School Notes: School of the Environment
September/October 2015

New FES posts will advance diversity

F&ES has created two new positions in the past year to strengthen inclusion within the school and increase the diversity of the environmental field itself. The inaugural Diversity & Sustainability Fellow, Maclovia Quintana ’11, ’14MESc, serves as a liaison among students, staff, and faculty to strengthen perspectives on diversity within the F&ES community. Among other initiatives, she recently launched a community newsletter on diversity-related topics and will offer “cross-cultural conversation” training to incoming F&ES students. For the James and Mary Pinchot Fellowship in Sustainability Studies, the school is targeting emerging scholars and early-career faculty who have experience with underrepresented communities and can respond to the learning needs of students from diverse backgrounds. “We have to be thinking ahead about how we communicate what it means to be an environmentalist,” Quintana said.

Land stewardship and the future of Connecticut’s forests

A recent F&ES report analyzes the attitudes, objectives, and behaviors of the private individuals and families who own about half of the 1.8 million acres of woodland in Connecticut, providing insights that could help the state maintain its forests in the coming decades. “This study confirms that we have a high level of conservation awareness and a strong conservation ethic here in Connecticut,” said Mary Tyrrell ’97MFS, executive director of the F&ES-based Yale Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry and author of the report. However, nearly a third of respondents said they would consider selling their land under certain circumstances, meaning that vast amounts of Connecticut forest are vulnerable to development, fragmentation, and degradation, she said. The findings could help conservation and forestry professionals more strategically communicate with forest owners about stewardship and develop programs that meet these owners’ needs. The study, “Understanding Connecticut Woodland Owners,” was conducted by F&ES and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s (DEEP) Forestry Division.