Centre News
Centre receives ACS/Mellon grant for Environmental Studies
November 4, 2010 By Abby Malik
Centre has received another two-year award for an AssociatedColleges of the South/Mellon-funded Environmental Postdoctoral
Teaching Fellowship. Brett Werner, above with his environmental
ethics class, joined Centre’s faculty in 2009 as an ACS
Environmental Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow.
Werner is the faculty advisor of the College’s first student garden organization, Centre Garden Research Through Organic
Ways of Sustainability (GROWS). The Centre garden is pictured
above.
Centre College has received another two-year grant for an Associated Colleges of the South/Mellon-funded Environmental Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship. This will allow the College to continue having a post-doctoral teaching fellow in the area of environmental ethics or environmental policy, who teaches three courses each year for the next two years.
Dr. Brett Werner joined Centre’s faculty in 2009 as an ACS Environmental Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and has been actively and successfully involved in enhancing Centre’s environmental studies minor. This newly funded position will allow the College to continue to enhance the minor, both in and out of the classroom.
The Teaching Fellow allows the College to add environmental studies courses that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to include in the curriculum. The Teaching Fellow will also be able to work with students on environmentally focused research projects.
“The Postdoctoral Fellowship really is a win-win situation,” Werner says. “During my time here, I’ve been able to help Centre build and develop the environmental studies program, and I’ve had the chance to teach courses I love on a reduced teaching load, which allows me to further my research in ecology and the environmental humanities.”
During Werner’s 2010 CentreTerm course “Food and Campus Sustainability,” students developed the idea to create an organic garden. After the course, interested students got together in spring 2010 in an effort to generate more student interest in on-campus gardening.
The result is Centre’s first student garden organization, Centre Garden Research Through Organic Sustainability (GROWS), of which Werner is the faculty advisor. The garden, which features eight three-feet by eight-feet beds, is located behind the Emeritus House on Maple Avenue. At optimum rates, the garden will produce 50 pounds per raised bed.
Click here for more information on Centre’s environmental studies minor and on GROWS.
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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Forbes magazine ranks Centre 24th among all the nation's colleges and universities and No. 1 among all institutions of higher education in the South. Consumers Digest ranks Centre No. 1 in educational value among all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, click here.