In Memoriam: Nan Jenks-Jay

Nan Jenks-Jay, a pioneer in environmental studies and sustainability programs within higher education and a former dean of environmental affairs at Middlebury, died on October 22, 2026. She was 74 years old.

For 23 years, Nan directed environmental affairs efforts and taught in the Environmental Studies Program at the College, a tenure that elevated Middlebury’s standing as a national leader in sustainability education and action. 

“Nan’s influence on all aspects of Middlebury’s local and global environmental leadership cannot be overstated,” said close collaborator Stephen Trombulak, professor emeritus of biology and biosphere studies at the College. “There isn’t a single aspect of the College’s environmental footprint that she did not have a hand in crafting and championing. Nan believed that nothing was impossible, and she would bend heaven and earth if she thought an idea might make the world a better place. She had an unfailing belief in the goodness of people and the beauty of the natural world.” 

Educated at Kent State, where she earned a bachelor’s degree, and Yale, where she received a master’s in environmental studies, Nan directed environmental studies programs at the University of Redlands and Williams College before she was appointed director of environmental affairs at Middlebury in 1997.

Thirty years after Middlebury launched the country’s first environmental studies program, she was tasked with integrating theory with practice, building upon—and reinvigorating—Middlebury’s traditional strengths in environmental education, while crafting a broader vision for an ethos of sustainability that touched all aspects of the institution.

“Nan was a force and true leader—she did not let obstacles interfere with her pursuit of truth and the path forward for Middlebury. The College’s environmental movement would not be where it is without Nan Jenks-Jay,” said Churchill G. ’71 and Janet Halstead Franklin ’72, ardent supporters of sustainability efforts at Middlebury and for whom the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest is named.

Initiatives that Nan, who was appointed Middlebury’s first dean of environmental affairs in 2016, led include the following:

• Achieving carbon neutrality in 2016 and setting the stage for Energy2028, a commitment that again put Middlebury at the forefront of institutions leading the way for innovative change.
• Establishing the LEED Platinum Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest.
• Developing a school, program, and lab—the Middlebury School of the Environment, the Global Partnerships for Sustainability program in five countries, and the Sustainability Solutions Lab, respectively.
• Playing a key role in the conservation of 2,400 acres of Bread Loaf lands and the establishment of the Lands Advisory Committee, and understanding how Middlebury could quantify and use the carbon storage and sequestration in the forestlands for its carbon neutrality effort.
• Participating in the creation of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference and inspiring an alumni gift that established an endowment for scholarships in her name.
• Bringing attention to racial and gender issues in sustainability work, including helping to establish a two-year scholar-in-residence position for Carolyn Finney, cultural geographer and author of Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, to address diversity, equity, and inclusion as they relate to sustainability issues at Middlebury and elsewhere.

“Nan was passionate about keeping Middlebury at the forefront of environmental innovation, not for accolades, but to be a model for other institutions, allowing higher education to continually evolve and serve,” said Janet Wiseman, assistant director of the Franklin Environmental Center.

Her spectrum of influence included leading or serving on external review committees for 18 college and university environmental and sustainability programs; creating a national network to advance sustainability in higher education; serving on state and national committees and commissions; and providing leadership to some of the region’s most important sustainability institutions, such as the Vermont chapter of The Nature Conservancy and Shelburne Farms.

Following her retirement from Middlebury in 2019, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education awarded her  a lifetime achievement award; Yale followed suit in 2021 when its School of the Environment presented Jenks-Jay with its annual award for distinguished achievement.

At its Commencement ceremony in 2022, Middlebury awarded Jenks-Jay an honorary degree, a Doctor of Humane Letters. On the evening before Commencement, her colleague and friend Mez Baker-Médard, an associate professor of environmental studies at the College, toasted her at a dinner celebrating that year’s honorary degree designees, saying then: “Nan’s legacy lives on because of these rhizomatic networks she helped create—connecting institutions and initiatives to each other, connecting people to each other, and connecting us to the land/sea and species around us.”

This week, after learning of her passing, Baker-Médard added: “Her greatest legacy is not just what she accomplished, but how she made other people feel capable of accomplishing more, how she brought people together, reminded us of what mattered, and helped us find the energy and courage to act.”

Bill McKibben—the writer, environmental advocate, and Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury—worked closely with Jenks-Jay during the past quarter-century, and said of her impact on Middlebury and the planet: 

“Nan Jenks-Jay dearly loved the world around her, and she dearly loved the young people who would need to learn to protect it. As a result of her leadership at Middlebury across the decades, there are now many hundreds of well-trained and smart advocates, scientists, and policy experts out across the planet doing all they can to defend the health of our planet and its people. That’s one hell of a legacy.”

She is survived by her spouse, Carl Phelps, cocreator of enchantment at the nursery, garden, and antique store of Miller Hill Farm; daughter Jessica Jay and her spouse, Travis Clark, and their son, Mason Jenks Jay Clark ’30, a first-year Middlebury College student; and her siblings and their family members.

The celebration of a grand life will be held this spring in coordination with Sudbury Shares, a collaborative community food-and produce-sharing initiative in Sudbury, Vermont. 

Rather than send gifts or flowers, the family invite all to spend a special moment in nature, savor one’s time there, and reflect on protecting the environment. They also invite you to a common space to share reflections, musings, notes, letters, documents, or photos inspired by or related to Nan Jenks-Jay or any of her life’s work at noteswithnan.net (a website in development to be launched shortly).