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Environmental Studies - Student Programs

Nations and the Global Environment | Luce-Rosenfield Symposia

The Program in Nations and the Global Environment

Grinnell's liberal arts and sciences curriculum offers an ideal medium for the interdisciplinary study of world environmental issues.

The college's particular strengths in international education and the natural sciences, reinforced by resources provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, have combined to establish a new program that explores the relationship of science, public policy, and global development.

The Program in Nations and the Global Environment provides a more integrated focus for the College's growing efforts to address issues of the environment and public policy, to relate these issues to the local, national, and international arenas, and to promote global awareness through study of other nations and cultures.

If the college is to fulfill its mission of educating students to be responsible world citizens, Grinnell students must think globally in order to deal effectively with the increasingly complex interactions between nations and the environment.The challenge is to integrate scientific knowledge in the making of public policy, public policy concerns into the practice of science, and both into the study of the relationship between nations and the global environment.

To meet this challenge, Grinnell has created an educational model for thinking and acting globally, through curricular initiatives, such as "Nations and the Global Environment," special topics courses, field courses in Belize and the senior seminar. This program stimulates cross-curricular thinking about environmental issues and recognizes the interdependent qualities of these issues at all levels.

Luce-Rosenfield Symposia

Every Spring the Henry R. Luce Program in Nations and the Global Environment and the Rosenfield Program, co-sponsor a major symposium.
Topics are listed here; click on the year for a list of speakers:

2010: Corn Belts: Iowa and International Agriculture
2009: Rights and the Environment
2008: Critical Issues for the Arctic
2008: Water
2007: Global Climate Change
2006: Challenges Presented by Emerging Infectious Diseases
2005: Forgotten Terrains: Earth's Neglected Temperate and Subtropical Forests
2004: The Future of the Rainforest: Does the Past Show the Way to the Future?
2003: Coastal Waters and the Environment
2002: WATER: Conflict & Trade-Offs
2001: Preserving the Environment in Eastern Europe & the Former Soviet Union
2000: International Commerce in Endangered Species
1999: Biotechnology and Agriculture; Designer Genes are Not All Gucci
1998. What is the Earth Worth?
1997: Dams and Development
1996: Microbes as Allies
1995: Plagues in Historical Perspective
1994: Environmental Refugees in the 1990s
1993: Symposium on World Population in the 1990s
1992: Continent at the Crossroads, Antarctica in a Resource Age

2010: Corn Belts: Iowa and International Agriculture

  • Dr. Kendall Lamkey (Chair, Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University) “The Origin, Production and Utilization of Corn.”
  • Dr. Daniela Soleri (University of California, Santa Barbara) “Views from the Campo: Traditional Maize Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico.”
  • Dr. Carmen Martinez Novo (John R. Heath Professor of Social Sciences, Grinnell College) “Notes on Subsistence Agriculture and Food Sovereignty in Ecuador.”
  • Dr. C. Ford Runge (Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied Economics and Law, the University of Minnesota) “Rivers of Gold: Where Does Corn Flow and Does it Make Sense?”
  • Mr. James McCann (Author) “Corn: Africa’s Story in Four Acts.”
  • Dr. Fred Kirschenmann (Former Director, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University) “Corn and the Sustainability of Iowa Agriculture.”
  • Panel discussion: “The Business of Corn”: Mr. Matias Mino Navarette (Monsanto Corp.), Mr. Craig Lang (President, Iowa Farm Bureau), Mr. Mark Dimit (Iowa farmer), moderated by Dr. Jon Andelson (Director of the Institute for Prairie Studies, Grinnell College).

2009: Rights and the Environment

  • Dr. Mara Goldman (Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Colorado) “Strangers in Their Own Land: Maasai and Wildlife ‘Conservation’ in Northern Tanzania.”
  •  Dr. Stephen Gardiner (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Washington) “Climate Justice.”
  • Ms. Michelle Leighton (Director of Human Rights Programs, Center for Law and Global Justice, University of San Francisco) “Protecting our Human Rights in a Climate-Changed World.”
  • Dr. Kent Redford (Director, Wildlife Conservation Society Institute) “Second Nature: The Value of Conservation after the Death of Nature.”
  • Mr. David Cantor ’77 (Founder and Director of Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.) “Earth’s Best Hope: Rights of All Animals.”
  • Dr. Donald Worster (Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Professor of History at the University of Kansas) “On John Muir’s Trail: Nature and Society in an Age of Liberal Principles.”

2008:Critical Issues for the Arctic

  • Ms. Elizabeth Grossman (Author and Environmental Journalist) “It’s All About the Ice: Climate Change and Its Impact on Contaminants in the Arctic”
  • Dr. Scot Nickels (Senior Science Adviser, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami) “Part of the Solution: Challenges Faced by Inuit Communities in Adapting to Climate Change.”
  • Dr. Donald Forbes (Research Scientist, Geological survey of Canada and Chercheur Invité, Inrs-eTe, Université du Québec) “Arctic Warming and Challenges for Northern Coastal Communities.”
  • Dr. Nikita Ovsyanikov (Senior Research Scientist, Russian Academy of Sciences) “The Future of Polar Bears in a Greenhouse World.”
  • Justice Thomas Berger (Supreme Court of British Columbia) “The Arctic: Whose Country Is It?”
  • Dr. William Shilts (State Geologist and Chief, Illinois Geological Survey) “The Glacial and Periglacial Heritage of the Nunavut Landscape.”
  • Dr. Jeff Chiarenzelli (Department of Geology, St. Lawrence University) “Legacy of Formerly Used Defense Sites on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.”
  • Tilly Woodward (Grinnell College Faulconer Gallery Outreach Curator) in collaboration with David Jensen, Elizabeth Grossman, Shannon Hinsa-leasure, Donald Forbes, Nikita Ovsyanikov, William Shilts, and Jeff Chiarenzelli “An Installation of Ice and Light with Projected Images of the Arctic.”

2008: Water

  • Ms. Elizabeth Grossman (Author and Environmental Journalist) “Watershed: Dams, River Health, and Climate Change.”
  • Dr. Braimah Apambire (Senior Adviser, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation) “Water Quality and Water Policy in West Africa.”
  • Dr. Matthew Heberger (Research Associate, Pacific Institute) “Facing the National Water Crisis.”
  • Mr. William A. Ehm (Director of Water Resources, Iowa Department of Natural Resources) “Water, the Public’s Wealth.”
  • Dr. Ed P. Brands ’96 (Assistant Professor of Geography and Coordinator, Urban Environmental Studies, Birmingham Southern College) “Policy, Process, and Perception: What Determines the Quality and Safety of Drinking Water?”

2007: Global Climate Change

  • Dr. Charles Duke (Williston Professor of Physics, Grinnell College)
    "Carbon Mitigation and Nuclear Power."
  • Mr. Herbert Giorgio (Arnold Energy Center)
    "Iowa Nuclear Power: Emission Free Electrical Generation."
  • Ms. Martha Norbeck (architect)
    "Optimizing energy use as a strategy to slow global warming."
  • Dr. Robert Glass (Sandia National Laboratory)
    "Yucca Mountain and the Storage of High Level Nuclear Waste."
  • Mr. Tom Wind (Wind Utility Consulting, Jefferson, IA)
    "How Much Wind Energy Can Iowa Really Use?"
  • Mr. Edward Woolsey (President, Chariton Valley Switchgrass Project)
    "Biomass Energy: Options for Iowa."
  • Dr. Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot, former US Senator, New Mexico)
    "Lunar Helium-3 Fusion Power and Our Energy and Space Future."

2006: Challenges Presented by Emerging Infectious Diseases.

  • Dr. Alfred W. Crosby (Univ. of Texas)
    "The 1918 Flu."
  • Dr. Abigail Salyers (Univ. of Illinois)
    "Revenge of the Microbes: Are Antibiotics on the Endangered Species List?"
  • Dr. George Korch (Commander, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases)
    "Developing Medical Products for Modern Times."
  • Dr. William Karesh (Head, Field Veterinary Prog., Wildlife Conservation Society)
    "One World - One Health."
  • Dr. Jonathan L. Temte (Dept. of Family Medicine, Univ. of Wisconsin)
    "Pandemic and War, 2006."

2005: Forgotten Terrains: Earth's Neglected Temperate and Subtropical Forests.

  • Dr. Ravi Rajan (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz)
    "Science, economy and modernity: the origins of temperate forestry."
  • Mr. Fred Wilcox (Ithaca College)
    "Scorched Earth: legacies of chemical warfare in Vietnam."
  • Dr. Oliver Rackham (Cambridge Univ.)
    "Woods, industries and conservation: the historical experience of Britain."
  • Dr. Stephen J. Pyne (Arizona State Univ.)
    "Tempering the temperate forest: fire, axe and people."
  • Dr. Timothy Silver (Appalachian State Univ.)
    "Hiking into history: a writer's search for nature and human nature in the East's highest mountains."
  • Ms. Stephanie Hitztaler (Univ. of Michigan)
    "Under transformation: Russia's taiga forests in the post-soviet period."
  • Dr. Jim Furnish (USDA Forest Service)
    "The forest service in the 21st century: leader or follower?"

2004: The Future of the Rainforest: Does the Past Show the Way to the Future?

  • Dr. Michael Heckenberger (Univ. of Florida)
    "Visualizing deep ecological history in Amazonia: landscape and polity."
  • Dr. Anabel Ford (Univ. of California Santa Barbara)
    "Community and nature at El Pilar: a philosophy of resilience for the Maya forest."
  • Dr. Anna C. Roosevelt (Univ. of Illinois, Chicago)
    "Long-term human-environment interaction in tropical forests of Africa and South America: a challenge to conservation biology."
  • Dr. William L. Balée (Tulane University)
    "The impact of landscape transformation on native languages of Amazonia."
  • Dr. William M. Denevan (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison)
    "Pre-European Amazonia: pristine of humanized?"
  • Dr. Clark. L. Erickson (Univ. of Pennsylvania)
    "The domesticated landscapes of of the Bolivian Amazon."

2003: Coastal Waters and the Environment

  • Dr. Neil Sealey (Media Enterprises, Nassau)
    "Manmade coastal erosion in the Bahamas, with special reference to the cycle of Casuarina-induced beach erosion."
  • Dr. Kathleen M. Sealey (Univ. of Miami)
    "Coastal ecology of the Bahamas: balancing environment and the economy."
  • Dr. William F. Precht (PBS and J, Miami)
    "The demise of Caribbean coral reefs: teasing out local, regional, and global impacts."
  • Dr. Jeffrey A. Seminoff (National marine Fisheries Service)
    "Biology and conservation of sea turtles: struggling for survival in a human-dominated world."
  • Dr. Billie R. DeWalt (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh)v"Social and ecological issues of shrimp farming in Latin America."
  • Dr. James A. Bohnsack (National marine Fisheries Service)
    "Marine ecosystem-based management: the role of no-take reserves and conservation ethics."

2002: WATER: Conflicts & Trade-Offs.

  • A. Linzhang Yang (Deputy Director, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
    "The Effects of the Three Gorges Project on the Environment in the Yangtze River Valley."
  • B. Szabolcs Szekeres (Director, Information for Investment Decisions, Inc., Budapest)
    "Water Conflicts & Trade-Offs: The Case of the Danube."
  • C. Paul Simon (former US Senator, D-IL)
    "Tapped Out: Will We Go to War Over Water?"
  • D. Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. (President, Foundation for Middle East Peace)
    Scholars' Convocation -- "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Land & Water."
  • E. Tom Gardner-Outlaw (Senior Technical Advisor, Population & Environment,
    US Agency for International Development)
    "Human Population and Freshwater Scarcity: The Population-Environment Nexus."
  • F. Hubert A. Farbes, Jr. (Attorney at Law, Denver, CO)
    "Conflict, Coveting and River Compacts -- Struggles for Water Supply in the Arid American West."

2001: Preserving the Environment in Eastern Europe & the Former Soviet Union.

  • Ms. Natalia Vladimirovna Belenko (Manager, Eco-site, Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal)
    "Building an Eco-Village in Modern Russia"
  • Dr. D.J. Peterson (Analyst, Rand Corporation)
    "Russia's Environment in the Post-Soviet Transition: A Photographic Tour"
  • Dr. Michal Krejza (First Secretary, European Commission Delegation to Estonia)
    "The Pollution Legacy of the Soviet Era in the Baltic Region and the Impact of European Aid Programs"
  • Mr. David Stulik (Editor-in-Chief, Integrace)
    "European versus American Environmental Policies in Eastern Europe"
  • Mr. Dmitri Litvinov (Greenpeace Nordic; Member, Board of Directors, Greenpeace Russia)
    "The Environmental Movement's Role in the Democratization of Russia"
  • Dr. Rafal Serafin (Director, Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation, Kraków, Poland)
    "The Role of Grassroots Environmental Action in a Globalizing World: the View from Poland"

2000: International Commerce in Endangered Species.

  • Dr. Anne Meylan (Florida Marine Research Institute)
    "The Hawksbill Turtle: Chronicles of an Extinction Foretold."
  • Dr. Jonathan Hutton (Wildlife Conservation Society)
    "Conservation out of Exploitation: a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear."
  • Dr. Robert Pyle (Burroughs Medal-winning author and conservationist)
    "Migratory Monarchs and Giant Birdwings: Butterfly Conservation, Commerce and Eco-tourism."
  • Dr. John Audley (EPA)
    "Into the 21st Century; Opportunities and Obstacles for U.S. Trade and Environment Policies."
  • Dr. Frank von Hippel (Univ. of Alaska)
    "Will Viagra Save Endangered Species?"

1999: Biotechnology and Agriculture; Designer Genes are Not All Gucci.

  • Mr. Monty Miller (Performance Solutions)
    "Building awareness of biotechnology and agriculture: discovery of the issues."
  • Dr. Lisa Lorenzen (Iowa State University)
    "From genes to seeds, the impact of biotechnology."
  • Dr. Rick Ryan (Purina Mills)
    "The high steaks game of biotechnology."
  • Dr. Steven Sonka (Univ. of Illinois)
    "Biotechnology and the redefinition of the food and agricultural sector."
  • Mr. Dennis Avery (Hudson Institute)
    "Saving the planet with American agriculture and biotechnology."
  • Dr. Philip Serafini (Univ. of Arkansas)
    "Weeds, women, biotechnology and the green revolution."
  • Dr. Stephen Brush (Univ. California, Davis)
    "Who owns the staff of life?"

1998: What is the Earth Worth?

  • Michael C. Farmer (Georgia Institute of Technology)
    "Is economics a value theory or a way of valuing?:
    the diversity of valued uses of economic information."
  • Carl N. McDaniel (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
    "Full circle: back to sustainability."
  • Theodore J. Kerasote (Author, Conservationist)
    Scholar's Convocation -- "The cost of nature."

1997: Dams and Development.

  • A. P. N Gupta (The World Bank)
    "The necessity for environmentally sustainable large dam projects for the 21st Century."
  • Sayed El-Sayed (Texas A & M University)
    "The high Aswan Dam: an ecological disaster or an economic blessing?"
  • Michael M. Cernea (The World Bank)
    "Hydropower dams and social impacts: a sociological prespective."
  • Joseph Larsen (Univ. of Mass., Amherst)
    "China's Three Gorges and the inadequacy of the PRC/Canada Environmental Impact Statement."
  • William Fisher (Harvard Univ.)
    "Truth and consequences: analyzing costs and benefits of the Narmada Project."
  • Donald Worster (Univ. of Kansas)
    Scholars' Convocation -- "The conquest of water in modern times."
  • Philip Fearnside (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia, Manaus, Brasil)
    "Dams in the Amazon: environmental and human impacts of the TucuruÕ, Balbina, and the Xingu River dams."

1996: Microbes as Allies.

  • Dr. Barry L. Marrs (C.E.O. Recombinant Biocatalysis Inc.)
    "How to harvest an invisible garden."
  • Dr. Holger W. Jannasch (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
    "The microbially based food chain for novel deep-sea animal communities."
  • Dr. Ralph S. Wolfe (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana)
    "Allesandro Volta's combustible air, 1776-1996."
  • Dr. David T. Gibson (Univ. of Iowa)
    "Fission of the aromatic nucleus at pH 7.0 and the temperature of an English summer's day."
  • Dr. Kenneth W. Culver (Onchopharm, In.)
    "Exploiting viruses for the treatment of human disease."
  • Dr. Nicolas Ornston (Yale University)
    "Towards a natural history of microorganisms: fluid genes in stable bacteria."

1995: Plagues in Historical Perspective.

  • Dr. Alcida Ramos (Univ. of Bras'lia)
    "The role of epidemics in making a rhetoric come true - the Yanomami case."
  • Dr. Karen Stanecki (U. S. Bureau of Census)
    "The HIV/AIDS epidemic and its impact on populations in the developing world."
  • Dr. Donald A. Henderson (The Johns Hopkins Univ.)
    "Smallpox: the death of a virus."
  • Dr. Peter Jones (Librarian, King's College, Cambridge, UK)
    "Plague: the social impact of catastrophic mortality."
  • Dr. Abigail Salyers (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana)
    "Return to the pre-antibiotic era: hype or happening?"
  • Dr. Alfred Crosby (Univ. of Texas at Austin)
    Scholars' Convocation -- "The great pox and yellow jack."

1994: Environmental Refugees in the 1990s.

  • Mr. Hal Kane (Worldwatch Institute)
    "Environmental change and growing pressures to migrate."
  • Dr. James Armstrong (Univ. of Penn.)
    "Environmental crises in ancient Babylonia and implications for today's world."
  • Dr. Robert Kiste (Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa)
    "Nuclear nomads: the Bikini case -- and regional environmental issues in the Pacific."
  • Dr. William T. Sanders (Columbia University)
    "The Classic Maya collapse: a perspective from Copan."
  • Dr. Charles Wood (Univ. of Texas at Austin)
    Scholars' Convocation -- "Land settlement, rural violence and environmental refugees in Amazonia."
  • Dr. Chung Chung-Hsin (Nanjing University)
    "China's rivers: a chronicle of benevolence and destruction."
  • Dr. Norman Myers (Oxford Univ.)
    "Environmental refugees: a fast emergent issue for the international agenda."

1993: Symposium on World Population in the 1990s.

  • Dr. Barry Commoner (Queens College)
    "Environment and the economy: friends or foes?"
  • Ms. Frances Kissling (Catholics for Free Choice)
    "Whose ends? Whose means? a feminist approach to population policy."
  • Mr. John Aird (Foreign Demographic Analysis Section, U.S. Bureau of the Census)
    "China's coercive family planning program: deception, hypocrisy and human rights."
  • Dr. J. Joseph Speidel (Population Action International)
    "Population -- what's the problem and how do we solve it?"
  • Dr. Norman Farnsworth (Univ. of Illinois)
    "The search for new contraceptives from plants."
  • Dr. Michael Teitelbaum (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation)
    Scholars' Convocation -- "U.S. policy on population: trading places with Marxists."

1992: Continent at the Crossroads, Antarctica in a Resource Age.

  • Dr. Jere Lipps
    "Alien world; the evolution of Antarctica" and
    "Drilling into the unknown: the Ross Ice Shelf Project."
  • Dr. Charles Swithinbank
    "Why is there ice in Antarctica?" and
    Scholars' Convocation -- "Antarctica 1950 - 1990: the changing scene."
  • Dr. Cornelius Sullivan
    "Investigations of the Antarctic sea ice zone ecosystem: adventures of the intellect and the spirit."
  • Dr. Sayed El-Sayed
    "Conservation of Antarctic marine living resources: an international concern."
  • Dr. Chris Joyner
    "The Antarctic Treaty regime: the convergence of law, politics and environmental priorities."
  • Mr. Raymond Arnaudo
    "U.S. Antarctic policy: current issues."
  • Mr. Michael Parfit
    "A journalistic perspective of Antarctica."
  • Dr. David Campbell
    "The tern and the whale: whaling in the Southern Ocean commons."

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