Graduate Assembly Environmental Sustainability Conference

Graduate Assembly Environmental Sustainability Conference

Project Leads: Jonathan Morris, Brandon Wood

Project Sponsor: Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

TGIF Grant: $10,350

Project Theme: Education and Behavior Change

Application Submission

Project Description: This project is to conduct a one-day environmental and climate science, policy, and advocacy conference for graduate students to engage with these issues in a manner outside their academic focus, building cross-disciplinary skills and collaborative efforts.

Project Goals:

  1. The first overall goal of this project is to conduct a one-day conference that will consist of a variety of speakers, workshops, networking opportunities, and an exposition. Workshop topics are envisioned to include topics such as strategies for lobbying, securing grant funding, organizational development, communicating and messaging, commercializing technologies, and current environmental protection law and policy. Finally, the conference will conclude with an exhibition to help convey scientific information about the environment and sustainability initiatives, policies, and technologies to a broader audience that might not otherwise consider themselves interested in sustainability.
  2. Although this proposal is for a single year, the second overall goal of this project is to develop the institutional knowledge required to deliver long-term, year-round environmental sustainability programming to graduate students. Environmental sustainability is an interdisciplinary task, comprising of science, technology, policy, business, law, and the humanities. However, opportunities engaging environmental sustainability in a cross disciplinary manner are lacking. Ensuring collaborative efforts in environmental sustainability will allow graduate students to understand the multifaceted problem of making the campus and the larger community move toward environmentally sustainable patterns.