ACS RECEIVES $3.5 MILLION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation board awarded ACS $3.5 million to support 24 Post-doctoral Fellows in environmental studies between 2008 and 2013. The program should provide a strong boost to environmental initiatives on the campuses and in the consortium. A selection committee of five academic deans has been established to review proposals, whose deadline is November 24, 2008. Requests for Proposals are posted online, below. It is hoped that the first Environmental Postdoc Fellows will appear on campuses by Fall 2009.  Please direct questions to program director Elizabeth MacNabb, emacnabb@colleges.org. 

Fellowship Grants

Thanks to support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in January 2009 the following ACS colleges and universities will each be advertising a two-year Post-doctoral Fellow Position in Environmental Studies:

• Centenary College of Louisiana (environmental sociology or related discipline)
• Centre College (environmental policy or environmental ethics)
• Davidson College (environmental geography and/or demography)
• Furman University (human geography or urban planning)
• Hendrix College (environmental lit or policy)
• Millsaps College (environmental sociology or anthropology)
• Rollins College (environmental restoration)
• University of the South, Sewanee (environmental policy or landscape ecology)
• Southwestern University (global ecology)
• Spelman College (energy and environmental policy)
• Trinity University (environmental humanities or policy)
• Washington & Lee University (sustainability—specialization open)

Look for recruitment ads in the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as in other discipline-specific journals. Once individual advertisements appear (early January), postdoctoral applicants should contact member institutions directly.  For more information about individual colleges and universities in the consortium, see description at http://www.colleges.org/institutions.html. For more information about the Environmental Fellow Program in general, please contact the program director at emacnabb@colleges.org.

Mentoring the Environmental Fellows

The ACS Environmental Fellowship Program will help prepare new PhDs for successful careers as interdisciplinary teachers and scholars. Fellows will receive a rich, productive introduction to teaching and research in topnotch small college settings with high teacher-student ratios, mentored by some of the best liberal arts professors in the country. For more information about mentoring, please see the ACS Guide for Mentors of Environmental Fellows. 

ACSEI Faculty Strategize Continuing Collaboration in Coming Years

• Faculty Request Continuation of Key ACSEI Programs
• Photos from the Davidson Workshop

ACS Environmental Initiative, 1998-2008

The ACS Environmental Initiative, which ran from 1998 to 2008, encompassed environmental sustainability not only in academics, but in campus operations, campus-community partnerships, student development, and more.  As we transition towards new Programs in Sustainability and the Environment, we reflect upon that highly successful ten-year program, which changed ACS campuses for the better. Evidence of its success is everywhere; most ACS institutions have made significant physical and cultural changes to emphasize “green” thinking. Because these changes have the potential to affect not only individuals at each campus but also an entire region of the country, we believe the overall impact of the ACSEI was much greater than the sum of its parts.

Clearly, ACSEI influenced ACS presidents who signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org).  Equally clearly, ACS faculty and staff members now working to carry out Commitment requirements for their presidents are those very same faculty and staff who attended ACSEI conferences and workshops over the years, and who played key roles in ACSEI alliance and grant activities. With their help, the ACS Environmental Initiative had a profound impact on the lives of students, faculty and staff in our institutions, transforming them into effective environmental citizens. For more about ACSEI activities, please see Archived ACSEI Reports.

The past ten years were very productive for the ACS Environmental Initiative. Since 1998, we estimate that over 7000 ACS faculty, students, and staff, and several hundred members of the surrounding communities, were affected by the many projects and activities ACSEI sponsored or supported.  Between 2001 and 2008, ACSEI supported 131 Faculty Fellows, 16 Facilities Fellows, 269 Student Interns, and 180 alliance members; awarded 232 grants to 294 recipients for a total of $456,768. For more information about ACSEI alliance grants, please see Successful Alliance Proposals, 2005-2008.

Since 1998, ACS Environmental Programs hosted or helped to support 42 workshops, conferences and symposia addressing various aspects of environmental citizenship. At little or no cost to the individual or to the campuses, these workshops gave over 1000 ACS faculty, students and staff an opportunity to learn about, be engaged in, and be motivated by their peers' environmental courses and research, by co-curricular environmental programs, and by the many environmental partnerships and projects that were created, implemented, and strengthened due to ACS alliance grants. For more information on our workshops, please see our Past Workshops/ Conferences page.

         ACS 10th Anniversary Trees