Our Director, Alaí Reyes-Santos’ work has been featured in the most recent version of the National Academies Sciences, Engineering, Medicine publication titled “Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change.
The State of Immigrants Conference was a success with over 100 attendees from all across the State of Oregon. Our panelists and breakout rooms discussed advocacy, work and labor, civil rights, and the state of immigration in Oregon, among other topics. We are thankful to everyone who attended and made this possible, especially the Labor Education and Research Center and Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal.
The Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice, part of the UO’s Environment Initiative, has received a national award from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
The Just Futures Institute is the second winner of the association’s Racial Equity and Sustainability Collaborations Award. It selected for successfully integrating racial equity and social justice with sustainability and by fostering community-based collaborations that advance racial equity and social justice.
During the virtual international awards ceremony in December, the institute was acknowledged as a seedbed for applied, publicly engaged research that addresses the intertwined issues of racial inequality and climate crisis in innovative ways.
UO professors Alai Reyes-Santos and John Arroyo were present to accept the award. They acknowledged the Kalapuya lands, the institute team and the Mellon Foundation for sustaining their work. They thanked the faculty members, staff, students and community partners across eight core themes at UO, noting that the institute is a partnership between the UO, Whitman College, University of Idaho and Heritage University.
“Our team’s strength in teaching and community initiatives is essential for sustainable futures,” Reyes-Santos said.
Full article on Around the O can be found here.
The UO’s Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute will host a symposium this month bringing together community partners and faculty members, staff, students from Whitman College, the University of Idaho-Moscow, Heritage University and the University of Oregon […]
John Arroyo and the Casa y Comunidad team will create a series of short documentary films on the history and housing of migrant Latinx workers in Oregon—a rapidly growing population in the Pacific Northwest—in close collaboration with the workers themselves. Drawing on testimonios (oral histories) of multiple generations of families as well as the work of historians, policymakers, and other experts, the project will trace how new waves of both documented and undocumented migration has affected the area’s culture and economy, including a growing housing shortage with dire consequences for the workers and the region. Specific segments of the series will highlight topics ranging from wildfire recovery to inter-generational housing to land use challenges […]
Last week, my students and I visited the Common Seeing: Meeting Points’, Sarah Siestreem’s and On Earth’s exhibits at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Afterwards, I found myself scrambling for words hearing them speak with deep honesty about the emotional truths art had uncovered for them. As one of them clearly put it: What do I do with the grief I feel right now? […]
https://amp.registerguard.com/amp/6896881001
I sit to enjoy the sunrise. The morning fog is here. Water covers every leaf on my garden. I am grateful.
Around 10 a.m., the sun rises and I see water evaporate. This happens every day over the span of a week. And I worry.
When interviewing people about water in the Willamette Valley, I hear echoes: “It is not raining like it used to”; “The seasons are changing and the same plants do not survive like they used to.”
The National Weather Service confirms all of our concerns: “The water supply forecast for the spring and summer of 2022 is below average for most of Oregon … much above-normal precipitation and snowpack will be needed to largely reduce drought impacts.”
This is not a trivial fact. As the U.S. Geological Survey attests: Rain “is the primary connection in the water cycle that provides for the delivery of atmospheric water to the Earth.” We need rain and snow to replenish wells, creeks, rivers, lagoons. Without rain and snow, life on earth is endangered by perennial drought, fires and waters that do not have the proper oxygenation and mineral components to sustain all life […]
https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-experts-offer-some-new-years-climate-change-resolutions
While the climate crisis is a global issue that cannot be solved by any one person or entity alone, individuals can still take meaningful actions. At the time of year when we resolve to be better versions of ourselves, UO experts offer some suggestions for resolutions that individuals can adopt to counter climate change and help green up their lives, their communities, and the planet.
Each of these faculty members is affiliated with the UO’s Environment Initiative, which focuses the intellectual energy and work of faculty members, students and community partners on working toward a just and livable future through transdisciplinary research, teaching and experiential learning. It is one of the UO’s five Academic Initiatives that work across disciplines, developing the next generation of leaders and problem solvers.
From planting trees to having important conversations with friends and families, here are their ideas for climate-friendly resolutions for 2022 […]
https://around.uoregon.edu/roots-wellness
A new digital humanities project led by UO researchers and Libraries shares and validates the Afro-Indigenous knowledge of Caribbean women healers.
Asked to picture a front-line healthcare worker, most Americans probably wouldn’t think of someone like Doña Daniela. But in her rural Dominican community, people consider her the leading authority for help with many illnesses and traumas […]
https://around.uoregon.edu/content/faculty-fellows-program-begins-uos-environment-initiative
The Environment Initiative at the University of Oregon has announced a new faculty fellowship program funded by the Office of the Provost and has named its first faculty fellow.
The Environment Initiative Faculty Fellows Program aims to enhance transdisciplinary research and advance the Initiative’s strategic priorities. Faculty fellows will receive a course buyout to complete a project that contributes to the goals of the initiative, which include a just and livable future that addresses the intersections of environmental research and teaching with social and environmental justice […]