April 13, 2000
RELEASE ON RECEIPT

OBERLIN, OHIO -- Earth Day is April 22, but the environmental studies program at Oberlin College has been honoring the occasion all semester long.

Four free, public lectures are planned for the remainder of the month, all of them sponsored by the environmental studies program, and all scheduled to take place in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies' Hallock Auditorium, located at 122 Elm Street, Oberlin.

Tuesday, April 18, at 8 P.M.
Cathrine Sneed
Director of The Garden Project
"Growing Communities"

Cathrine Sneed is the founder and director of The Garden Project in San Francisco. The United States Department of Agriculture called the project "one of the most and successful community-based crime prevention programs in the country. But its value goes far beyond crime prevention, providing job training, employment, environmental appreciation and beautification--often for the first time--for people and places in need."

Monday, April 24, at 7:30 P.M.
Timothy Beatley
Environmental planner, author, and professor at the University of Virginia School of Architecture
"Green Urbanism: The Move Toward Sustainable Communities
in the United States and Europe"

Professor Timothy Beatley's lecture will review progress made in the move toward sustainable communities in Europe and the United States. Special emphasis will be given to the findings of his recent study, "Green Urbanism," which reviews urban sustainability innovations in 30 European cities. The specific experiences of a number of individual European cities will be discussed, including Amsterdam, Zurich, Freiburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and others, with a special eye to what might be applied in American cities. A number of urban sustainability ideas and initiatives will be reviewed, among them: strategies for promoting compact urban form; sustainable mobility (including public transit innovations, creative use of bicycles, and car-sharing); urban greening strategies; and the incorporation of solar and other forms of renewable energy into the urban environment. Beatley will argue generally that cities represent significant opportunities for reducing ecological impacts and that American cities in particular could be fundamentally more sustainable than they presently are.

Tuesday, April 25, 8 P.M.
Stephanie Mills
Author, speaker and editor of Turning Away from Technology, a Sierra Club book
"Reclaiming Reality"

Stephanie Mills has been working on the leading edge of ecological concerns since 1969, when public acclaim generated by the commencement speech she gave at her graduation from Mills College in Oakland, California, thrust her into a vocation as a voice for nature. In the address, she decried the population explosion and humankind's inhumanity to nature. Mills is the author of Whatever Happened to Ecology?, In Praise of Nature, and In Service of the Wild. Her articles have appeared in Orion,Whole Earth Review, Utne Reader, E Magazine, Glamour, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica Book of the Year. In 1996 the Utne Reader named her one of its Visionaries. She is currently writing a book titled Epicurean Simplicity.

Wednesday, April 26, 4:30 P.M.
Arthur Blank
Founder, President, and CEO of The Home Depot
Leading the Marketplace to a Better World: Home Depot and the Journey Towards Sustainability

The Office of the President of Oberlin College joins the environmental studies program in sponsoring this appearance by Mr. Blank. In August 1990, Mr. Blank was honored by the California-based City of Hope medical research and treatment institution for his fundraising leadership in the home center industry. In 1994 he received the Brotherhood/Sisterhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Among the many organizations for which he serves on the board of trustees are The Carter Center, Inc., Emory University, and the National Conference for Community and Justice. He lives with his family in Atlanta.

Throughout the semester, noted environmentalists have appeared on Oberlin's campus to discuss a variety of ecological topics, either in free public lectures or in informal sessions with students, faculty and staff. The program has hosted leading spiritual and environmental thinker Satish Kumar from England, sustainable agriculture proponent Wes Jackson, ecological architect Pliny Fisk, and Drury Crawley, a mechanical engineer with the United States Department of Energy. Crawley is the United States representative on the international framework committee of the Green Building Challenge 2000, which is advancing green building performance and its assessment by bringing together the international community of scientists, owners, designers and builders. Oberlin's Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies is one of three buildings that the U.S. team is studying and evaluating for the Green Building Challenge 2000.

For more information, please call Oberlin's environmental studies program at 440/775-8747.

Media Contact: Marci Janas 4/13/00 #73 mj