Nancy Givens, Sustainability Programs Development Coordinator at WKU, and Dr. Terry Wilson, Director of WKU’s Center for Environmental Education and Sustainability, were panelists at the third Energizing Kentucky Conference, held in Lexington on April 15-16.
Givens was a panelist for the session on Kentucky Colleges’ and Universities’ Sustainability Efforts: Successes and Challenges and Dr. Wilson for the session on Kentucky Environmental Education, K-12.
This conference series was designed to encourage greater Kentucky government, businesses and learning institutions to focus on developing a coherent and integrated energy policy. National and state experts came together to discuss the economic, educational, and environmental opportunities and challenges presented by the world’s current energy situation. The presidents of the four colleges sponsoring the conferences issued this joint statement: “We believe higher education has an important role to play in the work ahead: framing the issues, seeking solutions, providing basic and applied research, and educating the next generation. This work requires a partnership across the Commonwealth that includes business and public policy leaders, as well as those involved in education.”
The third conference focused on strategies to build a knowledge base and curriculum around sustainability and the development of alternative energy sources for K-12 and postsecondary education. Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, was the keynote speaker.
The first conference focused on the role Kentucky’s business community has in advancing sound policies governing the production, use and conservation of energy plus ways that economic and educational interests help can form effective public policy, and featured keynote speaker Sandra Meyer from Duke Power. The second conference brought in state, national and international energy experts to share best practices with Kentuckians and to assist the Commonwealth in developing a visionary and comprehensive policy; featured speakers included Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Maria Gladziszewski from Juneau, Alaska, and Gov. Steve Beshear; Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat, Hot and Crowded and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, was the keynote speaker.
Contact: Nancy Givens, Sustainability Programs Development Coordinator for WKU, at nancy.givens@wku.edu or (270) 745-2842.
