Pacific Rim Campus

Summer Lecture Series

Building a Whidbey Land Ethic:
A Lecture Series on Natural History & Land Stewardship

Five years ago, in 1999, the Institute joined with extensive citizen and group efforts to save Smith Prairie from development, and purchased the 175-acre State Game Farm.  On this, the 5th Anniversary of the Institute’s campus on Whidbey Island, and the 25th Anniversary of the Institute, the local Au Sable-Pacific Rim Advisory Committee is pleased to announce the 2004 Lecture Series.

When & Where
The Summer Lecture Series includes seven lectures that have been prepared for the citizens of Whidbey Island and the surrounding region by Au Sable scientists and professors.  Each lecture is given on a Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM in the auditorium (the Granary) at Au Sable Institute on the Smith Prairie Reserve.

2004 Schedule
June 16 - Cal DeWitt
June 23 - Joe Sheldon
June 30 - Beth Horvath
July 7 - Robert Pelant
July 21 - Ron Vos
July 28 - Eric Steinkamp
August 4 - David Lahti

The Lecture Series will put the building of a Whidbey Land Ethic into the context of discovering our place on earth and sea, our agrarian roots in the land, our place in the Pacific Rim, our place amidst the mountains, and our seascape companions —the whales.  It will conclude by discovering the nature of natural history and stewardship.

The Lectures

• Building a Whidbey Land Ethic: Embracing Town and Country, Mountain and Sea. Calvin B. DeWitt
• The Natural History of Washington: Discovering a Sense of Place. Joseph K. Sheldon
• American Agrarianism: Role and Application to Our Island Community. Ronald J.Vos
• Where in the World Are We?  Whidbey’s Place in the Pacific Rim. Robert Pelant
• Vulnerable Fortitude: Our High Mountain Ecosystems through Storms, Ice, Altitude and Humans. Eric Steinkamp
• The Gray Whale and the Sea: Encounters with Whidbey’s Leviathan in Baja. Beth Horvath
• Taking Stewardship Seriously: Advancing the Stewardship Cause Despite Differing Worldviews. David Lahti

The Speakers

Calvin B. DeWitt is Director of Au Sable Institute and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  As the Chair (mayor) of his Town, he led his community in developing a land stewardship plan that is now listed by the U.S. Department of Energy as a national model (http://town.dunn.wi.us). He is an environmental scientist and a leading contributor to research and publication at the interface of science, ethics, and praxis. 

Joesph K. Sheldon is Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania.  He is a past president of the American Entomological Society and the American Scientific Affiliation, and as an entomologist is conducting a major study of the grasshoppers of Pennsylvania.  On Whidbey, he maintains the Robert Pratt insect collection at Au Sable’s Bradshaw Environmental Laboratory and teaches Field Biology of the Pacific Northwest at Au Sable - Pacific Rim.

Ronald J. Vos is Professor of Agriculture and chair of the department at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa.  He grew up on a diversified family farm in south-central Iowa.  Ron operates a small family farm based on sustainable agriculture practice, promotes sustainable agriculture around the world including Russia, Honduras, and the Ukraine, and works with policy and justice issues as they apply to agriculture. At Au Sable he teaches Ecological Agriculture.

Robert Pelant is the summer program director at Au Sable - Pacific Rim and teaches Global Development and Ecological Sustainability.  He recently completed 20 years of work with Heifer Project International, where he was the Asia program director.  He is a veterinarian who combines the science and art of medicine and development to meet humanitarian needs. He and his family currently live in Thailand where he is a volunteer director of Excellence for Life Foundation, a local NGO.

Eric Steinkamp is Professor of Environmental Science, Northwest College, Kirkland, Washington where he teaches Ecology, Botany, and Northwest Ecology.  He is a forest scientist with interests and expertise in systems analysis and geographic information systems and a mountaineer with particular expertise in the Olympics and Cascades.  At Au Sable he teaches Alpine Ecology and was a participant at Climate Forum 2002, a meeting in Oxford, England, sponsored by Au Sable Institute.

Beth Horvath is Assistant Professor of Biology at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California and Research Associate of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.  Her research is on Gorgonian Corals (Sea Fans) and water quality of surface waters.  Most recently, Beth served as the Naturalist for a Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History-sponsored trip to Baja, CA and the Sea of Cortex on board the "Searcher" out of San Diego, CA. At Au Sable she teaches Marine Mammals and Marine Invertebrates.  Her early career was that of a professional ballet dancer.

David Lahti is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He recently completed his Ph.D. degree in biology at The University of Michigan and teaches both Ornithology at Great Lakes and Bioethics Pacific Rim.  Prior to his graduate work at Michigan he earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Whitefield Institute, Oxford, and it is his combined ethical and scientific study that accounts for his expertise in bioethics.  His biological research is on the Weaver Finches of Africa.

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