Center News
The Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment welcomes its students back each year by holding the first class of the semester at the rustic and charming Buck Lodge in the Arboretum. The evening consists of faculty and students sharing a meal and their summer activities. It is also a time for seniors to present their study-away experiences from the previous semester, in addition to their summer internship adventures. These funded internships, a hallmark of a Connecticut College education and of the Goodwin-Niering experience, afford the students an opportunity to integrate their class work with practical experience. In their own words, students praise the opportunity as:
"...amazingly valuable - I was able to teach through a mentoring program that allowed me to ease into teaching and assume a lot of responsibility in the end." ~ IslandWood - A School in the Woods, Bainbridge Island, WA
"Many preconceived notions I arrived with in India were changed by people's realities and by the happiness and level of caring promoted working both within and without the internship in these village communities." ~ Pan Himalayan Grassroots Development Foundation, Ranikhet, India
"My internship was a fantastic learning experience ... the opportunity to participate in field research as an undergrad was invaluable and helped me to get a taste of what field work is really like; not as glamorous as the movies! ~ Dolphin Communication Project, Mystic, CT and Bimini, The Bahamas
"Simply put, I learned a ton about environmental law, both the good and the bad. The people I worked with were an unbelievable resource." ~ Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC
FALL 2011 CERTIFICATE SEMINAR
One of the goals for the seminar is to explore a contemporary environmental theme in depth, with the theme changing each semester. This fall the theme is "Wilderness". We'll explore some of the following questions: What does it mean to say that a place or a creature is wild? Are human beings a wild species? What kind of value(s) does wilderness have? Does wilderness have scientific importance? What sorts of ethical guidelines (if any) should we follow when we go “into the wild”? Do efforts to preserve wilderness merely reinforce the idea that human beings are separate from nature? To what extent do we humans construct wilderness areas by drawing boundaries around them and keeping people out? Does it make sense to say that a place is wild when Native Americans lived there for centuries? How does/should wilderness preservation fit in with the other goals of environmentalism, such as biodiversity conservation, environmental justice, and moving toward more sustainable human communities? Does wilderness preservation make any sense in other parts of the world, beyond the U.S.?Contact Information:
Phone:
860-439-5417
Fax:
860-439-2418
Goodwin-Niering Center
Connecticut College
Box 5293
F.W. Olin Science Center, Room 109
270 Mohegan Avenue
New London, CT 06320
