we so desperately need.
I am Tom Wassmer, a dual citizen of the US and Germany and a Professor of Biology. My research studies the timing of animal activities and how climate change may influence these temporal patterns. For the last 13 years, I have worked at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. SHU is a small rural liberal arts college founded by the Adrian Dominican Sisters in 1919. We serve about 1300 students on the ground and online, and the biology department consists of just four professors.
Achievements and Challenges:
As chair of the sustainability committee, I run an Environmental Documentary Series for the last 8 years that incentivizes students by providing extra credit to watch selected documentaries covering all aspects of environmental issues and solutions. I also have been organizing the William Issa Endowment Speaker Series on the Environment for the last 8 years. Our series featured diverse voices from Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson to Project Drawdown’s John Foley to Jacob Lebel, one of the plaintiffs in Juliana vs. the US, and the Sunrise Movement. While we are doing well educating our students about the climate emergency, we fall short in direct climate campaigns and direct action. Yes, several students joined me and a group of Adrian Dominican Sisters to attend the 2017 People’s Climate March in Washington, DC, and we contributed twice to the Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Week, formerly Worldwide Climate Teach-In, organized by Bard College. But we should do more. In two weeks, I will attend a course on Teaching Social Action taught by Scott Myers-Lipton and hosted by the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability in Ann Arbor. I hope to develop a course or extracurricular activity giving students the tools to run successful political campaigns.
Communications and collaboration synergies in the future:
I sincerely hope that today’s event will only be the beginning of more communication and collaboration between faculty and staff of regional universities. We are facing a climate emergency that progresses faster than scientists expected only a few years ago. We owe it to our students to thoroughly prepare them for the world to come and give them the tools to be vital in the solutions we so desperately need.
