Collinge to chair Environment and Sustainability Visioning Committee

Sharon Collinge, director of environmental studies and a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, will chair the Environment and Sustainability Visioning Committee, or ESVC. Provost Russell Moore recently announced the charge and membership of the visioning committee that will consider future opportunities for synergies and collaboration between University of Colorado Boulder environment and sustainability research and academic programs.

“I’ve asked the committee to investigate the best practices and structures that exist in the study of the environment and sustainability at leading universities and assess what new programs and opportunities might be available to the Boulder campus,” Moore said. “I’d like the committee to consider how those new opportunities might influence the stature of CU-Boulder in these areas, and how the proposed new programs will benefit undergraduate and graduate students in the near, intermediate and distant future.”

ESVC membership also includes:

Kirk Ambrose, chair, art and art history; William Boyd, associate professor, CU Law School and RASEI Fellow; Michael J. Brandemuehl, professor, civil, environmental and architectural engineering; Paul Chinowsky, professor, civil, environmental and architectural engineering; Susan Clarke, professor, political science; Dan Doak, professor, environmental studies; Sam Fitch, professor, political science and environmental studies; Kevin Krizek, professor, Environmental Design Program;  Kathryn Lage, assistant professor, library administration; Stephen Lawrence, professor, Leeds School of Business; Jason Neff, associate professor, environmental studies and geological sciences; Robert Pyatt, senior instructor, Environmental Design Program; James White, professor, environmental studies and geological sciences;  and John Zhai, associate professor, civil, environmental and architectural engineering.

The committee will conduct an inventory of the types of environmental and sustainability research and teaching programs that exist in all units across the CU-Boulder campus; identify emerging issues in environmental and sustainability research that the campus is well-positioned to address through existing programs and the development of new programs; provide a high-level assessment of cross-disciplinary and cross-academic unit synergies that are currently captured and ones that are missed; and provide an assessment of what new scholarly and teaching opportunities might be realized through collaborations between existing programs and the investment in new programs.

Faculty, staff and student stakeholders, as well as interested external constituents, will be consulted during the visioning process, Moore said. The committee will present Moore with a preliminary report by the end of January 2013, and a final report and set of recommendations by no later than the end of March 2013.