Hello from Smith College, where it’s already been a wonderful month as we welcome spring to New England. From experiencing the eclipse totality in Newport, VT with 125 Smithies, astronomy faculty and friends, to planning for the upcoming restoration of Davis Lawn with biodiversity and climate resilience at the forefront, it’s an exciting time to be at Smith. We have put together a snapshot of the ways our work at CEEDS connects to Smithies, faculty, staff and community members. As we enter a new era after the global pandemic, our work takes on renewed importance, with a focus on community and ecosystem resiliency, particularly in light of increasing extreme weather conditions linked to climate change, geopolitical energy spikes, and demands for more just and equitable solutions to the climate crisis.
Join us in celebrating our collective successes!
Beth Hooker
Administrative Director of CEEDS
Updates from Underground: Smith Geothermal
Put your hardhats on, folks. From the heady days of orientation to the meaningful days leading up to graduation, Smith students have been digging into the geothermal project from all sorts of angles:
First-year students wound through Smith’s underground historic coal tunnels to experience how our campus’ new heat source, geothermal wells drilled 850 feet below the surface, will replace fossil fuels and minimize Smith’s carbon footprint.
Budding engineer Dakota Law ‘24 designed a series of educational tours of the project to guide the community through the changes happening in our campus landscape and their positive environmental impacts.
Faculty Fellows Tackle Wicked Problems on Campus and Beyond
There are many definitions of what constitutes a wicked problem, but sustainability challenges tend to fit the bill given their complexity and far-reaching implications. Smith's faculty and their teams of student researchers are creative powerhouses leaning into the wicked problems of our time, and CEEDS has partnered with a number of talented crafters of systems-level solutions through our annual cohort of Faculty Fellows.
Read more about two of this year's CEEDS Faculty Fellows by clicking on their names here.
Changing moth populations, growth rates of perennial kernza grain, and the establishment of mountain magnolia outside its natural range are all the subjects of Smith research currently underway at MacLeish Field Station. What do all of these studies share in common? They tell us what's coming in a changing climate. While scientific studies are a critical element of MacLeish's academic impact, this field station is 100% liberal arts. From sculptors to poets to Chinese landscape classes to dancers, artists have a robust network of support through the Arts Afield program. MacLeish Artist-in-Residence and woodworker Gina Siepel, whose To Understand a Tree project has been sponsored by Arts Afield since 2019, has been working closely with a single red oak tree on site, asking broad questions about how humans relate to land and non-human life, how we harvest wood from trees, and how these practices can be reimagined in an era of climate crisis. Siepel's work on this project is on exhibition at the Museum for Art in Wood in Philadelphia through July 21st, 2024.
What do drones have to do with the environment and sustainability? It's all about perspective. Smith's Spatial Analysis Lab (SAL) promotes spatial literacy across the curriculum, a perfect match for the systems-level environmental and sustainability work underway in the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability. The SAL and CEEDS joined forces in 2022. Since then the two have offered complementary perspectives to campus research and place-based education, from ecological relationships to urban design. Spatial Data Specialist Kala'i Ellis explains, "Where geospatial science meets sustainability, the joining of the SAL and CEEDS ignites a dynamic synergy, combining spatial expertise with ecological vision to chart a greener, more resilient future for our campus and beyond." See some of Ellis' spectacular drone footage (a key element of spatial work) in this Smith story about annual work to maintain Paradise Pond sustainably.
"No time for subtlety, Becca. The earth is on fire." As the manager of the student EcoReps program, Assistant Director of Sustainability Becca Malloy receives this admonishment every so often from Una Fonte, '26, student coordinator of the EcoReps (an elected position in each Smith House). This warning does not scream “hope,” does it? But Una, her co-leader Rachel Gao, and their fabulous team of forty EcoReps are developing and implementing playful and encouraging programming into the House communities this year with four areas of focus: Lights Out, Sustainable Dining, Waste Management, and Slowing Down Fast Fashion.
An Economics major, a Latin American Studies major and a Neuroscience major walk into a lecture hall…
The Environmental Concentration, hosted by CEEDS, is designed to build a unique set of problem-solving skills focused on the environment, ecological design and sustainability for students with any major. Our annual gateway lecture series features visits from practitioners in the field. Some examples from this fall include:
Climate Action to Climate Justice: Lessons from City and Institutional Planning, Executive Director, Northeastern Climate Justice and Sustainability Hub, Leah Bamberger
Environmental Publishing, Editor-in-Chief of Orion Magazine, Sumanth Prabhaker
Food Sovereignty in Native America, Indigenous educator and member of the Mohegan nation, Rachel Beth Sayet
Enhancing the Curriculum
Each year, CEEDS supports faculty growth by awarding Curricular Enhancement Grants. This spring's call for grants encourages proposals focused on: the natural world and human rights/justice, sustainable communities, and MacLeish Field Station and Arts Afield.
