REMnet
4/11/2022 COVID Update: The State of Maine no longer requires masking or proof of vaccination to attend any public events, but individual venues are free to do so. For the latest information, visit the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or the State of Maine’s COVID site.
Jinyan Zeng, the 2017 Oak Fellow, is a Chinese human rights activist and scholar who uses digital storytelling to expose and oppose political repression. She began her filmmaking career a decade ago while under house arrest in Beijing. In this her first public address to the Maine community, Zeng talks about the power of love […]
Mustafa Santiago Ali is the senior vice president of climate, environmental justice, and community revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus, a national, nonprofit and non-partisan organization that connects the Hip Hop community to the civic process to build power and create positive change. Mustafa is renowned as a national speaker, trainer, and facilitator specializing in […]
Kathleen Sullivan, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been engaged in the nuclear issue for nearly 30 years and has worked internationally as an educator for disarmament focusing primarily on two distinct audiences: young people and atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha). Currently, she is the program director for Hibakusha Stories, an arts-based initiative. As an education […]
Join the Oak Student Committee in dialogue with alumni as they share their experiences with activism on Colby’s campus and beyond. Alumni in attendance will include Muheb Esmat ’16, Tionna Haynes ’15, Eric Mehnert ’82, and Charles Terrell ’70.
The photographs of the 2018 Oak Human Rights Fellow, Syrian photojournalist Bassam Khabieh, will be featured in the Diamond Atrium with a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. A public talk at 7 p.m. will follow. Khabieh has powerfully documented war crimes and other ongoing human rights violations in the Syrian conflict. His stunning photographs, “one […]
Finbarr O’Reilly is the co-author of Shooting Ghosts, a unique joint memoir with retired U.S. Marine Sgt. Thomas James Brennan. Their story about the unpredictability of war and its aftermath explores the things they’ve seen and done, the ways they have been affected, and how they have navigated the psychological aftershocks of war and wrestled […]
Journalist and former civil rights lawyer Alia Malek will provide a personal narrative of the Syrian conflict and a reading from her book The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria. Born in Baltimore to Syrian immigrant parents, Malek worked in the legal field in the U.S., Lebanon, and the West Bank. In April 2011, […]
A talk by Teddy Simpson, Colby Class of ’17, program manager, Hurricane Island Foundation, which integrates science education, applied research, and leadership development through year-round educational programs and a seasonal, environmentally sustainable island community. Current research explores community-driven questions in the emerging kelp and scallop aquaculture industries. The foundation engages students, fishermen, scientists, teachers, and community […]
From pole to pole, human societies are increasingly having a notable and negative impact on their surrounding environment through land-use practices, degrading ecological communities with social and economic consequences that in turn harm communal well-being, but the answer to these challenges lies in a deep understanding of environmental processes and the careful observation of environmental […]
Ecosystems can “flip” and, as a result of reinforcing feedback mechanisms, “lock” into alternative stable states. Robert Steneck, professor at the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, studied this process in a kelp-forest ecosystem in Maine for nearly four decades and found two stable states: one dominated by green sea urchins and crustose coralline […]
We humans are a force of nature. At the same time, human activities alter the basic elements of life — earth, air, water, and fire—those elements change human life. In an arresting new documentary from the producers of Racing Extinction, The Cove, and Chasing Ice, environmental photographer James Balog captures the lives of everyday Americans on […]
Join the Environmental Studies lunchtime lecture series for a presentation, discussion, and book reading with author/environmental journalist Heather Hansman, Colby Class of ’05. Hansman is interested in the intersection of science, adventure, and culture. Her book, Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West is about her trip down the length of the Green […]
Charles Gauvin is currently an independent consultant and advisor on strategy, leadership, and philanthropy. Previously, he served as chief development officer of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, executive director of Maine Audubon, chief development officer of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the CEO and CEO emeritus of Trout Unlimited.
Kate Evans is founder and director of Elephants for Africa and an award-winning behavioral ecologist and conservation biologist. Her interest in male elephants has expanded to focus on the social and ecological requirements of male elephants in the context of a human landscape. Evans is an honorary research fellow at the University of Exeter, an […]
Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation) is a tribal attorney based in Washington, D.C., the national campaigns director of Honor the Earth, and a former advisor on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders. She advocates on behalf of tribal nations at the local and federal levels on a range of issues impacting indigenous peoples. She recently […]
Nick Battista, senior policy officer at the Island Institute, will present on the work being done by the Island Institute around community building, responding to climate/economic drivers, and the future of coastal communities and the work they are doing with fishermen. This talk will cover why and how they do this work and the strategies […]
Elizabeth Rush is the author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Her work explores how humans adapt to changes enacted upon them by forces seemingly beyond their control, from ecological transformation to political revolution. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the New […]
Chelse Prather is the director of the Insect Ecology Lab in the Department of Biology at the University of Dayton. Her work with students addresses questions at the interface of community and ecosystem ecology, particularly those that deal with the relationship between humans and insects. Prather has studied these types of questions in a variety […]
Monica Lewis-Patrick, one of the leaders of the water rights struggle in Detroit, is a tireless and fearless strategist working to ensure that clean water is available and affordable for all. She is an active member of the People’s Water Board Coalition, U.S. Human Rights Network, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and D-REM.org, and was […]
Michael E. Mann is the distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and the director of the Earth System Science Center, also at Penn State. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system. Human-caused climate change represents arguably the greatest threat we face as a civilization. […]
Marnie Sinclair is a process artist raised in the tropics and now making her home on the rugged coast of Maine. Inspired by nature, Sinclair works in many different mediums but prefers sculpture for its tactual quality. She is also an environmental activist who often uses her art to visually express the many complicated issues […]
A National Geographic documentary that follows undercover investigators, environmentalists, journalists, and the Mexican Navy on their desperate effort to rescue the Earth’s smallest whale—the Vaquita—from extinction and bring an international crime syndicate to justice. (2019, 104 min.) Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Naomi Oreskes will give a public lecture titled Why Trust Science? based on her 2019 book of the same title. Oreskes is professor of the history of science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. A world-renowned geologist, historian, and public speaker, she is a leading voice […]