FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2008

Experts on the past and present of environmental policy to speak at
MUW

An interactive symposium on history and public policy will be held at Mississippi University for Women Friday, April 25 from noon to 2:30.

“We are very excited to develop this active-learning experience for students and the general public,” said Professor Brian Anderson, director of the symposium. “In this 2 1/2 hour program we are trying to capture certain strengths of our educational model at MUW, specifically intensive learning centered on case studies, permitting a high level of interaction between expert and audience.”

The topic of the program is “Politics Past and Present: The History of Environmentalism and Environmental Policy.” The goal is to give members of the community and students from area high schools and the MUW campus an opportunity to interact directly with experts in the field.

There will be two guests with experience in different areas of environmentalism and environmental policy. Dr. Gerald Emison of Mississippi State University brings decades of hands-on experience with
environmental policy. He was an EPA administrator for 20 years, where
he directed the Seattle unit of the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards. He also was involved in toxic cleanup and species protection.

Stephanie Showalter is director of the Sea Grant Law Center (an affiliate of University of Mississippi law school), which studies impact of human development on coastal environments; she specializes in these problems in Mississippi and Alabama.

In an innovative format for a public symposium, the audience will not simply listen to these experts. Instead, after an initial discussion by Dr. Emison and Showalter, the audience will divide into smaller groups and move through two lively breakout sessions, where they will interact with each guest, asking questions and constructing an in-depth dialogue not possible in a large auditorium setting. The symposium will help peel away the media façade to learn from the true experts in this important field.

Anyone interested in getting up to speed in advance in order better to benefit from the symposium can go to the website of the MUW history and
Political Science program: http://www.muw.edu/hpgp/. Instructors may also see opportunities for constructing assignments for their students out of this material.

This program is free and open to the public. The initial meeting will be at noon in the Nissan Auditorium in Parkinson Hall. For more information, contact Dr. Anderson at banderson@muw.edu or (662) 329-7386.

The program is funded in part by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council.