Environmental Leaders Institute now taking registrations

COLUMBUS — A series of work­shops from Sep­tem­ber to Jan­u­ary is geared to help envi­ron­men­tal pro­fes­sion­als address com­plex issues and work col­lab­o­ra­tively with fel­low pro­fes­sion­als across pri­vate, non­profit and gov­ern­ment sectors.

The Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­ers Insti­tute is a forum to develop a net­work of effec­tive envi­ron­men­tal decision-makers by focus­ing on three areas: envi­ron­ment, col­lab­o­ra­tion and lead­er­ship, said Anne Baird, edu­ca­tor with Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion and one of the institute’s organizers.

“Most envi­ron­men­tal issues require col­lab­o­ra­tion across dis­ci­plines and sec­tors,” she said. “It’s not easy to find pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment that focuses on cross con­nec­tions, and it’s even harder to find net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties with peo­ple not in your dis­ci­pline or sector.”

But when it comes right down to it, peo­ple need to work across tra­di­tional areas of expertise.

“Those work­ing on trans­porta­tion issues need to talk with water and energy man­agers,” for exam­ple, she said. “The Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­ers Insti­tute will help envi­ron­men­tal pro­fes­sion­als fos­ter those con­nec­tions, and they’ll learn that through the appli­ca­tion of ideas involv­ing the envi­ron­ment and sustainability.”

The insti­tute is being orga­nized by Baird; Joe Bon­nell, pro­gram direc­tor in water­shed man­age­ment for OSU Exten­sion; and Mag­gie Lewis, lec­turer in Ohio State’s Fisher Col­lege of Business.

Par­tic­i­pants can sign up for indi­vid­ual ses­sions or the whole series of four work­shops, which include:

• Man­ag­ing Com­plex Sys­tems, Sept. 6–7. Held at Stone Lab­o­ra­tory at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, the work­shop will focus on the issue of harm­ful algal blooms and broaden par­tic­i­pants’ aware­ness of core com­pe­ten­cies essen­tial for sus­tain­able envi­ron­men­tal management.

• Assess­ing the Sus­tain­abil­ity of Shale Gas Explo­ration in Ohio, Oct. 18–19, at Mohi­can State Park Lodge, Per­rysville, Ohio. This work­shop, which includes a field trip, will focus in part on how to help peo­ple iden­tify shared val­ues and reach agreement.

• Explor­ing Renew­able Energy in Ohio, Dec. 3–7. This one-week online ses­sion will focus on man­ag­ing the tran­si­tion from non-renewable to renew­able energy resources, includ­ing learn­ing about obsta­cles and poli­cies involved. It will also increase par­tic­i­pants’ aware­ness of trends in renew­able energy and how to eval­u­ate the costs and ben­e­fits of var­i­ous renew­able energy sources.

• Plan­ning the Urban Envi­ron­ment, Jan. 23–24, at the Black­well Inn on Ohio State University’s Colum­bus cam­pus. This ses­sion will focus on strate­gies involved in trans­form­ing urban areas and sub­urbs into sus­tain­able communities.

Reg­is­tra­tion for the full pro­gram, which includes cur­ricu­lum mate­ri­als, three overnight ses­sions includ­ing field trips, meals and lodg­ing, and the one-week online ses­sion, is $1,400.

Reg­is­tra­tion for indi­vid­ual ses­sions is $350.

For more infor­ma­tion and to reg­is­ter, visit oeli.osu.edu/home.

Par­tic­i­pants may be able to earn con­tin­u­ing pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment (CPD) or con­tin­u­ing pro­fes­sional edu­ca­tion (CPE) credit. In addi­tion, grad­u­ate or under­grad­u­ate credit hours are avail­able through Ohio State’s School of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ural Resources. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Baird at (614) 292‑8603 or baird.41@osu.edu, or Bon­nell at (614) 292‑9383 or bonnell.8@osu.edu.

Fund­ing and sup­port for this pro­gram was pro­vided by OSU Exten­sion, Ohio State’s Office of Energy and Envi­ron­ment, the National Urban Com­mu­nity Forestry Advi­sory Com­mis­sion and the Vir­ginia Nat­ural Resources Lead­er­ship Institute.

Martha Fil­ipic can be reached at (614) 292‑9833 or e-mail filipic.3@osu.edu. Sources: Anne Baird, (614) 292‑8603 or e-mail baird.41@osu.edu.

Posted by Martha Filipic on Sep 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.