WSCA 2004 Presidential Address: WSCA and the Sustainability Challenge

I HOPE AND TRUST that everyone has been enjoying the 75th WSCA conference. Presumably, you've all been widening your circles, renewing old relationships, and making new ones. This year's conference has more attendees than any WSCA except one, thanks to Myron Lustig and Ken Frandsen, Christina Sanchez,

and Rachel Dwiggins Buele's planning. We are fortunate to have so many undergraduate scholars with us this year due to the first undergraduate honors conference organized by Mary Jane Collier and in part, funded by WSCA's Executive's Club. As most of you probably know, WSCA is widely known as the best of the regionale because of our leadership in scholarship, strong management of the organization, and our conference is the best, thanks to our members who contribute so generously. Today, I want to spend a few minutes brainstorming ways we might extend our range of leadership to a new arena: the sustainability challenge.

When Dennis Alexander asked me to run for an office in WSCA, like most people I said "no." But Dennis didn't accept no. He instead reminded me that he had started a conversation in WSCA that needed to be continued. He had set ecology as the theme for the conference he planned in Vancouver. He had enlisted Dennis Jaehne and me to facilitate a pre-conference on "Greening the Discipline." And he had appointed a small committee to consider greening WSCA. Dennis was right, this effort needed to continue. And I agreed to run. Last year, the conference theme was "Communicating for Sustainability" to reflect the trend toward understanding social and ecological issues as inseparable. The pre-conference, facilitated by Jennifer Peeples and George Cheney, focused on sustainability and communication. Lois Gibbs told us how she communicated sustainability to change Love Canal's history. Today, I want to consider how the sustainability challenge pertains to WSCA.