The challenges and opportunities for educating students about the Adirondack wilderness are multidimensional – like the region itself – and require the breadth of the academy and collaboration between institutions, according to panelists in a discussion on Tuesday, Sept. 30, “The Role of Higher Education in Shaping Our Wilderness.”
Sponsored by Union’s Kelly Adirondack Center, the panel included Bob Bullock, deputy director for operations at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government; Carl George, professor emeritus of biology at Union College; and Cathy Shrady, director of Outdoor Studies/Adirondack Semester at St. Lawrence University. Philip Terrie, professor emeritus of American cultural studies and environmental studies at Bowling Green State University, served as moderator.
“Our wilderness is big enough for every institution,” said Carl George, Union professor emeritus of biology. “We should work together.”
“We all have very different perspectives on the Adirondack wilderness depending on where we are,” Bullock said. “Everybody looks at the wilderness differently … environmentalists, writers, musicians and scientists have unique perspectives and their fields are taught in different ways.”
The event was among the offerings this year in the Kelly Adirondack Center’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act.