About the Center
They call it a cloud forest, but in June the rain in Monteverde, Costa Rica comes down hard. The roar of 125 mm/hr on a metal roof makes conversation nearly impossible, and rivers take on the hue of cafe con leche as silt washes in from the dirt road. Four Smith students work with the local community to devise and design effective means of managing both water quality and water quantity in this ecotourist destination. Trade-offs between resource development and conservation are not easy, and decisions require an integrated understanding of language, ecology, economics, hydrology, health, and culture.
This is what CEEDS is about.
Building on a strong tradition of women’s leadership at Smith, the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design, and Sustainability (CEEDS) brings together faculty, staff, and students from the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and engineering to address environmental questions and challenges. Our mission is to graduate women who excel at integrating knowledge to support environmental decisions and actions. This mission, and CEEDS itself, is intended to complement and enhance the wide range of curricular pathways that students can choose to study the environment at Smith, such as engineering, biology, government, sociology, geosciences, landscape studies, and environmental science and policy. CEEDS is about linking knowledge across the liberal arts and critically applying this knowledge to real-world solutions.
In pursuit of these goals, the activities of the Center will be directed toward
- Enhancing the curriculum
- Sponsoring integrative environmental projects
- Using the campus as a model
- Integrating environmental resources and information
Right now, we are just getting started. Thanks to a generous gift from Jill Ker Conway to support our initial efforts, we are moving ahead with some exciting programs, and we have ideas for many more.
Enhancing the Curriculum
We have incredible faculty at Smith who are deeply committed to student learning. To increase the environmental literacy of all Smith students, CEEDS will support the faculty to bring environmental concepts and context to a wide variety of courses. Perhaps a first-year seminar on observation will incorporate real-time meteorological data from Paradise Pond. An anthropology course on African pastoralism could use satellite imagery to determine the distribution of vegetation in Kenya. A plant ecology course may delve into the land-use history of the Pioneer Valley. CEEDS will provide financial, human, and infrastructure resources to support our faculty and enhance our curriculum.
Sponsoring Integrative Environmental Projects
Another key activity of the Center will be to sponsor integrative projects that put students on the front lines of environmental decisions and action. For example, faculty and students from engineering, psychology, and economics, along with staff from Facilities Management, might take on the challenge of transportation among the Five Colleges. Another project might focus on water in China, calling upon biology, geology, government, and East Asian studies. A project on sustainable agriculture may link faculty and students from Smith with those from Hampshire College. In all cases, the emphasis will be on integrating knowledge in support of decisions and action.
Using the Campus as a Model
The beauty of Smith’s campus is well known, and our buildings, grounds, and infrastructure present multiple opportunities to link our campus and operations with our academic efforts. The Ada and Archibald MacLeish Field Station comprises 200 acres of mixed farmland and woodland just twelve miles north of campus. As a project for Landscape Studies, Smith students designed an interpretive trail network that highlights the history and ecology of the site; we look forward to constructing these trails and developing programming for field-based education, environmental research, and low-impact recreation. On our main campus, Facilities Management is embarking on a metering project that will reveal the heat and electricity use of each building on campus, and Smith’s recent adoption of a sustainability plan offers a great opportunity for student projects and learning as the College pursues its twenty-year path to carbon neutrality.
Integrating Environmental Resources and Information
Smith possesses tremendous resources relevant to the study of the built and natural environment, including the Ada and Archibald MacLeish Field Station, the Botanic Garden, and the Spatial Analysis Lab. As a Center - both virtual and physical- we will help connect these resources for students, faculty, and staff. Plans are currently in the works to renovate Wright Hall as the home for not only CEEDS, but also the Center for Community Collaboration and the Global Studies Center. The co-location of these centers will bring an exciting energy to our efforts, and we hope our new space will cultivate inventive thinking, multidisciplinary collaboration, and a strong sense of community.
The Center for the Environment, Ecological Design, and Sustainability presents an exciting opportunity for Smith and our communities, and we welcome your comments, questions, and involvement. Please feel free to contact us or visit us in our new location in Wright Hall later in the year.
