Dear Marmam folks, I'm delighted to share with you the first public announcement of the 2010 annual meeting of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS). The meeting will take place in Portland, Oregon in mid-June, and details are given in the message below from the conference chairs. AESS is a new professional organization with broad interests in interdisciplinary environmental and natural resources problem solving. There is a good deal of possible crossover between AESS interests and those of the Marmam community, and so I wanted to share with you this invitation. The message below invites you to participate in setting the agenda for the 2010 AESS meeting. More than 300 people attended the organization's first annual meeting in Madison, Wisconsin in 2009, which was a great combination of discussions, themed symposia, plenary sessions, field trips, and social events. The Portland meeting promises an even more robust agenda and we hope you will consider becoming involved and attending. It would be wonderful to foster collaboration between the marine mammal conservation community and the large and diverse community of professionals in environmental studies and sciences (speaking as someone who works in both worlds!). Please let me know if you have any questions, and apologies for cross-postings. All my best to you for a happy and healthy holiday season! Cheers, Rich Wallace On behalf of the AESS Outreach & Membership Committee -- Richard L. Wallace, Ph.D. Associate Professor Environmental Studies Program Ursinus College P.O. Box 1000 Collegeville, PA 19426 (610) 409-3730 (610) 409-3660 fax rwallace@ursinus.edu Dear Colleagues, The Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) is an independent faculty-and-student-based professional association in higher education, designed to serve the needs of environmental scholars and scientists who value interdisciplinary approaches to research, teaching, and problem-solving. Founded in 2008, the Association seeks to provide its members with the latest environmental information and tools to create better courses, strengthen research, develop more satisfying careers, harness the power of a collective voice for the profession, and enjoy each other's company at national and regional meetings. A major aim of AESS is to encourage interdisciplinary understanding of environmental science, policy, management, ethics, history, and all of the other vital contributions of traditional disciplines. From its beginning, the Association has been envisioned as a community of environmental scholars and scientists, not a confederation of disciplines. Fundamental to its members' embrace of higher education is the notion that broad advances in environmental knowledge require disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches to research and learning. On behalf of the AESS Program Committee and Site Arrangement Committee, we are pleased to announce the launch of the AESS 2010 Conference website, which is being hosted temporarily by Lewis and Clark College. The conference will be held at Lewis and Clark College, Portland OR, June 17-20. The theme for our 2010 AESS Conference is Many Shades of Green. The theme reflects the growing diversity of the environmental movement and the spread of "green" thinking into new and more varied venues. A bewildering profusion of green ideas are working their way through global politics and discourse as new groups enter into -- and challenge -- the traditional environmental movement. The term "green" can itself mean many things: corporations may label themselves green by adopting energy conservation, "carbon-friendly" products, and recycling/reuse strategies, while individuals and organizations may embrace widely differing green principles, ranging from eco-consumerism to eco-spirituality to eco-anarchism. Debates over technology, population, politics, equity, and regulation increasingly divide not just pro- and anti-greens, but greens themselves. We welcome proposals that engage with this proliferation of difference, contention, and innovation in green rhetoric and practice. The AESS Program Committee is trying something new this year. We would like to provide an opportunity for the ESS community to help shape the organization of the 2010 AESS Conference at Lewis and Clark. To accomplish this bottom-up approach, we are breaking up the call for sessions and presentations into a two-step process: Step 1: Call for session proposals (deadline Feb 1, 2010) Step 2: Call for presentation abstracts (deadline Mar 30, 2010) Please visit the AESS 2010 Conference website <http://www.lclark.edu/college/programs/environmental_studies/aess2010/i ndex.php> for further information. We strongly encourage members of AESS, prior to the February 1 session proposal deadline, to participate in the discussion forum on session ideas (explained in detail on the conference website) to explore possibilities for sessions, including paper presentations, workshops, panel discussions, roundtable/facilitated discussions, and field trips. If you are not already a member of AESS, please consider joining. It's inexpensive: Professional $30, current student $15, current student with AESS mentor $10. For more information about membership, please visit the AESS website <http://www.aess.info/> . Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you all in Portland next June! All the best, Phil Camill Chair, AESS Program Committee Rusack Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Program Director, Environmental Studies Bowdoin College, Brunswick ME pcamill@bowdoin.edu Jim Proctor Chair, AESS Site Arrangements Committee Professor and Director, Environmental Studies Program Lewis & Clark College, Portland OR jproctor@lclark.edu