Fall 2000 Lecture Series
EDUCATION, CULTURE, AND ECOLOGY:

Teaching for Justice: Insights from Ecofeminism
Stephanie Kaza

Stephanie Kaza  is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont where she teaches ecofeminism, religion and ecology, nature writing, radical environmentalism, American nature philosophers, and international environmental studies.  She helped to establish and now co-chairs the Environmental Council at University of Vermont, a campus-wide group examining issues of consumption and conservation at the university level. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from U.C. Santa Cruz, an M.A. in Education from Stanford, a B.A. in Biology from Oberlin College, and an M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry.   Stephanie is the author of The Attentive Heart: Conversations with Trees, a collection of essays on deep ecological relations with trees, and co-editor with Kenneth Kraft of Dharma Rain: Sources for Buddhist Environmentalism, classic and modern texts laying a foundation for a Buddhist approach to environmental activism.

C.A.(Chet) Bowers has taught at the University of Oregon and Portland State University, and is now semi-retired.  He has published over 75 articles, 9 chapters in other books, and 12 of his own books.  The most recent are Educating For an Ecologically Sustainable Culture (1995); The Culture of Denial (1997); Let Them Eat Data: How Computers  Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability (2000). His most recent book, The Practice of an Eco-Justice Pedagogy, is now in press.  He gave the John Dewey Memorial Lecture in 1982, and has been invited to speak at universities in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Europe, and China.
 

In this presentation, Professor Dilafruz Williams will share her experiences of ecological education as practiced through community-university partnerships. Drawing upon her experiences of partnerships at Portland State University, she will present two categories of examples from the Portland metropolitan area:  (i) k-12 schools, vis a vis The Environmental Middle School of which she is a founding member; and (ii) watershed stewardship programs that deal with multiple constituencies in the community and attract faculty across disciplines. She will argue that these partnership experiences can create possibilities for ecological renewal if critical reflective thinking is an equally important pedagogical component.

Dilafruz Williams, Ph.D., is currently the Director of Community-University Partnerships in the Office of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Education, at Portland State University (PSU).  As Director, Dr. Williams manages the Learn and Serve Grant from the Corporation for National Service, extending the reach of community-based learning throughout the university and the surrounding urban community, promoting faculty development for community outreach, and providing leadership for improved documentation and evaluation of service learning programs.  Her experience and record of connecting university scholarship to the community are extensive especially in the areas of environmental education and cultural diversity. Dr. Williams received her Ph.D. from Syracuse University in the Cultural Foundations of Education and Curriculum and a postgraduate degree from Harvard University. A native of  India, she has degrees in Botany and Chemistry.  Dr. Williams has published on the importance of community, ecological education, and cultural diversity including her latest co-edited book, Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Education, Culture, and the Environment.

Efrain Aragon is the founder and director of COVORPA, a rural grassroots organization devoted to the promotion and implementation of environmentally sound community projects related to income generation, environmental technologies and intercultural dialogue. He describes his work as vernacular education with the objectives of recovering and promoting the capacities of youth so that they can transform their desires and aspirations into fulfilling life projects that contribute to their communities.

Gregory Smith is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.  He is the author or editor of four books that deal with the theme of interconnection--either among people or between people and the ecosystems in which they live.  His most recent volume, co-edited with Dilafruz Williams, is entitled Ecological Education in Action: on Weaving Education, Culture, and the  Environment (SUNY, 1999). It includes chapters written by a number of the presenters in this fall's Lecture Series.  He is currently at work on a book that explores the link between environmentalism, culture, and spirituality.