A few words from the first president of the Adirondack Research Consortium . . .
The Adirondack Research Consortium (ARC) is a special kind of organization made up of extraordinary people engaged in a truly special endeavor. I am proud to have had the opportunity to be involved with the ARC's mission and with all of you.
To me, an organization like the ARC is a kind of mechanism to effect cross-disciplinary communications between scientists and between scientists and humanists. As a transdisciplinary professional society, united in its focus on this special place and "our common future," the ARC provides us with a means to float above and across the distance between the disciplines at an extraordinary time in our species' history. While natural and social scientists struggle with the parameters, measurement and applications of sustainable development, the humanists among us are using their insight into its meaning and applying their skills to promote its understanding and acceptance in our civilization.
Yet there is an undeniable gulf between the natural and social sciences, internal rifts between their many disciplines and cracks between all of their specialties. Humanists sometime seem to be on the other side of an ocean and the rifts between their disciplines may be even deeper, I've heard, than the rift between zoologists and botanists (though not wider, surely, than the gulf between natural and social scientists). But instead of focusing on the little islands above the waves that our different disciplines create, or focusing on the interdisciplinary space between islands however multidisciplinary our perspective might be, we now have a chance to improve our focus on a wholly new transdisciplinary Pangaea - using as our lens the special place we call the Adirondacks. The ARC can help us float above and across the gulf and the ocean and all the different islands with their many rifts and cracks by promoting the opportunity to explore a transdisciplinary Adirondacks together.
I look forward to participating in the continued growth of the Adirondack Research Consortium with enthusiasm and fascination. Since its modest beginnings on a very cold January day in 1994, the ARC has surely demonstrated its "fitness" to survive and prosper. This marvelous conference is tremendous proof.
Gary Chilson
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Editor, Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies
Paul Smith's College
Paul Smiths, NY 12970