Training days
Sixth environmental journalism institute
features rock climbing, sailing

They rock climbed in Grand Ledge. They canoed on the Grand River. They sailed on Lake Huron. They searched for 200-million-year-old fossils.

During five days in June, 25 American and Canadian journalists participated in the sixth Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institute organized by the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.

Held June 17–21 at MSU and locales around Michigan, the journalists learned about environmental issues affecting the Great Lakes. They heard from top environmental experts as well as prominent journalists at The Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal.

A special focus was the threat of terrorism on the Great Lakes region. Eric Pianin, the national environmental writer for The Washington Post and an alumnus of MSU’s journalism school, discussed this issue in his keynote address June 17.

The next day John Bebow of The Detroit News and Tom Henry of The (Toledo) Blade offered tips on covering potential terrorist attacks on the Great Lakes’ water supplies and the region’s nuclear power plants. Jim Bruggers, environmental writer at The Courier-Journal, discussed how terrorism threats have caused the Bush Administration to restrict access to environmental information.

Other speakers included Dennis Schornack, the U.S. chairman of the International Joint Commission, and Mike Donahue, executive director of the Great Lakes Commission, who discussed threats to Great Lakes’ fisheries from invasive aquatic species such as the round gobies and zebra mussels.

Other topics included the impact of global climate change on the Great Lakes, how water use affects lake levels, environmental journalism ethics and computer-assisted reporting.

One highlight was a sailing trip on the Appledore V, a 65-foot, two-masted schooner, on Lake Huron on June 21.

This year’s institute marked the sixth time the Knight Center has organized a workshop to teach journalists about Great Lakes environmental issues. The institutes, which are supported by grants from the George Gund and John S. and James L. Knight foundations, have trained 150 journalists since 1996.

The institute was organized by Jim Detjen, Knight Center director; Dave Poulson, assistant Knight Center director; and Barb Miller, Knight Center secretary.

Journalists are awarded fellowships to attend the institute and are selected through a competitive process. “We had a truly outstanding group of applicants this year,” said Detjen. “It was a difficult decision to select this year’s fellows from a very strong pool of applicants.”

Extended learning
Environmental Journalism Association to
benefit undergraduates, EJ magazine

There’s a new buzz going around the Communication Arts and Sciences Building this semester.

As with all good things, the expanding interest in the environmental journalism program at Michigan State University came with time. The latest byproduct of the program is the Environmental Journalism Association.

With its first meeting this fall, EJA is opening a new dimension to the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. The center started in 1999, but until recently, it gathered most of its interest from graduate students at MSU. That’s why EJA was founded.

The new student association fosters a feeling of community by getting people to meet each other and participate in a few environmentally-related activities over the course of the school year. Those could include field trips and service activities that help students get a better feel for the environment they want to report about.

The association is also designed to build a newsroom structure for the program’s magazine, EJ. By bringing together writers, photographers and designers to brainstorm ideas for upcoming issues, everyone can feel like they are an integral part of the magazine throughout the production process.

Membership in EJA is open to MSU students in any discipline. Contact Corbin Sullivanat sulli234@msu.edu to get more information.

Student's photo captures beauty of
Red Cedar River, wins award

This photo, taken last fall by Michigan State University sophomore Christina Carels of Rochester, Mich., is a view of the Red Cedar River on the campus of MSU in East Lansing, Mich.Many students and community members view the river as being badly polluted.This image perpetuates attitudes and behaviors that result in significant littering and abuse.Water quality in the stream has improved to the point that it now supports diverse populations of pollution-intolerant fish and insect life.

Carels’ photo was awarded first place in a contest implemented by environmental student organizations and faculty to raise awareness about the river’s beauty, hopefully resulting in protection and greater use of this wonderful resource.The award included a $150 prize.

The Resource Development Undergraduate Organization sponsored the contest and hopes to make this an annual event.

News briefs

PROJECT EMPLOYS YELLOW BIKES IN AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Whizzing across campus most days are students riding old bicycles that have been painted bright yellow. They are part of the “MSU Bike Project,” an innovative effort aimed at saving energy, increasing exercise and improving air quality on campus.

The project was launched by the University Committee for a Sustainable Campus and is patterned after similar efforts in Portland, Ore., Madison, Wis., and other communities.

Earlier this year the Office of Campus Sustainability received a donation of old and abandoned bikes that had been found on campus and had been collected by MSU police. The bikes were refurbished, painted yellow and then distributed to interested faculty around the campus.

The Knight Center for Environmental Journalism oversees three of these bikes and makes them available at no cost to interested students and faculty.

“So far, we have had strong interest in this program, especially from international students,” said Jim Detjen, director of the Knight Center for environmental Journalism. “We have asked for additional bikes and will make them available after we receive them.”

People interested in getting bikes for their departments or volunteering to help get bikes in shape should contact Terry Link, director of the Office of Campus Sustainability, at (517) 355-1751 or link@msu.edu.

Students interested in borrowing bikes from the Knight Center should contact Barb Miller at (517) 432-1415 or mille384@msu.edu.

UNIVERSITY COMPILES FIRST CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

Each year Michigan State University sends enough material to landfills to cover a football field 18 feet high with debris.

In an average week, more than 50 percent of the MSU student body drinks little or no alcohol, while 22 percent report drinking three or more times a week.

MSU stores sell 140 million sheets of copy paper a year.

These statistics are taken from the Campus Sustainability Report, a 75-page document published in September by the Office of Campus Sustainability. The report brings together a wide range of data that profiles the campus’s changing environmental, social and economic climate during the past 10 years.

Among its other findings are a 27 percent increase in energy consumption, a 50 percent decrease in serious crime and a 138 percent increase in financial aid during the past decade.

The idea for the report began when the University Committee for a Sustainable Campus was formed in 1999.

“There was a need to provide a wide range of benchmarks against which change could be measured,” said Pete Pasterz, manager of MSU’s Office of Recycling and Waste Management and a member of UCSC.

To receive a copy of the report, visit www.ecofoot.msu.edu or contact Terry Link, director of the Office of Campus Sustainability and the principle author of the report, at link@msu.edu.

STUDENTS SEEK FUNDING FOR BIODOME PROJECT

Michigan State University has expanded a good deal from its primarily agricultural roots. The nickname changed long ago from the “Aggies” to the Spartans, and one of the most watched projects on campus now is the particle accelerating Cyclotron.

But a group of students is trying to resuscitate some of those agricultural roots in a more modern way.

The Student Greenhouse Project started in 1998 with the goal of bringing a yearround indoor representation of a tropical valley to the MSU campus. The garden, referred to as the Biodome, would be a replacement for the Botany greenhouse and butterfly house that was razed — amid much protest — in 1997.

If built, the Biodome would reside on the north side of campus behind the Student Services and Old Horticulture buildings. It would be open through the winter as a study area, a place for relaxation and a stage for small-scale performances such as plays and poetry readings.

The project is still short of funding, but the students continue to display their scale models at important campus events. Pictures and information are available on the Web at greenhouse2001.msu.edu.

Names in the news

JIM DETJEN, director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, led a group of 16 Boy Scouts in July to the Florida High Adventure Sea Base in the Florida Keys.He also co-taught with Professor ERIC FREEDMAN the Reporting in the British Isles course in England, Ireland and Scotland in May and June.An article Jim wrote on the future of environmental journalism for the Nieman Reports magazine last winter will be published in a book by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism of Harvard University.

BRIAN FOLEY, M.A. ’05, joined the environmental journalism program this fall after earning a dual degree in history and environmental studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara.While there he wrote a senior thesis on the environmental history of water appropriation in the Owens Valley by the City of Los Angeles. He is an Eagle Scout and has traveled in China and the American West.

EMILY FRIEDMAN, B.A. ’03, began working in July for Habitat for Humanity in Ohio as part of a position with AmeriCorps.

SUSANA GUZMAN, M.A. ’04,was the co-winner of the Rachel Carson Award for outstanding graduate student in the environmental journalism program during the 2002–03 academic year. She also won the Len Barnes AAA of Michigan Scholarship. She is working on a survey of Mexican environmental writers as part of her master’s project.

DEBBIE HAKES, M.A. ’05, joined the environmental journalism program this fall with a strong interest in photojournalism and magazine writing. She earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in business administration from Saginaw Valley State University. She has backpacked in Africa and has traveled extensively in China,Taiwan and Japan.

JOSEPH HARRY, Ph.D.Mass Media ’99, has received tenure at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pa.,where he teaches journalism and mass communication courses. He presented a research paper at the AEJMC conference in Kansas City in July.

JEREMY HERLICZEK, M.A. ’03, is the co-author of A Taste of Freedom, a new 96-page cookbook that documents in words and photographs the stories of America’s refugees.The co-authors are Vincent Delgado and Becky Shink.The book can be ordered from www.a-taste-of-freedom.com.Sales will aid Benefits Refugee Services, a program of the Catholic Social Services of Lansing.

JESSICA HULETT, B.A. ’04,was awarded the Edward J.Meeman Award for outstanding undergraduate environmental journalism student during the 2002–03 academic year. She also won the Mary Elizabeth Magner Neil overseas study scholarship, the Michigan Press Association community journalism scholarship and was elected a member of the Mary Gardner Scholars honor society. An article she wrote on zero wastes for the spring 2003 environmental writing class will be published in the December issue of Michigan Out-of-Doors.

NATE MATTHEWS, B.S. ’03,won the Marc Wesley Scholarship of the Michigan Outdoors Writers Association.

STEVE MEADOR, M.A., produced a 20-minute documentary about the Bath school bombing in 1927, now airing on Public Broadcasting Stations throughout Michigan.The piece won honorable mention in the East Lansing Film Festival in March.He also is working on a 60-minute documentary about dioxin contamination in Midland,which he hopes to complete this fall.

DEBBIE MUNSON, M.A. ’04, is editor of Echo, an online service that compiles daily environmental news in southeastern and western Michigan. Echo is a service of the Mackinac Chapter of the Sierra Club. For a free subscription, send an e-mail to Debbie_munson@yahoo.com.

AMY NEVALA, M.S.(Fisheries and Wildlife) ’97, has been hired as a science writer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole,Mass.Her email is amy_nevala@hotmail.com.

DAVE POULSON, assistant director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism,was a judge for the Society of Environmental Journalists annual print award for in-depth stories. He also spoke in Racine,Wisc., at a Great Lakes Information Network conference. GLIN is a group of nonprofit, government and university agencies that provide environmental information throughout the Great Lakes region. Dave also participated in a conference in Hannover, Germany, on improving that country’s university curriculum for teaching science writing.

CORBIN SULLIVAN, M.A. ’04,was the co-winner of the Rachel Carson Award for outstanding graduate student in the environmental journalism program during the 2002–03 academic year. He also won the Augenstein Scholarship. Corbin also was elected president of the MSU Environmental Journalism Association, a new student group, for the 2003–04 academic year.

RACHANEE THERAKULSATHIT, B.A. ’02, has released her first album, Chosen Path. She is performing her contemporary Christian rock music at clubs in Grand Rapids,Ann Arbor, Lansing and other parts of Michigan.You can find out more about her at www.rachanee.net.

AILEO WEINMANN, M.A. ’05, joined the environmental journalism program this fall after earning a bachelor’s degree with high honors in American culture from the University of Michigan. He has worked as an assistant editor for Smart Business magazine, assistant editor for the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning and as a freelance writer for Filmcritic.com.He has been involved in a wide range of community service activities helping the homeless, preserving natural areas and working for Habitat for Humanity.

KARESSA WEIR, M.A. ’04, and her husband, Brian Wheeler, are the parents of Elliott MacNaughton Wheeler,who was born May 4.Karessa is freelancing for The Jackson Citizen-Patriot.

ELAINE WOLFF, B.A.’00, began work in July as a public health service officer in the U.S.Public Health Service.She works in the Federal Department of Health and Human Services in Washington,D.C. She will assist in tracking and coordinating public health emergencies ranging from disease outbreaks to hurricanes and other natural disasters.She also wrote a paper,“Mercury in the Environment:The Problems,Risks and Consequences,”for the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Policy.