The TapBrandeis initiative has been granted $25,000 by The Brandeis Sustainability Fund to install hydration stations throughout campus.
TapBrandeis started as a Greening The Ivory Tower project in Environmental Studies last semester by Alina Pokhrel, Emma Balmuth-Loris, Jamie Garuti, Jeremy Goodman, Sara Taylor. This semester the group is continuing on with the project with the help of the BSF fund to install new hydration stations and encourage a behavioral shift away from the purchase of bottled-water and towards students carrying their own refillable bottle. Another fabulous step towards making Brandeis a more sustainable campus!
February 27th, 2013
Thursday, Dec 13, 6:30-8:30pm, Heller School for Social Policy, G-3
Refreshments served!
Come to support friends, network & learn about the many opportunities! Welcome for all or just a part. Recommended for all students hoping to do an internship!
Presenting:
Dena Ayzikovich: Zoo New England
Shanglai Shangguan & Jacyln Kellner: Healthy Waltham
Alisa Rosnerita: Waltham Recycling & Energy Department
Becca Richman: Waltham Fields Community Farm
Christine Amanda: Uganda Wildlife Education Centre
Liza Ansher: EPA Washington DC: Urban Waters Program
Anna Khazan: Environmental Health & Engineering
Iosefa Percival: Conservation Int’l: Ocean Acidification & the Pacific Islands
Rachel Usnik: Coalition on Environment & Jewish Life
Vivian Zeng: Queens, NY Botanical Garden
Lisa Purdy: Ride for the Future: A Better Future Project
Elliot Lustig: Maria Mitchell Association, Nantucket
Mikhail Kern: Ithaca, NY Hydrilla Task Force
Katherine Chin and Raquel Kallas: New York League of Conservation Voters
Caty Fairclough: Connecticut Audubon Society
Sam Porter: Cape Cod National Seashore
December 11th, 2012
Tomorrow, October 24, is Campus Sustainability Day! Look for stands and events happening around campus to raise awareness about living sustainably at college. It is also National Food Day, so join in on The Big Apple Crunch on the great lawn at 11:50am to support local food choices! BYOA (Bring your own apple!).
October 23rd, 2012
On Sunday, April 22nd at 10AM, Brandeis University will be hosting the second annual WATCH Out Run/Walk on the Brandeis campus. The run/walk (depending on each individual’s fitness level) is roughly 5k (3 miles) around loop road, beginning at the Spingold intersection. Tickets are $10, and all of the proceeds from the event go to the WATCH Housing Advocacy Clinic in Waltham, a free, drop in service staffed completely by Brandeis students open to anyone in the community who needs help with any sort of housing issues ranging from evictions to tenant/landlord relations. More specifically, the money will go into a fund to help those in need of emergency housing pay for first and last month’s rent, or security deposit.
Last year the WATCH Out Run was very successful, as we had just under 80 people show up for the run. However, this year we are hoping to easily break the century mark. It will be a great opportunity for students, faculty, staff and people from the Waltham community to get together for a great cause!
When? Sunday, April 22nd 10-11am (meet at the great lawn to start the run)
Interested? $10 to register (includes a free wristband, free snacks and motivation along the way!). Buy tickets at: SCC box office: open Monday-Friday 12-6pm and Saturday 12-4pm, or by calling 781-736-3400 or the day of the race!
Environmental Studies students have been very active in the WATCH Housing Advocacy Clinic, as profiled here.
April 15th, 2012
Professor Laura Goldin, Director of the Environmental Studies Program, and Professor Eric Olsen from the Heller School and a lecturer for ENVS, are presenting (with ENVS students) at the Massachusetts Sustainable Communities Conference on April 20 at UMass Boston.
Their session:
College Student Projects in Communities – Learning While Doing
Student projects can elevate the sometimes theoretical learning process to real life learning experiences, connecting education to community and business interests. From research to action, students are important sustainability stakeholders. The Brandeis professors and students will share examples from the Environmental Health and Justice JBS Nail Salon Air Quality Study, the Brandeis/WATCH Housing Advocacy Clinic, and other community projects
April 12th, 2012
Professor Laura Goldin and students from the Environmental Studies program will be at the Toxic-Free Nails Event in Dedham, Mass. on Tuesday, March 13 to present their Nail Salon Study at this event, sponsored by the Toxic Use Reduction Institute at UMASS Lowell.
With the help of a community grant from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute, the Norfolk County 7 Public Health Coalition is hosting an educational workshop for salon owners, employees and the public to learn how to improve air quality and public health.
Presentations from the Boston Public Health Commission, Brandeis University’s Environmental Studies program, raffle and more.
Learn about the health effects of the so-called “toxic-trio” of formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate.
Learn what can be done to improve the health of employees and customers.
Students from Brandeis University will present results from an air quality study of 20 Boston nail salons from the Environmental Health and Justice Program.
The first 75 attendees will receive canvas gift bags full of safer products such as nail polish, nail polish remover, foot scrubs and more.
Appetizers and refreshments will be provided. The event is free but space is limited so please register at the link below to reserve your seat.
Register here: Toxic-Free Nails Event
March 12th, 2012
Professor Laura Goldin, Director of Environmental Studies, reports that the fall 2011 Environmental Health and Justice JBS conducted a Nail Salon Air Quality Exposure study that has generated considerable interest. So far, it’s featured on the Boston Public Health Commission website.
The students will be presenting on Vietnamese TV in the next month, and in March the student researchers will be the keynote of a Toxic Use Reduction Institute/Norfolk County Pubic Health Committee Regional Safe Cosmetics Forum. Most recently, the abstract was accepted for oral presentation at the Academy of Sciences International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology 2012 in Houston on June l and invited for oral presentation.
Professor Goldin expects at least one of the students, Senior Meda Kisivuli who is carrying forward with this as her senior honors thesis, to attend with her to present.
February 23rd, 2012
Professor Laura Goldin’s work with students and the Waltham Community is featured in the Rutgers University School of Public Affairs and Administration publication, Civic Engagement: Public Service, Personal Responsibility:
The clinic began in 2007 with Laura Goldin’s Brandeis University undergraduate Environmental Law class as a novel partnership with WATCH, the local affordable housing and community development organization, in collaboration with the Boston College Law School Legal Assistance Bureau. The goal was to meet a real community need for tenant advocacy by leveraging the learning and energy of college students. The clinic has operated continuously since that time, with 250+ students assisting at least twice that number of individuals and families in the local area. The “staff”: trained students and student leaders from Goldin’s further community-engaged learning classes, along with assistance from the undergraduate Martin Luther King Scholars and Friends club and others who assist as translators for the many Hispanic, Haitain-Creole and other non-English speakers.
Dr. Goldin is committed to this type of teaching because “this is how I think students can learn in perhaps one of the best ways possible: Tackling real-word, complex, multi-disciplinary issues directly. They also can contribute significantly as they learn, building relationships and working together with the individuals and communities affected. This is the kind of learning that affects them deeply, requires development of understanding and skills to meet the real challenges, and remains with them as they continue to learn, graduate, pursue careers and participate in their own communities as caring citizens.” She is personally inspired “to see students benefit from what I hope will be a profoundly meaningful and transformative experience, and overjoyed as they go on to contribute in their own right. If designed properly, it is also a wonderfully effective way to help local organizations meet identified, sometimes critical, needs of the community by leveraging the talents, creativity and energy of students.”
Goldin is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Brandeis University, Director of the Environmental Studies Program and Director of the Environmental Internship Program.
February 16th, 2012
Wondering what Brian Donahue is doing on his sabbatical? Check out this NECN article on Professor Donahue and how he combines environmental history with hands-on farming:
“It’s a balancing act,” said the curly-haired, bearded hands-on academic, who’s just driven nearly two hours from his home in suburban Boston to oversee the construction of the post-and-beam house being built with native hemlock, cherry and white oak from the property along the Fall River. “I combine my teaching, my research and the farming I do as much as I can. It sort of lends something extra to each of them.”
Donahue, who teaches courses on environmental history, sustainable farming and forestry and early American culture, was involved in developing Harvard Forest’s 2005 “Wildlands and Woodlands” document, which called for protecting half of the forests in Massachusetts by 2050 primarily through sustainable management practices and also collaborated on a similar 2010 vision for protecting 70 percent of the New England’s forests by 2060.
But Donahue, who dropped out of Brandeis as an undergraduate in the 1970s so he could work full-time on a farm in neighboring Weston, but then returned there in the 1980s to get his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate there, is also knee-deep in drafting a “New England Good Food Vision 2060.”
In it, he maintains that even conserving 50 percent of southern New England in sustainably harvested “working” forest would still allow for farmland around the six-state region to be expanded threefold from 2 million acres to about 6 million acres. That would translate to about 15 percent of the region to active farming by 2060, about the same as it was in 1945.
Donahue is an Associate Professor of American Environmental Studies at Brandeis.
February 12th, 2012
Feb 14, 6:30 pm
Wasserman Cinematheque
“Mother: Caring for 7 Billion” Film Screening
With respondents: Robert Walker, President of the Population Institute, and Purnima Mane, former United Nations Population Fund Deputy Executive Director, current President Pathfinder International. Sponsored by International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, School of Science, Center for German and European Studies, Environmental Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies & Sustainable International Development.
Mother: Caring for 7 Billion
February 12th, 2012
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