News and Events

• Wednesday, 2/7/24, 7 p.m.
• Henson, Rm. 243

This event is geared toward students interested in possibly studying abroad. Hear student stories and learn about winter term, summer term, and semester-long opportunities for travel and learning!

• Wednesday, 3/6/24, 7p.m.
• Henson, Rm. 243

Alonso Abugattas Jr., natural resource manager in Arlington County and founder of Capital Naturalist, has been a professional naturalist interpreter and environmental educator for over 30 years. He shares his personal journey of starting master naturalist chapters and working as a naturalist, along with his involvement in environmental organizations and social media initiatives. The intention is to kindle inspiration and facilitate discussions among others, encouraging them to explore their own avenues for engagement.

• Wednesday, 3/27/24, 7 p.m.
• Henson, Rm. 243

In 2012, Laura Scharle, an outdoor recreation consultant, set a goal to circumnavigate the entire Delmarva peninsula by kayak. What was to be a fun way to see the sights and motivate her to get outside more often, turned into an 11-year journey of growth – physical growth, professional growth and emotional growth. Hop in your virtual kayak and paddle through 600 miles of stunning scenery and local Delmarva culture.

• Wednesday, 4/10/24, 7:00pm
• Henson Science Hall, Rm. 243

When she retired at the end of 2023, Kate Patton had spent 18 years as executive director of the Lower Shore Land Trust. Patton, who believes “the role of the land trust is crucial to preserving the unique character of the Eastern Shore; the small towns, the patchwork of forests and farms, and the rivers, creeks, and bays where people work and play,” discusses her insights on preserving our distinctive landscape.

September 6: Internship Experiences
Wednesday, 9/6/23, 7 p.m., Henson, Rm. 243

Students share their internship experiences from the past year. Students are encouraged to hear their stories and learn about internship opportunities.

September 27: A Flood of Memories: How Remembering Tropical Storm Agnes Can Build Resilient Communities
Wednesday, 9/27/23, 7p.m., Henson, Rm. 243

Andrew Stuhl (SU Class of 2003), associate professor and chair of environmental studies and sciences at Bucknell University, and theatre artist Gerard Stropnicky revisit 1972’s Tropical Storm Agnes and the lessons it has for today. This historic commentary and performance draws on oral histories with Pennsylvanians who experienced Agnes firsthand.

November 8: A Passion for Oysters: A Film and Discussion
Wednesday, 11/8/23, 7 p.m., Guerrieri Academic Commons, Assembly Hall

Tom Horton, with the filmmaking team of Dave Harp, Sandy Cannon Brown and Richard Anderson examines the Chesapeake Bay’s oysters – from oyster farms, free-range watermen, the world’s biggest oyster sanctuaries and a robust presence of science and environmentalists. Environmental Studies Department’s own Michael Lewis frames the discussion with broader perspectives relating to public/private use of land (and water) historically and globally. Co-sponsored with the Nabb Research Center.

 

Study Abroad Experiences
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Henson Science Hall 243, 7 p.m.

Event geared towards students interested in possibly studying aboard. Come hear student stories and learn about possibly winter-term, summer-term, and semester-long opportunities for learning and travel!

Chesapeake Bay Program: How It Began
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Henson Science Hall 243, 7 p.m.

Historian Andrew Ramey, Carnegie Mellon University, explains how the Chesapeake Bay Program has evolved over 40 years. Co-sponsored with the Nabb Research Center.

Wetland Destruction & Restoration on Kent State Campus: Changing Environmental Values
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Henson Science Hall 243, 7 p.m.

Jennifer Mapes, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Kent State University shares her work on how the removal and eventual restoration of wetlands on the Kent State campus was influenced by changes in cultural values. The research is an exploration in the environmental humanities using archival sources to detail historical ecology and changes in environmental perception.

Decolonial Environmentalisms: Or How Latinx Science Fiction Expands Environmental Justice
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Henson Science Hall 243, 7 p.m.

Environmental justice scholarship and activism have innovated the environmental humanities and social sciences for more than twenty years. Yet the framework of justice limits possibilities for redress to state-sanctioned mechanisms like law, regulations, and the stakeholder paradigm. In this talk, Dr. Vazques, Program Director of Latinx Studies at American University, will examine how Alex Rivera’s 2009 film Sleep Dealer mobilizes expansive ideas about land use, water rights, and equal access to the global economy. Rivera’s film foregrounds forms of international and inter-class solidarity that claim access to water and sustainable economies as basic human rights. The film makes ethical claims that counter market-based and state-sanctioned solutions to climate change and environmental harm by intertwining anti-capitalist and decolonial imaginaries in its science-fiction imaginary.

Internship Experiences
Internship Experiences
Wednesday, September 7
Henson Hall - Room 243, 7 p.m.

ENVR students share their internship experiences. Come hear their stories and learn about possible internship opportunities in various environmental fields!

How it Began:The Nature Conservancy and Nassawango Creek
How it Began:The Nature Conservancy and Nassawango Creek
Wednesday, September 21
Perdue Hall - Room 156, 7 p.m.

Joe Feher, a former conservationist with The Nature Conservancy, discusses the effort to create the Nassawango Creek Preserve as well as its long-term success.

Nudging Green: Behavioral Economics and the Environment
Nudging Green: Behavioral Economics and the Environment
Wednesday, October 19
Perdue Hall 156, 7 p.m.

Sarah Jacobson, Associate Professor of Economics at Williams College, discusses how understanding human behavior is key to addressing environmental issues. Behavioral economics offers a variety of insights, including intriguing ways to “nudge” people toward greener behavior. This talk will explore methods and ideas from behavioral economics with reflections on their promise and limitations with regard to challenges as small as litter and as big as climate change.

Responsible Meat
Responsible Meat
Wednesday, November 9
Academic Commons Assembly Hall, 7 p.m.

Writer Tom Horton and photographer Dave Harp present another Bay Journal Film. They ask: Can you be a carnivore and still contribute to a sustainable planet? Take a look at Pop’s Old Place on Maryland’s Eastern Shore where Darlene Goehringer and her husband, Arthur Wilson, are proving livestock can be an essential part of a Bay-healthy agricultural landscape.

Study Internship Experiences
Study Internship Experiences
Wednesday, September 8
Conway Hall 153, 6 p.m.

Students share their environmental internship experiences from the past year. Hear their stories and learn about possible semester-long and summer term opportunities for learning and travel.

Saving San Domingo: A Little-Known Piece of Eastern Shore History Screening and Panel Discussion
Saving San Domingo: A Little-Known Piece of Eastern Shore History Screening and Panel Discussion
Wednesday, September 22
Guerrieri Academic Commons, Assembly Hall, 6 p.m.

This film by Tom Horton, Dave Harp, and Sandy Cannon-Brown tells the story of San Domingo, MD, founded in 1820, possibly one of the oldest surviving Black communities in the United States. The name and historic records suggest that its founding fathers were mariners who came from Haiti soon after the rebellion there that free all slaves in 1804. The film helps document the work of Newell Quinton and his family, who strive to preserve the traditions and oral histories of the community. Following the film, join a panel discussion with the filmmakers and members of the Quinton family.

Co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Department and the Nabb Center.

The Old Home is Not There: Reflections on Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore The Old Home is Not There: Reflections on Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore
Wednesday, October 13
Conway Hall 153, 6 p.m.

A Guide to Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore: The Old Home Is Not There (published in July by History Press) is about the Dorchester County landscapes and environments known by Harriet Tubman and shared by Dorchester residents, and how those landscapes and environments have changed - in some cases disappeared - since her time. Co-authors Phillip Hesser (formerly History) and Charlie Ewers (Environmental Studies) discuss the process of putting the book together from interviews, photography and archival sources, including Harriet Tubman’s own words.

Co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Department and the Nabb Center.

How Can I Help: Writing About Science and Nature for Young ReadersHow Can I Help: Writing About Science and Nature for Young Readers
Wednesday, November 10
Conway Hall 153, 6 p.m.

Writing about science and the environment for young people has unique challenges, like putting events in historical context, explaining complex concepts and being honest about the threats to ecosystems. Author and Salisbury University alumna Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan discusses how to combine information with inspiration.

Study Abroad Experiences
Wednesday • February 5, 2020 6:00 p.m. • Perdue Hall 156

Students share their study abroad experiences from the past year. Come hear their stories and learn about possibly winter-term, summer-term, and semester-long opportunities for learning and travel!

One Maryland One Book Panel Discussion: Critical Contexts of What the Eyes Don't See
Wednesday • February 19, 2020 6:00 p.m. • Perdue Hall 156

The 2019 Maryland Humanities "One Maryland One Book" by Mona Hanna-Attisha is a gripping, inspirational true story that reads as a scientific thriller, as Dr. Hanna-Attisha fights to prove how Flint's children were exposed to lead. But why exactly is lead exposure such a big problem, and why are hundreds of neighborhoods and communities from Flint, Michigan, to Newark, New Jersey, finding such high levels of lead in their water and homes? Why is it that some people are exposed to high levels of pollution or don’t have access to clean water, while others enjoy green spaces and nutritious food? To answer these and additional questions raised in this gripping and urgent book, Environmental Studies presents an interdisciplinary panel of SU faculty. These faculty-- with backgrounds ranging from natural sciences to community health and the humanities, will each give a brief "crash course" on a key concept or event in What the Eyes Don't See before engaging the audience in a lively conversation about the book and the larger issues it engages. By understanding concepts like "environmental justice," "toxicity" and "community health" we can better train our minds to see how social and environmental inequalities intertwine, and also ways to effectively fight for healthy cities and thriving democracy Program partially funded by the Maryland Humanities "One Maryland One Book" program

San Domingo at 200 – A Little-Known Piece of Eastern Shore History
Wednesday • April 1, 2020 6:00 p.m. • Assembly Hall, Academic Commons

Writer Tom Horton, photographer Dave Harp, and filmmaker Sandy Cannon-Brown reunite to share the story of San Domingo, a settlement established near the Nanticoke River by free blacks, many of them former slaves, in the early 19th century. The film helps document the work of Newell Quinton, who strives to preserve the oral histories of the community. Note: Photo will be forthcoming on Monday. Co-sponsored by the Nabb Center.

Towards climate justice and transformative adaptation: What’s gender got to do with it?
Wednesday • April 15, 2020 6:00 p.m. • Perdue Hall 156

Dr. Beth Bee, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning & Environment at East Carolina University, makes the case that meeting climate action initiatives requires attending to issues of gender and its intersecting inequities.

Director of the Rock Ethics Institute Ted Toadvine
Wednesday • May 7, 2020 7:00 p.m. • Conway Hall 153

FULTON ALUMNI LECTURE SERIES: SU alumnus Toadvine is the Nancy Tuana Director of the Rock Ethics Institute and associate professor of philosophy at Penn State. University. Toadvine credits his professors at SU with inspiring his lifelong passion for the examined life and he discusses how his time at SU prepared him for his career. A native of Salisbury, Toadvine has published extensively in the areas of environmental philosophy and contemporary European philosophy.

Environmental Studies Internship Experiences
Wednesday • September 11, 2019 5:30 p.m. • Devilbiss Hall 123

Discover internship opportunities available to Environmental Studies majors from the students who've been there themselves! Learn more about the process of completing an internship for SU credit from the Environmental Studies Internship Coordinator.

Maryland Rural Legacy Program
Wednesday • October 2, 2019 7:00 p.m. • Devilbiss Hall 123

Harold Scrimgeour has been involved with the Maryland timber industry for several years. Maryland's Rural Legacy Program provides funding to preserve large, contiguous tracts of land and to enhance natural resource, agricultural, forestry, and environmental protection while supporting a sustainable land base for natural resource-based industries. Scrimgeour gives a survey of the history of the Maryland Rural Legacy Program in the context of Green Infrastructure and sheds light on current issues of easements.

Maryland Biodiversity Project
Wednesday • November 6, 2019 5:30 p.m. • Devilbiss Hall 123

Jim Brighton discusses the Maryland Biodiversity Project (MBP), a project he co-founded with Bill Hubick in June 2012. Brighton discusses how MBP is cataloging all the livings things in Maryland as part of their effort to promote education and conservation through building a vibrant nature study community.

Reinvigorating Environmental Justice: Marshalling Student Activism for Change
Wednesday • November 20, 2019 5:30 p.m. • Devilbiss Hall 123

In spite of activism, research, and policy efforts, environmental injustice persists. Oscar Eduardo de Paz discusses the lessons learned from the stalled and failed efforts of the EJ movement in Pittsburgh, PA, a nearly 60-year environmental conflict, as well as how student environmental organizations play a role in environmental conflicts.

• Study Abroad Experiences

  Wednesday, February 6 • Perdue Hall 156 • 5:30 p.m.

  Students share their study abroad experiences from the past year. Come hear their stories and learn about possibly winter-term, summer-term, and semester-long opportunities for learning and travel!

• Designing Cost-Efficient Surveillance Systems for Early Detection of Invasive Species

  Wednesday, February 27 • Perdue Hall 156 • 5:30 p.m.

  Introduction of nonnnative species can cause substantial harm to agricultural and natural resources. Dr. Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, a Fellow at Resources for the Future, will discuss how bioeconomic models, which account for pest spread and control options, enable optimal allocation of surveillance resources across large landscapes and target pests to minimize long term costs from new invasive species introductions.

• Island out of Time

  Wednesday, March 6 • Perdue Hall 156 • 6:00 p.m.

  Smith Island, the setting beautifully portrayed in David Harp’s photography, is Maryland’s only offshore inhabited island. The Marshall family in the film includes Dwight, a top Bay waterman; Mary Ada his wife, known for her eight layer chocolate cakes (the state dessert); and their four children who have already left the island physically, but not emotionally.

• Water Markets: A High-Resolution View from California

  Wednesday, April 17 • Perdue Hall 156 • 5:30 p.m.

  Dr. Anita M Chaudhry, Associate Professor Economics at California State University, Chico will discuss water marketing, where farmers holding senior water rights can choose to lease their water rights to interested buyers. Using remotely-sensed land use data to study farmer-level agricultural water sale decisions, Dr. Chaudhry explores how California farmers have responded to changes in state and local water transfer policies, price of crops, and droughts in their water sale decisions.

• Internship Experiences

  Wednesday, September 12 • Perdue Hall (PH) 156 • 7:30 p.m.

  Students share their internship experiences from the past year. Come hear their stories and learn about possible internship opportunities!

• Mistrust and Metaphor

  Communicating About Climate Change and Other Polarized Science Debates
  Wednesday, October 10 • Perdue Hall (PH) 156 • 7:30 p.m.

  Dr. Katie Burke received her Ph.D. in Biology (Ecology & Evolution) from University of Virginia, focusing on conservation biology and the ecology of forests and plant diseases such as chestnut blight. Since 2012, Dr. Burke has worked as an editor at American Scientist and is currently their digital features editor. Her talk will focus on how one effectively communicates complicated and polarizing issues such as climate change to the general public.

• Structures of Violence

  Narrative and Environmental Memory in the Plantationocene
  Wednesday, November 7 • Perdue Hall (PH) 156 • 7:30 p.m.

  Dr. Rebecca Evans is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Winston-Salem State University, where she researches and teaches on contemporary American literature and culture, speculative fiction, and social and environmental justice. Her work has appeared in Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, Women's Studies Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Public Books, and is forthcoming in The Cambridge History of Science Fiction and Loanwords to Live With: An Ecotopian Lexicon (University of Minnesota). She holds a PhD in English from Duke University. Her research has been supported by grants from the ACLS and the Huntington Library.

  From Dr. Evans: "This talk, drawn from my book in progress, theorizes genre as a strategy for narrating the representationally challenging forms of violence that characterize contemporary life. I argue that friction between genres dramatizes both the presence of environmental and structural violence and the difficulty of integrating an understanding of such systemic violence into daily life. The talk thus addresses both contemporary literary/cinematic/televisual genre formation and a broader assessment of the relationship between speculative genres and environmental rhetoric."

• Land, Weather, Spirit

  Towards an Environmental History of Slavery in Maryland
  Wednesday, December 5 • Perdue Hall (PH) 156 • 7:30 p.m.

  Dr. Tony Perry, American Studies, University of Maryland College Park and Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Carter Woodson Institute for African American and Africa Studies at University of Virginia.

  From Dr. Perry: "In this talk, I chart the contours of a Maryland-based environmental history of slavery through an examination of three scenes. Together these scenes richly illustrate different dimensions of enslaved people’s relationship to the landscape, climate, and supernatural environments of antebellum Maryland."

High Tide in Dorchester
Wednesday, February 21 • Guerrieri Academic Commons, Assembly Hall, 7 p.m.

A film by Tom Horton, David Harp, and Sandy Cannon Brown. The future of climate change is here and now in Maryland’s lowest-lying county, projected to shrink from fourth largest in land area of Maryland’s 23 counties to fourteenth by the end of this century. Film runs 45 minutes and will be followed by a panel discussion. Co-sponsored by the Fulton Dean’s office. Learn more about the film here.

Note: This is the Maryland preview, the film officially premieres at the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C., in March.

Quantifying the Socioeconomic Benefits of Observing Earth from Space
Wednesday, March 7 • Devilbiss Hall (DH) 123, 5:30 p.m.

Yusuke Kuwayama, a researcher with Resources for the Future, will discuss how, as satellite technology grows more refined and powerful, so do significant opportunities to use vast quantities of new Earth observation data to improve decision-making and solve pressing problems. Accurately assigning an economic value to the data gathered by satellites and aircraft is critical to ensuring environmental and human health as well as financial well being around the world.

Chernobyl and the Anthropocene
Wednesday, April 18 • Devilbiss Hall (DH) 123, 7 p.m.

Kate Brown, Professor of History at UMBC will talk about her research on the environmental and medical consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.

Indigenous Landscapes of Delmarva
Wednesday, September 20 • Conway Hall 153, 7 p.m.

Jeff Kirwan, emeritus professor and Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation extension specialist, has spent his career conducting research on indigenous ecology and cultural landscapes, particularly on Delmarva. A member of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians on his native Eastern Shore of Maryland, he shares an overview of his findings on how indigenous peoples have managed the landscapes of Delmarva. Co-sponsored by the Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture.

Lessons from the Forest
Wednesday, October 25 • Conway Hall 153, 7 p.m.

An SU emeritus professor of biology and one of the founding members of SU’s Environmental Studies program, Joan Maloof is now the executive director of the Old Growth Forest Network, an NGO that she founded to promote old growth forest preservation throughout the U.S. She discusses our native forests: what is happening to them and what should be done to preserve them.

Chesapeake Oysters: The Bay’s Foundation & Future
Wednesday, November 29 • Guerrieri Academic Commons, Assembly Hall, 7 p.m.

Nabb Center Lecture: Kate Livie, associate curator at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, discusses the history and future of oysters in the Chesapeake. Based on her book Chesapeake Oysters: The Bay’s Foundation and Future, winner of the Maryland Historical Society’s 2016 Brewington Book Prize. In this lecture, she will provide an overview of the history and prospects for the on-going attempts at restoring the Bay's once plentiful oyster population.

Co-sponsored with the Environmental Studies Colloquium Series and Fulton School.