Environmental Studies

The 2021 Clifford Symposium
Radical Implications: Facing a Planetary Emergency

Visit the Clifford Symposium website for event details.

Due to continued caution with COVID, we are able to welcome only Middlebury College faculty, staff, and students to attend events in person. Most events will be livestreamed. Please visit the Clifford Symposium web site to register to attend online.

Philip Ackerman-Leist will give a presentation based on his recent book, A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved Its Food Heritage and Started a Movement, accompanied by film and photos. The presentation will be followed by a reception.

A commencement reception for ES majors and their families.

What does it take to dream the future we want? What does it mean to let go of the old in order to try something new?

Join artist and catalyst Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees and artist & Middlebury scholar-in-residence Carolyn Finney as they lean into the borderlands of possibility to support multiple visions of the future.

Bring your open heart and good questions!

Click here for more information and to register for Zoom link.

“Who I am is the possibility of the transformation of humanity.  What I’m giving up is that I’m misunderstood” – Mahting Putelis

Who do you stand with?  Where do you stand?  What does it mean for us to have something in common?  CEO of Hunt to Eat Mahting Putelis and artist-in-residence Dr. Carolyn Finney open up with each other about identity, conservation, generational trauma, & the challenge of walking the talk.  Join them as they take the leap – bring your open hearts and good questions!

“Nothing is more intimate than your body in the world” – Alice Randall

NY Times bestselling author & activist Alice Randall joins artist & Middlebury scholar-in-residence Carolyn Finney for a conversation where they give up the “t” on the intimate experience of being a black body on a green and imperiled planet. 

Join them as they go off the beaten path to dig into self-care, allyship, Black possibility and the art of living. 

What would a Black Walden Pond look like? 

Prof. William Tarpeh, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, will give a guest lecture via zoom, titled “Tracking and Treating Aqueous Nitrogen Emissions” on Friday, April 2, 2021 at 1:45 PM. Students are invited to meet with Prof. Tarpeh immediately following his lecture.

Climbing, hiking and hanging outdoors - what does the N word have to do with outdoor recreation and all things green? Cultural appropriation.  Invisibility.  DEI.  It’s not easy being green.  And why should we care?

Please visit go/woodincolloquiumseries for Zoom details.

Please visit go/woodincolloquiumseries for zoom details.