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March 27, 2006 Contact: Charmaine Daniels at (207) 893-7723 or e-mail cdaniels@sjcme.edu

Saint Joseph's College sponsors talk by top environmental thinker

Leading environmental educator and theorist Dr. Mitchell Thomashow will speak on "Understanding Environmental Change: The Need for an Ecological and Existential View" at Saint Joseph's College on April 18 at 7 p.m. Thomashow - an innovative thinker who becomes president of Unity College in July - heads the Antioch New England environmental studies department in Keene, N.H.

Thomashow has developed reflective, interdisciplinary instruction for environmental studies programs. His most recent book, Bringing the Biosphere Home, is about learning how to perceive world-wide environmental change. The book shows that people can broaden their spatial and temporal view encompass the entire biosphere through a blend of local natural history observations, global change science, the use of imagination and memory and spiritual contemplation.

Thomashow's first book, Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist offers an approach to teaching environmental education based on reflective practice - a guide to teachers, educators and concerned citizens alike that incorporates issues of citizenship, ecological identity, and civic responsibility within the framework of environmental studies. Currently, he is in the initial stages of two books, one on the ecology of improvisation, linking music, play and sports, and patterns in nature, a second on the future of environmental studies.

Thomashow is the founder of Whole Terrain, an environmental literary publication. He serves on the advisory boards of The Orion Society, the Coalition on Environmental and Jewish Life (COEJL), and the Teleosis Institute. Thomashow serves on the Executive Committee of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD), a national organization that supports interdisciplinary environmental studies in higher education.

He has been at Antioch for 30 years, where he founded the doctoral program in environmental studies, which offers an innovative, interdisciplinary research. His department serves 350 graduate students, offering programs in environmental education, environmental policy, and conservation biology. He teaches courses such as Global Environmental Change, Ecological Thought, Cultures of Natural History, and Music and Nature. He also serves as associate dean for Institutional Advancement at Antioch New England.