COA hosts its largest international conference: Reconciling Humans and Nature
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hen William Ginn ’74 offers the first keynote address for the Society for Human Ecology (SHE) on the evening of October 18, 2006, he will be welcoming the largest international conference ever to come to College of the Atlantic, so large that there will be six simultaneous sessions ongoing at all times. “Interdisciplinary Integration and Practice: Reconciling Humans and Nature,” the XIV International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology, is a four-day conference bringing 200 individual presenters from five continents to COA to explore concepts of human ecology. Rich Borden and John Anderson, COA faculty members in psychology and zoology, are co-chairs of the conference. The most important aspect of the gathering, says Borden, “is that people are coming from around the world to explore and share their ideas of human ecology.” Borden is the executive director of SHE; Anderson currently serves as its president. Covering issues from philosophy and education to the interrelation of music and nature, “the discussions will fully reflect COA’s mission and concerns,” adds Borden. With many sessions organized as roundtable discussions, “the conference will give plenty of time to actual dialog,” says Anderson, who is also COA’s associate dean for advanced studies. Among the keynote presenters will be renowned architect and designer William McDonough, recognized by Time magazine as a “Hero for the Planet” in 1999, and coauthor, with German chemist Dr. Michael Braungart, of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. McDonough will be joined by Elizabeth Grossman, author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health, among other books. In a recent review of her latest book, the Chicago Tribune wrote that we depend on writers like Elizabeth Grossman, “to shake us awake, dispel the fever dream of consumerism and reveal the true cost of our love for technology and our obsession with machines and disposable goods.”
There are four other keynote speakers. Ginn is a businessman-turned-conservationist who has helped The Nature Conservancy protect more than 1.5 million forested acres through dozens of innovative deals. He currently directs the Global Forest Partnership. Trained as a geographer, Robert Kates has participated in interdisciplinary programs addressing environment and development around the world, including the World Hunger Program at Brown University. He is a Distinguished Scientist at Clark University and a faculty associate at COA. Among other honors and duties, Kates, a MacArthur Fellow, is also executive editor of Environment magazine. His current research is on long-term trends and values, attitudes and beliefs affecting a sustainability transition.
“People are coming from around the world to explore and share their ideas of human ecology.” ~ Borden Arts advocate, scholar and curator June LaCombe will focus on environmental art and perception of place. Finally, Richard Levins is an internationally-renowned ecologist and bio-mathematician working as the John Rock Professor of Population Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he has started a collaborative relationship with Cuban institutions. He is one of the most prominent authors of mathematical patterns in biological processes, making the obscure obvious by finding appropriate ways to visualize complex phenomena. The point of the conference, says Borden, is to support the growth of human ecology. “It’s about creating interactions between people.” While the conference is only open to students and formallyregistered attendees, Borden hopes that each one of the participants will go home knowing ten people they wouldn’t have otherwise met. “It’s got to be personal, the best parts of conferences are the connections. The formal sessions are what allow people to come; the informal discussions are what they take with them.” COA | 9