Environmental Studies 50th Anniversary Keynote Address: “‘We’re Gonna Be Okay Now’: Lessons Learned from a Bowdoin Environmental Studies Alumna", with Teona Williams '12

In her keynote address, Dr. Williams will trace her journey to, through, and beyond the college—from her home in Washington D.C. and her four years in Brunswick to her environmental justice activism in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi—and explore how her work as a scholar, activist, and teacher is rooted in the liberal arts. She will also discuss her research on a cadre of rural Black feminists, including Fannie Lou Hamer and June Jordan, who articulated expansive visions of environmental justice that encompassed food sovereignty, disaster relief, universal basic income, radical land reform, and access to food and clean water.

Teona is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University and will be Assistant Professor of Geography beginning in Fall 2024. Her work revolves around Black Geographies, 20th century African American and environmental history, and Black feminist theory. She completed her doctoral degree at Yale University in the Departments of African American Studies and History and a master’s degree in Environmental Justice at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Teona was an Environmental Studies-History coordinate major and Africana Studies minor at Bowdoin.
Please register on campus groups for this event (registration is preferred but not required to attend).  
 
Teona's keynote kicks off the ES 50th Anniversary Symposium. Please join us for three panels on Friday, April 14 in Smith Auditorium, Sills Hall that will feature additional ES alumni discussing Environmental Storytelling, Climate Change and Sustainability, and Environmental Design and Planning. 

Following the Alumni Panels, there will be a Networking Mixer with Environmental Studies Alumni for current and prospective students in the Roux Center for the Environment Lantern from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

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Co-hosted with: Career Exploration and Development, McKeen Center for the Common Good, Bowdoin Naturalists, Bowdoin Organic Garden, Bowdoin Outing Club, Sunrise Bowdoin , Bowdoin Sustainability Office, History, Sociology, Africana Studies, English, Anthropology, Biology, Visual Arts, Bowdoin Citizens Climate Lobby , Urban Studies, Government and Legal Studies, Arctic Studies

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