Creating Sustainable Connections
April 18-19, 2008
Featured Speakers
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Eric Larsen, “Save the Poles – Global Warming and the Last Great Frozen Places on the Planet”
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John Turenne, “Sustainability and the Future of College Food”
First
Plenary Session – Friday 1:15pm
Debra Rowe, “Education for a
Sustainable Future”
Dr. Debra Rowe is a leader in the movement to incorporate sustainability
into education serving as president of the United States Partnership for
Education for Sustainable Development and co-chair of the Higher
Education Associations Sustainability Consortium. She is also a Senior
Fellow at the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable
Future, where she helps higher education institutions integrate
sustainability literacy into curricula, student life, operations and
community partnerships. She is the author of numerous publications on
sustainability in education and works with K-12 associations to
integrate sustainability into their education. Rowe is currently the
energy and sustainability consultant to the National Science Foundation
funded National Science Database and is working on the creation of the
national Electronic Environmental Resources Library collection. As
founder and director of the Oakland Community College Environmental
Solutions Center, Rowe has created and taught interdisciplinary projects
about environmental sustainability and a more humane society. As the
college’s coordinator of general education, she helped institute an
environmental literacy requirement for all degrees. Rowe appears often
on television and radio programs and is featured in numerous newspaper
articles. A frequent keynote speaker at conferences, she is the author
of numerous publications on the integration of sustainability into
education.
Second
Plenary Session - Friday 8:00pm
Eric Larsen, “Save the Poles – Global
Warming and the Last Great Frozen Places on the Planet”
Eric Larsen is a renowned environmental adventurer. A polar explorer, dog musher, adventure racer and educator, he has spent the past 12 years of his life in some of the most remote and wild places left on earth. In 2006, Larsen completed the One World Expedition, the first summer journey to the North Pole. With expedition partner Lonnie Dupre, Larsen pulled and paddled specially modified canoes over 600 miles of shifting sea ice and open ocean. Larsen’s other expeditions include a 700-mile dog sled journey through northern Ontario, a six-week dog sled journey in the barren lands of the Canadian Arctic, several training trips to Hudson Bay and countless dog sled races. He is planning a Save the Poles expedition, an unprecedented adventure to Mt. Everest, the North Pole and the South Pole in one year. For more information see http://www.savethepoles.com. Larsen travels the country giving motivational and educational lectures at schools, colleges and universities, non-profit organizations and corporate groups. All of his talks focus on the issue of global warming using his own expeditions as a way to raise awareness and motivate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Third
Plenary Session - Saturday 1:30-2:30
John Turenne, “Sustainability and the
Future of College Food”
John Turenne is founder and president of Sustainable Food Systems, LLC,
a consulting and technical services company whose mission is to help
organizations consider social and ecological differences in their
business through the way they think about food. Turenne is nationally
recognized for his 25-year career in the food industry. He is the former
executive chef for Aramark Corporation at Yale University. His
accomplishments include the original design, development and
implementation of the Yale Sustainable Food Project which operates a
sustainable dining program at Yale, manages an organic farm on campus
and runs diverse programs that support inquiry related to food and
agriculture. The Yale program that Turenne started is often seen as a
national model for sustainable college dining services. Turenne
currently facilitates and manages local and sustainable dining programs
for many institutional food service programs. He is a leading innovator
in bridging the gap between conventional and sustainable dining
programs. Some of his recent work includes collaboration with the
Culinary Institute of America, Harvard Medical School, The New Hampshire
Department of Education, Kaiser Permanente and several public hospitals
and school systems as well as the international work of The Sustainable
Food Laboratory. He has presented at the National Food Security
Coalition Meeting, the Princeton Food, Environment and Ethics
Conference, The Annual Meeting for the National Association of
Independent Schools, and King Baudouin Foundation in Paris, France.