MES Thesis and Internship Defense announcements are listed here.

This orientation gives incoming MES Students a chance to meet their fellow first-year students, some faculty members, and representatives from MESSA (the MES Student Association). Additional information is provided about the MES Program, and students will have a chance to ask any questions they may have.

All MES faculty, new and returning students, and friends and family, are invited to celebrate the start of the school year event. This is an opportunity not only to catch-up with old friends, but also to meet new people!

The event will be held on the Third Floor of the restaurant.

MESSA will provide hors d'œuvres and drinks will be available at the bar.

The Graduate School Office will highlight graduate student research projects from various College of Charleston Master’s Programs at the Second Annual Graduate Research Poster Session. The Poster Session will be held in the Stern Center Ballroom (moved from Alumni Hall) on Thursday, January 10th from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.

Four MES students will present their posters:

The College of Charleston Board of Trustees and the campus community are all invited to the Poster Session. The best poster presentation from each school will be chosen at the poster session. The winning posters will be highlighted on the Graduate School website and the authors of the winning posters will each receive an honorarium.

Please join the Department of Philosophy, the MES Program, and the Environmental Studies Minor for Professor J. Baird Callicott's lecture "From Land Ethic to Earth Ethic: Aldo Leopold in the Time of Climate Change"

A reception will follow in the Philosophy Department lounge at 14 Glebe Street.   

Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic,” (1949), is the seminal source for the development of environmental ethics. The Leopold land ethic states that “…a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise…" and is the environmental ethic of choice among practitioners of applied environmental sciences. The land ethic is scaled to local biotic communities and regional ecosystems but the over-riding environmental concern of the present, however, is global climate change and the land ethic cannot be scaled up to a planetary scale.   Fortunately, Leopold sketched an “earth ethic” urging respect for the whole Earth as a living being.

Professor Callicott is Regents Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Texas. Professor Callicott is one of the two founding fathers (grandfathers!) of the discipline of environmental philosophy, having worked in the field for almost 40 years, originating many of its central debates, and teaching the first course in environmental ethics in 1971. He chairs a department that is the leading center for graduate study in environmental philosophy in North America. Professor Callicott has received numerous honors including a visiting professorship at Yale University where he won the Outstanding Teaching and Leadership Award. He’s been an investigator on grants totaling over a million dollars, has written or edited a dozen books, and has published well over 100 papers. He has served on the editorial advisory board of virtually every important journal related to environmental studies, including Conservation Biology, Ecological Economics, Environmental History, Philosophy and Geography, Environmental Values, Society and Natural Resources, Agriculture and Human Values, and the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. More information Professor Callicott is available online.

This is the Seventh Annual Master of Environmental Studies Student Association (MESSA) 8K Run/Walk to preserve and improve water quality in the Charleston area.

All proceeds from the 8K for H2O will be donated to a local non-profit promoting water quality

Visit the 8K for H2O Website for more information and registration details.

Dr. Oliver Komar, Science Director of SalvaNatura, will present a lecture on "Conservation Biology in The Tropics"

Dr. Oliver Komar has been doing research in El Salvador for over 15 years. He will be showing slides and photos of some of his work and discussing opportunities for student research in El Salvador. If you’re looking for an interesting research project in the tropics, don’t miss this talk.

Interested students and faculty are invited to have lunch with Dr. Komar at the Liberty Street Fresh Food Company at 12:30 pm the day of the talk.

Information about this presentation is online as well at: www.cofc.edu/~environ/OKomar.pdf

Saving Creation:
Nature and Faith in the Life of Holmes Rolston III
Arnold Hall - Jewish Studies Center (96 Wentworth Street )

Saving Creation is the compelling story of Templeton Prize winner and Gifford lecturer Holmes Rolston III. Known as the "father of environmental ethics," Rolston is celebrated for his advocacy to protect the Earth's biodiversity and for his critical work reconciling evolutionary biology and Christianity. Christopher J. Preston conducted countless hours of personal interviews with Rolston, his family members, and his close colleagues and friends to produce this straightforward and engaging biography.

More than any other thinker in contemporary life, Rolston has a persuasive tale to tell about the place where God, nature, and humanity meet. Preston documents the evolution of Rolston's environmental philosophy, from his idyllic childhood in the Shenandoah Mountains to his Presbyterian ministry and finally to his groundbreaking work reconciling biology and theology. Preston reveals how Rolston's pursuits have often been outside the mainstream and ahead of his time, leaving him an outsider among his peers and a figure of controversy. Rolston challenged the notion of a human-centered value system and looked deeper to embrace the intrinsic value of plants, animals, and ecosystems as core issues of science and religion. Preston deftly recounts how, despite criticism, Rolston continued undeterred.

In 1997 Rolston delivered the Gifford Lectures, an annual series at the University of Edinburgh that is a forum for the world's most influential thinkers in theology and nature. And in 2003 the Duke of Edinburgh awarded Rolston the Templeton Prize for discoveries in science and religion. Other prize winners have included Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. With this prize, Rolston's intellectual achievements and singular stature were recognized worldwide, and it was confirmation of his bold and profound contributions to the intersection of modern science and religion.

Christopher J. Preston teaches philosophy at the University of Montana in Missoula. He is the author of Grounding Knowledge: Environmental Philosophy, Epistemology, and Place and the coeditor, with Wayne Ouderkirk, of Nature, Value, and Duty: Life on Earth with Holmes Rolston, III . A noted expert on environmental philosophy, he has won several grants and is often a guest speaker on environmental issues.

For more about the book
For more about the speaker

Sponsored by the College of Charleston Philosophy Department, the Religious Studies Department, the MES Program, and the Minor in Environmental Studies

If you are planning to graduate this May, you MUST apply for Spring 2009 graduation (even if you do not plan to attend the ceremony) by

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1st

Graduation applications are only accepted online via CougarTrail, and access to the online application will close after the graduation deadline.

Students who apply after the deadline will have to pay an additional $25 (for a total of $50) and apply in person at the Graduate School Office, located in Suite 310 in Randolph Hall.

Currently enrolled students should have received an email from the Graduate School Office with all relevant graduation information.

You can also find graduation information online at:

www.cofc.edu/gradschool/current/graduation.php

This site has complete graduation information from the Graduate School Office, including what you will need to do if you plan to take part in the Commencement Ceremony at Sottile Theatre on Friday, May 8th (including such items as what color hood to ask for when ordering your MES regalia at the bookstore: Gold).

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Also - remember that your final, completed theses or internship reports must be submitted by the close of business on Monday, April 27th. This means that you should plan to hold your defense by April 13th at the latest, in order to leave time for final corrections, etc. And don't forget to turn in your "Defense Notification Form" two weeks in advance of your Defense date!

http://www.cofc.edu/~environ/MES-8.pdf

The appropriate paper for the Internship Reports can be found at the CofC Bookstore. You turn in your Internship copies, already bound, at the MES Office.

The Thesis copies are submitted electronically. Note that the electronic copy of the thesis title page should not have signatures or signature lines on it, and that a completed “Thesis Release” form must be submitted with the signature page. Please see http://dissertations.umi.com/cofc/ to begin the online submission process.

How to format your Internship report? http://www.cofc.edu/~environ/intern.htm

How to format your Thesis? http://www.cofc.edu/~environ/thesis.htm

The MES Program Thesis Guide is online at http://www.cofc.edu/~environ/MESThesisGuide.pdf

For additional information, contact:

Mark McConnel
Program Coordinator
Master of Environmental Studies Program
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424
Phone: (843) 953-2000
www.cofc.edu/~environ