ENST DIGEST 1/24/22: Week 2

Dear ENST and E&C community, 

 We are creeping into week 2 here. The chaos around repopulation of campus still swirls. I hope you are all taking time to keep your mind and body intact, that at least some of your classes are inspiring, and that you are enjoying this sunshine. Just a reminder, I'm moving these emails to a blog home on our ENST webpage, since so much of the content of our digests would be great to have archived for future reference, here. That blog is also linked on our ENST webpage, here, so it's always findable, and you don't have to hunt through your inboxes. Soon, we'll launch the Canvas ENST Student Resource Hub, where you'll also be able to find these and much more. If you have an opinion about how you best like to receive all the info I send in these digests, please let me know. My aim is to provide this info in the way you best like to receive it. 

 Here are the announcements for the week: 

1. Master's student assistantship in Home Ignition Zone Fire Ecology at SJSU Seeking MS ecology student for funded interdisciplinary HIZ research: California and the west are in the midst of a wildfire crisis. Catastrophic damages, such as structure loss, are due to residents' fuel mitigation (or lack thereof) in the Home Ignition Zone (HIZ). However, few efforts explore the current Californian context.Interdisciplinary approaches, such as exploring the relationship between social and ecological factors, are powerful for informing compliance and barriers to HIZ mitigation. MS ecology students with Dr. Kate Wilkin would be in the Biological Sciences Department’s Ecology and Evolution program, and participate in the new Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, which was recently awarded a NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC). WIRC provides potential internal research funding and interdisciplinary collaborations between ecology and social scientists, climatologists, fire weather, fire behavior modeling, combustion engineer, fire behavior monitoring, and remote sensing. Other potential projects could include prescribed fire, fuel breaks and evacuation route clearance, plant ember production and combustion, pyrodiversity, youth fire education, or other. Funding: For the interdisciplinary Home Ignition Zone project, 1st year salary available through grants. Additional competitive funding and tuition stipends may be available through competitive Biology Department teaching positions, and internal funding available through the new Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center. Total funding is dependent on the project, and students will be trained in internal and external grant writing. Start date: - As technician April/May 2022 - As student on August 2022 Application Process: Applicants should also email Kate Wilkin (kate.wilkin@...) well in advance, and include some off the items needed for a formal application to SJSU Your research interests and long-term career goals in a cover letter CV with software, lab and field methods and equipment, language (especially Spanish), and other skills, and publications and presentations listed Scores: GRE, GPA One writing sample (report, published paper, technical report, or class research project) Funding needs: Do you have a grant in-hand? What are your needs? Contact information for 3+ references Interested applicants must apply to the graduate school at San Jose State University using their application. Fall 2022 applicants must apply by March 1, 2022. 

 2. Jobs at Sue-Meg and Prairie Creek State Parks! My name is Lisa Espejo. I am administrative support to supervisors at Sue-meg and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks. We are getting ready to hire for several seasonal positions at multiple locations. (Please see attached job ads.) I was asked by our Supervising Ranger and lead Rangers (cc’d in this email) to reach out to the Deans of the colleges of natural resources to please share or post the attached job ads outside their offices. Though these positions are seasonal, entry level jobs they are also stepping stones into potentially greater opportunities within CA State parks, or another resource management agency. Many of us here at Sue-meg and Prairie Creek are alumni from HSU who started out at these very positions. It is our hope many of your students will see the possibilities of being able to network with park staff in the fields of their interest over the summer. Flyers attached. 

 3. Sustainability Leadership Training, March 5. The C2C Fellows Network, offered through the Graduate Programs in Sustainability at Bard College in New York, is an international program for undergraduates and recent graduates aspiring to leadership work in sustainable politics, NGO’s and business. C2C’s intensive, interactive skills-based virtual workshops teach skills they don't teach at university, skills to change the future. There is no cost to attend. Led by Dr. Eban Goodstein, Director of Bard’s Center for Environmental Policy, C2C training focuses on key leadership skills: vision, courage, developing your network, telling your story, and raising funds. Apply here. Graduates of the workshops join a national network with access to continuing educational and professional opportunities. Questions? Contact vn7229@bard.edu. 

 4. Spring 2022 Sustainable Future Speaker Series kicks off on January 27 5:30pm: "The Fight for Environmental Justice within Government Agencies" The Sustainable Futures speaker series (SFSS) opens on Thursday, January 27 @ 5:30 pm with Jill Lindsey Harrison, author of From the Inside Out: The Fight for Environmental Justice within Government Agencies. Harrison will present key findings from her book, which lifts the veil on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other environmental regulatory agencies to offer new insights into why they fail to reduce harmful toxics and other hazards in our nation’s most environmentally overburdened and vulnerable communities. Harrison’s research examines the disappointing pace of environmental regulatory agencies’ environmental justice (EJ) programs and policies as a case through which to understand why, despite reducing air and water pollution for the nation overall, government has not protected the communities who suffer the most. Other scholars have shown that budget cuts, industry pressure, and other factors outside the control of agency staff constrain the possibilities for EJ reforms to regulatory practice. Via extensive staff interviews and team observations, Harrison’s study shows that agencies’ EJ efforts are also undermined by elements of regulatory workplace culture — including everyday ways in which well-meaning staff dedicated to environmental regulation reject EJ reforms as violating what they think their organization does and should do. These interviews also reveal how EJ staff at government agencies endeavor to change both regulatory practice and regulatory culture, from the inside out. Jill Lindsey Harrison is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on  environmental justice, environmental politics, and immigration politics, with a regional emphasis on the United States.  Her research covers political conflict over agricultural pesticide poisonings in California, escalations in immigration enforcement in rural Wisconsin, and government agencies’ environmental justice reform efforts, with the thread throughout being an aim to help identify and  explain the persistence of environmental inequalities and workplace inequalities in the United States today. NEXT UP... Upcoming this semester, we're excited to host Alison Bates of Colby College on March 3, to talk about the social dynamics of offshore wind, and Andrea Rogers of Our Children's Trust on April 28, to discuss children’s fundamental rights, the climate crisis, and calls for judicial action. Find more info and register for all events at: http://schatzcenter.org/speakers/ We’re holding the Spring 2022 Sustainable Futures speaker series online via webinar. Each lecture is streamed via Zoom, and will be followed by a Q&A discussion period. All events are free and open to the public, and live captioning is provided for all talks. To request additional support, please contact schatzenergy@humboldt.edu or call 707-826-4345. The SFSS was created to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration around issues related to energy, the environment, and society. Lectures are sponsored by the Schatz Energy Research Center, the Environment & Community program, and the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences. https://pmc.humboldt.edu/portal/guest-speaker-jill-lindsey-harrison-why-... 

 5. HSU MA in Applied English Studies Info Session-- Jan 26 The English Department is hosting a virtual workshop next Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 12pm for students, faculty and staff who may be interested in pursuing an MA in Applied English Studies. In this informational workshop, attendees will learn about the program, how to apply and how their interests and experiences might lend themselves to an MA in English. We ask that you please share this email and the workshop flyer with the folx in your department. Any questions can be directed to english@humboldt.edu. Here is a link to the Zoom Meeting. Students can also find the workshop on the English department's calendar. Thank you very much, Cassandra Curatolo ASA - English, Philosophy, JMC and Communications With attachment 6. GrizzlyCorps application for the 22-23 year We are excited to announce the official launch of the GrizzlyCorps partner application for the 2022-2023 service year! See below for our flyer with more details on hosting your own GrizzlyCorps fellow, in addition to a copy of the application form attached to this email. *NOTE: The attached form is not the actual application - in order for you application to be considered, please submit an Airtable application through our website here: https://www.grizzlycorps.org/partners Please reach out to eliza.munger@berkeley.edu for more information and with any questions. In Service, The GrizzlyCorps Team image.png 

 7. Field Courses in Tropical Biology Danta is pleased to announce our summer 2022 field courses in tropical biology. Our courses are intended for undergraduates or early graduate level students who have a keen interest in tropical ecosystems and conservation, but have little or no experience of working in a tropical environment. Participants may enroll on either a credit or non-credit basis. As much of our advertising is done by word-of-mouth, we encourage you to spread the word by forwarding this information to students or friends who may be interested in our programs. For more information, please visit our website at www.DANTA.info [danta.info] and/or email conservation@danta.email. For an alumni perspective on our programs, please see our blog DANTAisms - http://dantablog.wordpress.com/ [dantablog.wordpress.com]. Methods in Primate Behavior and Conservation Date: July 3-18, 2022 Program Fee: $2600 Application deadline: May 15, 2022 Course Description: DANTA Tropical Biology and Conservation Field Courses 2021/2022 [dantablog.org] Wildlife Conservation and Sustainability Dates: June 13 - 28, 2022 Program fee: $2600 Application deadline: May 15, 2022 Course Description: DANTA Tropical Biology and Conservation Field Courses 2021/2022 [dantablog.org] Field Excursion All courses include a visit to a wildlife rehabilitation center, sustainable chocolate plantation and dolphin and snorkeling trip of the Golfo Dulce. We will stay overnight on the Boruca Indigenous Reserve where we will learn about the community and their traditional lifeways, and help with needed projects. Every effort is made to implement eco-friendly and socially responsible practices into our day-to-day operations, field courses and overall mission.

__________Grieving the death of Thich Nhat Hanh ________________________

As you may have heard, the poem I included in last week's digest was written by a monk who coincidentally died a few days later, January 21, 2022 at the age of 95. Thanks for humoring me sharing his obituary, pasted below, and linked here, in case you're interested in why I dig the dude so much. What I admire most about this person was that he popularized the movement of "socially-engaged Buddhism," which is defined below, and was very involved with climate justice in his later years. Another of my favorite people in the world, bell hooks, also recently passed from this earth. She was in conversation with TNH, too, and they affected each other a lot. Check out an interview between them here. The death of these two massive forces in my life is weighing heavily, and I hope this gets you hooked on them too, if you aren't already.

Thich Nhat Hanh obituary

Zen Buddhist monk and peace campaigner who brought mindfulness to the west

Thich Nhat Hanh at the Non Nuoc pagoda, north of Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2007. Photograph: Kham/Reuters

Vishvapani Blomfield

Sun 23 Jan 2022 10.28 EST

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Following the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, thousands of people fled from the victorious communist forces by sailing to neighbouring countries. When these “boat people” attempted to land in Singapore, the police pushed them back out to sea, where many died.

In 1978 the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who has died aged 95, went to Singapore for a conference on religion and peace. By working with fishermen he helped get provisions to those at sea and smuggle some refugees ashore; he then took them to the French embassy compound so that the next morning they could surrender to the police and enter the official arrival system.

When Nhat Hanh was arrested and threatened with deportation, hundreds were put in peril. He reflected: “If I could not be peaceful in the midst of danger, the peace I might realise in easier times would not mean anything.”

Despite the pressure, Nhat Hanh and his colleagues did some walking meditation, and got the idea of asking the French ambassador to write a letter for them to take to the prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. After a cabinet meeting they were granted 10 more days, which they used to wind up the operation.

Martin Luther King Jr, left, with Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966. Photograph: Edward Kitch/AP

Nhat Hanh pointed to this as an example of “engaged Buddhism”, where mindfulness – “the capacity to be aware of what is going on, and what is there” – forms the basis for offering practical help to address the issues and injustices of the modern world. Through developing a movement to promote it in the west as well as in Asia, he did much to bring the practice of mindfulness into the social mainstream, by emphasising that a contemplative attitude could inform every moment of the day, not just those devoted to explicit meditation.

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His philosophy of “interbeing”, which holds that we should regard ourselves as interconnected parts of the fabric of life, rather than as separate entities, has been an important influence on many environmentalists.

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said that she could not have achieved the Paris agreement of 2016 “if I had not been accompanied by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh”. He was also an influential advocate for nonviolence. A group of imprisoned Sinn Féin leaders adopted his teachings and, having become elected politicians, in 2012 invited him to address the Stormont Assembly.

At the height of the war between communist North Vietnam and US-supported South Vietnam in 1966, Nhat Hanh travelled to the US “to tell Americans of Vietnam’s suffering”. He met academic, religious and political leaders, including the Catholic author Thomas Merton and defence secretary Robert McNamara, and argued persuasively for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement.

Largely due to Nhat Hanh’s influence, Martin Luther King declared his opposition to the war, and later that year nominated Nhat Hanh for the Nobel peace prize, writing: “Thich Nhat Hanh offers a solution acceptable to rational leaders … His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.” However, King breached protocol (and perhaps offended the Nobel committee) by publishing the nomination letter, and no award was made.

In Europe Nhat Hanh met Pope Paul VI to urge cooperation between Buddhists and Catholics in Vietnam, and in 1969 he established the Buddhist peace delegation at the Paris peace talks. After the 1973 peace accords Nhat Hanh was refused permission to return to Vietnam and instead embarked on a new sphere of activity as a Buddhist teacher in the west. With Sister Chan Khong he established a meditation centre south-east of Paris, and in 1982 he founded Plum Village in the Dordogne, in south-west France – now home to more than 200 nuns and monks - as a base. The thousands of meditation practitioners who visited the various Plum Village centres in Europe, the US, Australia and Asia knew him by the name of Thay.

Thich Nhat Hanh, centre, with the playwright Arthur Miller, left, and the poet Robert Lowell, in New York, 1966. Photograph: Bettmann Archive

In 1987 a disciple founded a small publishing house that printed Being Peace, a book of his writings. With little promotion the book quickly sold 100,000 and was followed by other bestselling titles such as The Sun My Heart, and Old Path, White Clouds – a novelised life of the Buddha. Nhat Hanh has written more than 100 books, many of them available in English, including poetry, meditation teaching and advice for activists.

Born Nguyen Xuan Bao in Hue, central Vietnam, he entered a monastery aged 16 and received the name Nhat Hanh at his full ordination in 1949 – Thich is a title used by Vietnamese monks. From the start of his monastic life, Nhat Hanh combined meditation practice with social action and scholarship – he became fluent in eight languages – and by the age of 30 he was editing a journal that urged Buddhism to modernise and oppose both the war and South Vietnam’s dictatorship.

In 1961 he went to the US to study and taught comparative religion at Columbia University. Three years later he returned to Vietnam. Buddhism was widely respected as a grassroots alternative to communism, capitalism and the war, but it lacked means to translate this prestige into social change. In short order, Nhat Hanh founded the Van Hanh Buddhist University, a publishing house, the School of Youth for Social Service (SYSS), and the Order of Interbeing – a lay organisation based on the combination of social action and mindful awareness.

The South Vietnamese government declared that anyone promoting “neutralism” would be considered pro-Communist, and many of Nhat Hanh’s colleagues were killed, while he narrowly survived an assassination attempt. Despite this, by the end of the war the SYSS included 10,000 monks and lay people who travelled into the countryside to establish schools and clinics and rebuild villages.

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In later years Nhat Hanh’s life mirrored that of other Buddhist leaders in the west – writing, leading retreats and guiding the development of the Order of Interbeing, which grew into an international Buddhist movement with several hundred monks, and many more lay teachers and practice communities.

On his return visits to Vietnam in 2005 and 2007 Nhat Hanh was greeted warmly by ordinary Buddhists, but leaders of the outlawed United Buddhist Church – some of whom had been under house arrest for decades – refused to meet him, arguing that his visit would legitimise repression of Buddhism.

Nhat Hanh’s teaching combined traditional Zen meditation practices with others drawn from Theravada Buddhism. His principle of engaged Buddhism expressed his belief that meditative calm must be tested in the midst of conflict: “Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.”

In 2014 he had a stroke. He moved to Thailand in late 2016 and two years later returned to Vietnam. There he received traditional medicine treatments for the after-effects of his stroke at the Tu Hieu Pagoda, the monastery in Hue where he had been ordained.

 Thich Nhat Hanh (Nguyen Xuan Bao), Buddhist teacher and peace activist, born 11 October 1926; died 21 January 2022

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Students, what have you been working on? We invite you to share your accomplishments (publications, presentations, grants, awards, creative activities, academic competitions and the like) with us by emailing me, and share with the HSU community via Humboldt Now. Do you know any alumni doing interesting things? We'd love to know what they're up to! Ask them to submit an alumni update here. And if you have poems, songs, or other news or announcements you'd like to share with the ENST community, please email Sarah.Ray@humboldt.edu.