Seed Grant Award: Seminar on Race, Climate Change, and Environmental Justice

Climate change, racial injustice, and inequities are deeply intertwined.  Colonialism, slavery, and the genocide of indigenous people are directly linked to natural resource exploitation, environmental degradation, and global warming.  Our seminar focused on placing race, gender, and class at the center of discussions of the environment, climate, and equity.  Our goal was to create an academic space which enables collaborative dialogue, action, and insight for systemic change towards racial equity and understanding within a climate and environment context.  

The first iteration of this seminar class ran twice, once each in the fall and spring semesters of 2020-21.  Funds contributed went toward $1000 honoraria for our outside speakers who was be educating us on these topics.  We think it important that this labor be recognized financially.  We are enormously grateful for the support of your office.  The class was conceived and largely organized by a group of six remarkable DEES graduate students who the department and EI were recognizing for their efforts separately.  

This project was funded through the Addressing Racism: A Call to Action for Higher Education initiative of the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement.