{"id":18595,"date":"2019-10-10T09:53:25","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T13:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?page_id=18595"},"modified":"2019-10-16T15:30:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T19:30:49","slug":"directors-letter-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/newsletters\/directors-letter-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Director’s Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"David
David Hart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sowing Seeds of Sustainability Leadership<\/h3>\n

Dear Readers,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very encouraging to see Mitchell Center students and faculty join forces with stakeholders to address important sustainability challenges. Because of the thorny nature of these challenges, however, quick fixes are often hard to come by. For that reason, we also support their efforts to develop leadership capacities that will help them remain engaged in these collaborations and find lasting solutions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an ambitious goal, but we\u2019re making progress on multiple fronts. As you\u2019ll see in the article Training Conservation Leaders<\/em><\/a>, an interdisciplinary team of faculty has received a major grant to train a new generation of conservation leaders. By building on the valuable leadership experiences these faculty gained on previous Mitchell Center projects, we are now growing the capacity of our \u201cacademic grandchildren\u201d to find solutions that will directly benefit Maine\u2019s economy, communities, and environment for many decades to come.<\/p>\n

Because the Mitchell Center is increasingly viewed as a national and global sustainability leader, we are also being asked to share what we\u2019re learning. For instance, several members of our Future of Dams project team (see related article<\/a>) will soon lead a series of workshops for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These trainings will help NOAA work more effectively with diverse stakeholders during the relicensing process for hydropower dams throughout the country.<\/p>\n

Major universities are also asking for our help. Mitchell Center Senior Fellow Linda Silka<\/a> and I were recently invited to help train a research team led by the University of Delaware that is focused on water-related sustainability challenges in the mid-Atlantic region. Our experience will benefit them as they begin work on a $20 million National Science Foundation grant.<\/p>\n

I also had the privilege of collaborating with leaders of innovative sustainability programs from six continents on a paper in one of the world\u2019s foremost scientific publications, Nature Sustainability<\/a>. Our paper identifies strategies for training future leaders of sustainability programs in universities and non-governmental organizations, based in part on creative approaches developed by our researchers.<\/p>\n

Of course, none of these efforts is sufficient to address the many sustainability challenges we\u2019re facing. Taken together, however, they are growing the supply of dedicated, collaborative and capable leaders \u2013 that all-too-scarce but indispensable resource for creating a brighter environmental, social and economic future.<\/p>\n

David Hart<\/a>
\nDirector, Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sowing Seeds of Sustainability Leadership Dear Readers, It\u2019s very encouraging to see Mitchell Center students and faculty join forces with stakeholders to address important sustainability challenges. Because of the thorny nature of these challenges, however, quick fixes are often hard to come by. For that reason, we also support their efforts to develop leadership capacities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"parent":2179,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page-withsidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18595","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"mitchellcenter","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/mitchellcenter\/"},"comment_info":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18595"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18685,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18595\/revisions\/18685"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}