The UC Davis Chancellor’s Leadership Council approved a recommendation to rename the John Muir Institute of the Environment (JMIE) to the Institute of the Environment. The recommendation emanated from a naming committee appointed by JMIE leadership.

The impetus for establishing the naming committee was due to a growing concern about the use of the Muir name and its impact on the inclusive vision held by the Institute — to focus on a collaborative, transdisciplinary 21st century environmental Institute working toward an equitable and sustainable future.

“Although the committee recognized that John Muir made important environmental contributions and achievements for land conversation, they concluded that the name does not symbolize positive elements of the current environmental and climate justice movement for all people and all communities,” said Isabel Montañez, director of the Institute of the Environment.

The recommendation to rename the institute is the culmination of a long process that began in the summer of 2020 with the formation of a naming committee charter by JMIE leadership to conduct a formal evaluation of the Institute name. The JMIE Naming Advisory Committee comprised a 19-member, highly diverse group of people representing current Institute program directors, Native American studies scholars, African American studies scholars, physical scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, legal scholars and graduate students. An independent consulting group facilitated the process.

The Naming Advisory Committee met for a total of seven 90-minute meetings, listening to invited speakers offering a range of perspectives and reflecting on documented accounts from several resources that captured Muir’s life, experiences, environmental movements, conservation efforts and his relationship with Indigenous people. After thoughtful deliberations and a robust review process, the committee recommended, with full consensus, to change the name of the Institute.

“I echo the Committee’s and the Chancellor’s Leadership Council’s suggestion that the renaming of the Institute provides an opportunity to assign a name for the Institute that inspires a positive legacy and that conveys to the campus and external communities an inclusive call to action to address and solve the grand environmental and social challenges that Californians (and the world) currently face,” said Montañez. “We need to decouple the Institute’s name from one that elicits a positive legacy for some but a harmful legacy to others.”

Beth Rose Middleton, a professor in the Department of Native American studies and the associate director of Environmental and Climate Justice at the Institute of the Environment added, “John Muir was a leading preservationist, but he also disparaged and dismissed Miwuk and Paiute people whose homeland (Yosemite) he fought to protect. Our hope in changing the name is to create a more inclusive vision of environmental studies and sciences.” Middleton was also a member of the Naming Advisory Committee.

Moving forward, the Institute of the Environment will consider new naming options that honor both the vision and mission of the Institute and the bond between the land and the people who have stewarded it for millennia.

For more information about the Institute of the Environment, visit their website or contact Director Isabel Montañez.

By Neelanjana Gautam

As part of an effort to spread awareness on climate change and agricultural issues in the Central Valley, Sustainable UC Davis in partnership with the UC Davis Institute of the Environment and the One Climate Initiative launched a 21st-century “barn raising” mural competition over fall quarter 2021 for undergraduate and graduate students.

To mark the conclusion of the mural design competition, the winning design will now be painted on a local almond farmer’s barn off County Road 102 between Davis and Woodland on March 26.

For the competition, students were asked to identify a climate-related agricultural issue in the Valley, take a stance on it, and then develop a mural proposal that visually communicates that position to the public. Rachael Dal Porto, a current graduate student in civil and environmental Engineering won the first prize in the competition out of 27 submissions. Her design, “Hungry for Connection”, will be painted on the barn. The event will serve as an opportunity for community members to join in and paint a portion themselves (similar to a life-size paint by numbers). A local professional muralist, Leon Willis will be in charge of painting a sufficient component to ensure the mural is successful.

Ashley Green, director of development, Strategic Initiatives, has been working with big climate activists Mike Russell and Steve Shaffer for a year who were looking for avenues to connect with students. After many inspiring rounds of discussions, they thought art could be a potent space for students to generate conversation around climate change. In recent years, the Central Valley has often been fraught with threats emanating from climate change — from low lying rivers and charred vegetation to extreme heat, water shortages and harvesting concerns — thus, the challenge lay in designing a contest that would hinge on two questions:  How might agriculture be part of the climate solution in the Sacramento Valley? How do we visually communicate this message to inspire local action?​​​ “So we brought the project under our One Climate Initiative, because it really fits with our mission,” said Green.

The project was led by Emily Schlickman, an assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental design who got connected to the vision of making art a medium to inspire change. She conceived the mural design project in fall 2021. Schlickman led a seminar where students got to interact with artists and muralists from all across the United States working on climate change messages. The seminars were designed to inspire students to think about the ways they can effectively communicate climate change using paint as their primary medium of messaging. Importantly, these sessions helped students brainstorm ideas and develop proposals.

Schlickman and her team also brought in local experts dealing with climate and cultural practices which provided students with the necessary resources to understand the efforts of the farming community in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

According to Schlickman, many progressive initiatives addressing climate change undertaken by the agricultural community often go unheard because of lack of visibility. She also sees this project as a catalyst for expanding the network and developing a larger vision of addressing climate issues in the Central Valley.

“Our dream would be that this turns into a climate art trail. Perhaps, barns and silos that are embedded in the agricultural landscape can be used as canvases in the future, so it can become a destination for people to go and learn about climate activism,” concluded Schlickman.

Click here to register and join this community event on March 26.

Media Contact

AJ Cheline, UC Davis Office of Research, 530-752-1101, [email protected]

Resources

Mural Design Challenge

Challenge Overview

The winning design

Get the inside scoop on where federal money will flow in the near future and how to maximize chances for funding your research program

What research areas will the federal government be investing in over the next two to three years? How will the bipartisan infrastructure bill translate to funding for my research? What’s the deal with the new Technology, Innovation, and Partnership directorate at NSF? What happens to my grant funding when there is a continuing resolution, or when a budget is finally passed? Get answers to all these questions and more Friday, March 11th at 10:30am by joining a conversation with Phil Harman from the UC Office of Federal Government Relations and Brandon Minto from the UC Davis Government and Community Relations.

Using their front-line interactions and first-hand knowledge they will provide timely updates and competitive intelligence on the federal funding landscape, new initiatives, upcoming appropriations, and how researchers and administrators can provide input into the process. They will also share resources for how you and other UC Davis researchers can stay informed. Connect with other UC Davis researchers to ensure that we take full advantage of these lucrative opportunities.

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Phillip Harman
Director of Research
Federal Governmental Relations
University of California, Office of the President

Phillip Harman has been with Federal Governmental Relations at UCOP since 2018. He has had a long career in government relations having represented companies, associations and non-profits before the federal government relating to issues of biotechnology, homeland security, defense, education, energy, information technology and telecommunications.

Brandon Minto
Federal Government Relations Director
Government and Community Relations
Office of the Chancellor, UC Davis

In his role with Federal Government Relations at UC Davis, Brandon Minto serves as the chief advocate, representative and spokesperson for the University on all federal matters. He is responsible for building understanding, awareness and support of UC Davis with those in the federal government, while also developing and promoting opportunities to raise the profile of UC Davis and its leadership, faculty, students and staff among federal decision-makers.

Join the UC Davis Office of Research in a discussion with Dr. Bruce Buchholz, a Senior Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) about utilizing Biological Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (BioAMS) in research and clinical settings.  For 30 years, LLNL has led the world in applying this ultra-sensitive quantitative technique in basic research and clinical studies.

Register for this event

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a premier research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security needs. LLNL, is one of the seventeen U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, that applies its expertise to preventing the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction and to strengthening homeland security, as well as enhancing biomedical research that directly improves the well-being of our armed forces and the nation. Our national security mission requires special multidisciplinary capabilities that are also used to pursue programs in advanced defense technologies, energy, environment, human health, and basic sciences to meet important national needs.

From the first biological Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (BioAMS) studies conducted 30 years ago, LLNL has led the world in applying the ultra-sensitive quantitative technique in basic research and clinical studies. This presentation will describe applications of AMS from published examples, describe how it differs from conventional mass spectrometry, and how to use it to approach problems with sensitivity. Applications from Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Elimination (ADME) studies, pharmacokinetics, and adduct formation will be highlighted. Procedures for accessing the NIH-funded User Resource for Biological AMS and receiving free measurements will be described.

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Join the UC Davis Office of Research and the UC Davis School of Medicine in a discussion with Professor Shabir A. Madhi from University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.  Director of the Vaccines & Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, Dr. Madhi will share a unique insight and experience of the Omicron variant, having endured the South African wave as a researcher and physician.

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Shabir A. Madhi, M.B.B.C.H. (Wits), FCPaeds(SA), Ph.D.

Shabir Madhi is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He also holds the position of Director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA) and is co-Director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE). He is an internationally recognised for his research on live saving vaccines against childhood pneumonia and diarrhea, which informed WHO recommendations on their use in low and middle income settings. He has also led studies on the clinical development of vaccines for pregnant women aimed at protection of mother-infant dyads. Most recently he led the first two COVID-19 vaccine studies being undertaken in Africa, and has been involved in multiple epidemiological studies on Covid-19 in South Africa. He has been widely complemented for his stance on Covid-19 in South Africa, where he is considered a trusted voice unafraid to speak truth to power.