Tag: Sustainability

Faculty attend sustainability seminar in Europe

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Faculty News, Field Trip, Sustainability, Travel

2011 June in Switzerland

Brannon Andersen, Bill Ranson, Suresh Muthukrishnan, and our newest faculty member, Betsy Beymer-Ferris (starting in August), attended a Mellon Foundation funded travel seminar in sustainability that visited Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, and Freiburg, Germany.  A total of 18 faculty from 8 different colleges participated in this program.  The group met with city planners, architects, and design experts in each city.  We used public transportation for traveling between cities and used hired bicycles to travel within the city.  Overall, we studied sustainable design in buildings, alternative energy, agriculture, and transportation.  After the seminar was over, Betsy traveled on to do research in Norway and Sweden, whereas Bill, Brannon, and Suresh traveled with Dr. Becky Gould (Middlebury College) to Zermatt, Switzerland to study glaciers, glacial geomorphology, and water resource management (and lots of good hiking).  The outcomes of the travel will be incorporating our experiences and learning into our curriculum and the development of a May Experience trip to Germany and Switzerland. 

Click on links below to see some photographs from these places.

Environmental Policy Student Research Presentations

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Presentations, Student News, Sustainability

Environmental Policy offered by Dr. Angela Halfacre (Director of Shi Center for Sustainability and Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Political Science departments) attracts students interested in sustainability, environmental policy, environmental law, earth and environmental sciences, and political science.  This course offers an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how environmental policy can address problems relating to consumption, development, environmental risk, and environmental justice.   An important part of this course are student research projects.  These projects examine  policy, including perceptions and behaviors, on the Furman campus or in the Greater Upcountry region (Greater Greenville, South Carolina).  Connections to and considerations of environmental policy approaches related to preservation, conservation, protection and sustainability are emphasized and examined through the student research. A central theme of the course is the policy and politics of sustainability strategies by scale (campus to community).

EnvPolicy_Poster

The students in the Fall 2010 section of the course shared the results of their semester research through a poster session held on December 1 at the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability located at Cliffs Cottage.  Over 70 participants attended the event, and students shared a short overview of their projects and participants then talked one on one with the students about their research in greater detail.  Representatives from several community partners attended including Greenville Forward, the City of Greenville, Spartanburg County, and Upstate Forever.   Faculty, staff, administrators, and students from several departments and divisions also participated, and shared ideas, fellowship, and conversation about the research while also enjoying seasonal sweets (warm apple cider, apple fritters, and sweet potato bread supplied by Aramark).   Several of the research projects will be continued by the students in their future individual research efforts as well as through "legacy projects" with students enrolling in future offerings of the Environmental Policy course.

More details regarding individual research projects or further enquiries about the center should be sent to Brittany DeKnight at the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability, Furman University.