In the last eight years climate change has reduced the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska by one-third of a mile.
Photo taken by David C. Amberg on his trip to Alaska this past summer.
Dear ESF Family and Friends,
It has been a notable six months since the summer edition of ESF Magazine, and I continue to marvel at the achievements of our faculty and students, and the support they receive from our staff.
These combined efforts are behind the rankings and recognitions for the College, including being noted for enrolling and graduating the highest percentage of women engineers in the country, having the ninth-highest four-year graduation rate in the United States, and being named for the fourth year in a row the second- “Greenest College” in North America in recognition of our sustainability programs.
Our graduates are coveted by employers in the environmental sector as indicated by the 99 percent placement rate of our graduates from 2018, with 87 percent in jobs directly relating to their fields of study.
We have completed the ESF Discovery Challenge to identify cross-cutting initiatives that leverage our faculty’s strengths, address the pressing environmental concerns of our time, and position the College to continue to lead as the premier environmental college in New York state, the country and world. On page 6 is an
article about the initiatives our faculty developed working collaboratively across departments in multi-disciplinary teams. These initiatives are inspirational and timely. To jump- start development of these initiatives, SUNY has committed $3 million in pilot funding over the next three years to fuel the development of new externally funded research projects, new educational programs, and additional outreach programs with our state and federal partners.
Bias-related events this fall at Syracuse University have us thinking deeply about how to best support our students including eliminating bias on our campus in what feels like an increasingly cruel world. Specifically, how do we become a more resilient community in support of all members of the ESF family but in particular targeted diverse members of our community?
One aspect of resilience is eliminating food insecurity among our students. One in five college students in this country suffers at some point during their college careers from hunger and food insecurity. Last summer we lost Beth Ann Newkirk, an EFB student, in a house fire in the Westcott neighborhood. Beth had been using the Syracuse University food pantry because ESF did not have one of its own. Working with Beth’s family, the ESF College Foundation and Division of Student Affairs, we have established an ESF food pantry in Beth’s name. You can learn more about this new program and the issues it addresses within these pages.
This issue also includes stories about a new partnership between ESF’s Center for Native Peoples and the Environment headed by Dr. Robin Kimmerer and the Sloan Foundation to fund several new Ph.D. stipends for indigenous scholars, and the work of alumnus Jeffrey Rainforth in restoring and rehabilitating the Statue of Liberty and her environs.
With the pace of climate change and environmental degradation accelerating at a frightening rate, there is no more important institution at this time than the College of Environmental Science and Forestry. This generation of students is intensely focused on tackling the breadth of challenges associated with climate change, and there is no better college than ESF to prepare them to do this. Know that we at ESF stand committed to continuing the development of the leaders and change agents required to address these environmental challenges and develop the research and technical innovation to discover solutions to these pressing issues.
David C. Amberg, Interim President