This semester, we’ll be sharing an ever-updating list of eco-friendly opportunities open to our coexist community. Have an opportunity to add? Email me at lkenney01@wesleyan.edu! Check out the latest opps, below!
COE opportunities
$4,400 COE 2021-22 Research Fellowships: Now accepting applications for our COE summer 2021, fall 2021 and spring 2022 research fellowships! The College of the Environment (COE) Fellowship Program allows current Wesleyan undergraduate students to undertake research on environmental topics under the guidance of a faculty mentor during summer or fall or spring semesters. Fellowships are available to all current Wesleyan undergraduate students, regardless of class year or major, and may be undertaken at Wesleyan or off-campus. Check out the wide range of past COE research fellowship awardees, and their projects, here! Students must be current Wesleyan undergraduate students for the duration of their fellowship. All COE summer fellowships carry a stipend of $4,400. Fall and spring semester amounts will vary based upon duration and hours per week spent on research. Extened deadline: Applications now due February 25, 2021.
Other opportunities
Community Based Art-making in Practice: Still spaces available in this spring 2021 student forum, presented by Mikaela Marcotullio ’23, an ecofacilitator in the Sustainability Office! Sign up today!
Wes Sustainability Office interns: The Sustainability Office is hiring for 2 positions: 1 Sustainability Coordinator and 1 Waste Not Coordinator! All Wes students (2022, 2023, and 2024) who are passionate about campus engagement are encouraged to apply. To apply: Fill out an application and apply via Handshake. Contact current coordinators at wesustainability@gmail.com for more info. Deadline: February 28, 2021.
The Party at the Edge of the World (syllabus here): Liz Woolford ’22 and Michayla Robertson Pine ’22 are the directors of Liz’s two-semester senior capstone project investigation into theater and ecological storytelling: The Party at the Edge of the World. From Liz: “This piece will be built by a small, core collaborative ensemble rather than a traditional DSM team. Core team members will take our student forum this spring, then devise and work on the show next fall (credited). Those not interested in joining the core team can join us next semester for a class that is part environmental performance think-tank, part creative endeavor. Students in the forum (in-person w/remote) will earn 1.0 ENVS credit. As we build this piece, we’re looking to create a classroom of folks with varied interests and strengths: artists, movers, activists, geologists, anthropologists, and everything in between. This is a learning experience & prior experience with performance/theater is not necessary.” Contact Liz Woolford, for all the details!
Penn State is partnering with Project Drawdown to explore and enhance “the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.” The Drawdown mission seeks to clarify a positive solutions-oriented path ahead for action on climate change. By working with researchers from across the world, the team has already identified 100 of the most substantive solutions to address climate change. Program dates: June 2 – August 6, 2021. Stipend: $600/week. Deadline: February 15, 2021.
UNH Sustainability Fellowship Positions Available for Summer 2021: The University of New Hampshire’s Sustainability Institute is now accepting applications for its 2021 summer Sustainability Fellowships, pairing exceptional students from UNH and colleges and universities across the country with host organizations in New England to work on transformative sustainability initiatives. Each summer, fellows undertake challenging sustainability projects that are designed to create an immediate impact, offer an extraordinary learning experience, and foster meaningful collaboration. Both Jen Kleindienst and Ingrid Eck ’19 are former program fellows! Contact Megan Carney (megan.carney@unh.edu) for more info. Deadline: February 15, 2021.
Keck Geology Consortium Summer 2021: Geology and environmental science related summer projects are available from the Keck Geology Consortium for summer 2021. Gateway projects are intended for rising sophomores (current first-years) while Advanced projects are for rising seniors (current juniors). Each project has a field component with a Covid contingency plan. Kim Diver, associate professor of the practice in E&ES, is leading one of the projects and another is led by Wesleyan MA alum Dan Maxbauer. Deadline: February 15, 2021.
The Sustainable CT Fellowship Program will place highly qualified fellows across the state’s nine Councils of Governments (COGs) to assist with the uptake and implementation of Sustainable CT during the summer of 2021. Sustainable CT will follow all current COVID-19 safety guidelines, and it is unknown at this time if the 2021 program will be held in-person or virtually. For all the details, contact Jessica LeClair at leclairj@easternct.edu for more info. Deadline: February 16, 2021.
2021 Wesleyan Summer Grants Program are funding resources awarded through the Gordon Career Center which allow students to pursue no- or low-paid career-related summer experiences such as internships, faculty-mentored research, language study, volunteer work, field study, and academic programs. The list of available grants and the application can be accessed on AcademicWorks through WesPortal. The GCC is holding 3 virtual info sessions this month to answer all your questions! Fore more info, visit the GCC website. Applications open: February 8-26, 2021.
Community-Based Art Making in Practice: Two opportunities to get involved in a collaborative performance with Forklift Danceworks and Wesleyan’s Physical Plant and Custodial Operations! In spring 2021, students in Community-Based Art Making in Practice will explore historical and theoretical contexts for community-based art making and put this learning into practice through a process of embedded artistic research and collaboration with campus employees. In summer 2021, Forklift will be hiring two Wes students to support production for the Wesleyan performance. Contact Gretchen LaMotte ’18 for all the details or both opportunities. Deadline for spring 2021 course: ASAP. Deadline for summer positions: February 25.
NASA Develop Summer Program projects focus on helping local and international communities address their environmental concerns while utilizing NASA’s Earth observing fleet of satellites. This is a great opportunity for participants who are interested in practical applications of remote sensing and GIS, specifically in the field of Earth Science. The summer term runs June 7 through August 13. Fall and spring opportunities are also available. Deadline for summer program: February 26.
Patricelli Center Seed Grants: $5,000 grants to fund the launch or early-stage growth of a project/venture with potential for impact are available now!
Deadline: February 28, 2021.
The JCCP Student Innovation Fund offers $750 for remote spring or summer projects that deepen our contribution to the greater Middletown community. Projects can focus on collaboration between student groups, faculty/staff, and/or community partners; investigation of the impact of our civic engagement efforts, or sharing of ideas and learnings in civic engagement.
Deadline: March 12, 2021.
Congrats to Gabe Snashall ’21 and Helen Poulos, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies, co-authors of Oreos versus Orangutans: The need for sustainability transformations and non-hierarchical polycentric governance in the global palm oil industry. The manuscript has been officially accepted for publication in Forests, a peer-reviewed open access journal of forestry and forest ecology published monthly online by MDPI.
Congrats to the 25+ students in Fred Cohan’s BIO173/ENVS260 course, Global Change and Infectious Disease, who earned extra credit for having their essays on infectious disease prevention and COVID-19 published in news outlets nationwide! Fred will teach the course again in fall 2021. Read all about the students an their essays here!
Rosemary Ostfeld ’10 was honored by Connecticut magazine as one of 40 under 40 of the class of 2021! A visiting assistant professor of environmental studies and public policy here at Wes, Rosemary teaches ENVS344 RenewableEnergy and Negative Emission Technologies, ENVS282 Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, ENVS197 Intro to Environmental Studies, and CSPL239 Startup Incubator, as well as ENVS125 Community Gardening. She is also the founder of Healthy PlanEat, a service connecting communities to local farms to provide healthy and sustainable food to all!
Join Asif Siddiqi, professor of history at Fordham University in New York specializing in the history of science and technology, for this lecture recovering an alternate history of space exploration by highlighting, through a small number of case studies, the considerable infrastructure built in the Global South during the Cold War to support space exploration. It argues that space activities during the Cold War, usually associated with high-minded utopian impulses or bipolar superpower competition, engendered conditions redolent of colonial modes of exploitation, displacement, and erasure. These practices were reproduced globally in fluid networks through exchanges of experts, technologies, and knowledge.
Asif Siddiqi is a professor of history at Fordham University in New York specializing in the history of science and technology. He is the author The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge, 2010) as well as many other books and articles on the history of Soviet cosmic enthusiasm. More recently his interests have gravitated to global histories of science and technology, particularly in South Asia and Africa. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.