The Stegner Center has a robust lineup of programs for the 2013-2014 academic year. The Center’s nineteenth annual symposium, to be held on March 27 to 28, 2014, will focus on the topic “National Parks: Past, Present and Future.” This year’s symposium will explore the evolution and future of the national park system. It has been nearly a century since Congress passed the National Parks Organic Act of 1916, giving legal expression to the idea of a national park system and the National Park Service to oversee it. Much has happened since then; the system has grown to encompass more than 400 units that extend across all fifty states and cover more than 84 million acres. Roughly 280 million people visit our national parks annually, and the national park idea now extends across the globe. Although much beloved, the national parks face significant challenges that include seasonal visitation pressures, incompatible recreational demands, intense political and economic pressures from adjoining communities, potentially destructive external development activities (including climate change), an aging and non-diverse visitor pool, and diminished financial support. And yet another issue is whether and how the system should grow in the future. The Stegner Center symposium aims to examine and to untangle these matters to ensure future generations enjoy the benefits of a top notch national park system. Jonathan Jarvis, the Director of the National Park Service, will deliver the keynote lecture at the symposium.
Katrina Kuh, Associate Professor, Maurice A. Deane School of Law, Hofstra University, was in residence on September 4 to 5 as the Stegner Center’s 9th Annual Young Scholar. She delivered her young scholar lecture on “Towards a Theory of Environmental Privacy” and a Downtown CLE on “Climate Adaptation in Environmental Review.”
The Stegner Center will host three speakers as part of our lecture series this academic year. On January 29 journalist and author Cynthia Barnett will deliver a presentation based on her book Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis. On February 6, mediator, facilitator and author Lucy Moore will deliver a presentation based on her book Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental Mediator. On February 25, author Todd Wilkinson will deliver presentation based on his book Last Stand Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet.
The Stegner Center’s popular noon hour green bag series will feature a variety of speakers and topics this year including the following:
- September 17, “Unleash the Power of Free Enterprise to Deliver Fuel of the Future,” Bob Inglis, Executive Director, Energy and Enterprise Initiative, George Mason University; Member of U.S. House of Representatives
- September 26, “To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea,” Robert Keiter, Director of The Wallace Stegner Center
- October 8, “Adapting to Climate Change: Implications for Utah” Panel Discussion
- October 10, “Nine Mile Canyon: The Archaeological History of an American Treasure,” Jerry D. Spangler, Executive Director, Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance
- November 14, “Planning Utah’s Water Future,” Alan Matheson, Senior Environmental Advisor to Governor Gary Herbert
- January 16, “New Directions in State Public Trust Doctrines in a Climate Change Era,” Robin Craig, William H. Leary Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law
- January 23, Green bag lecture, David Deisley, E.V.P and General Counsel, Novagold
- January 30, Green Bag lecture, Peter Geddes, Managing Director, American Prairie Reserve
- March 6, “The ‘Sustainable Why’ Behind the ‘What’ in Business,” Peter Metcalf, CEO/Lead-Founder, Black Diamond Inc.
For program details, including times and locations, see the Stegner Center online calendar »