To: The Wellesley College Community
From: President Paula A. Johnson and Provost and Lia Gelin Poorvu ’56 Dean of the College Andrew Shennan
Re: Introducing the Camilla Chandler Frost ’47 Center for the Environment
Date: September 18, 2020
It is with a deep sense of excitement that we announce the launch of the Camilla Chandler Frost ’47 Center for the Environment—a multidisciplinary project that will serve as the physical and intellectual hub for environmental education, activities, and activism for Wellesley College and for communities beyond our campus.
Grounded in a spirit of inquiry-based collaboration, the Frost Center will bring together many of the College’s greatest resources—its liberal arts tradition, strength in the sciences, commitment to service and leadership, singular campus landscape, powerful alumnae network, and global reach—to equip students to confront the complex environmental challenges of our time. The center will engage students, faculty, and staff in developing innovative solutions to environmental and sustainability challenges that affect not only our campus, but the greater Boston community and the communities we are connected to throughout the country and the world.
The Frost Center will prioritize inclusive excellence, and it will be an inviting space for all members of our community, including those who have not always felt at home in the field of environmental studies. Its programming will challenge stereotypical notions of environmental research and advocacy. Its faculty and student ambassadors will cultivate relationships and build bridges to connect historically siloed departments and groups in order to model the systems-based thinking and transdisciplinary cooperation necessary to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the 21st century.
The Frost Center and its exciting slate of upcoming initiatives and programming have been made possible thanks to the generosity of Camilla (Mia) Chandler Frost ’47. A trustee of the College for nearly two decades, Frost was an early and visionary supporter of environmental studies at Wellesley, establishing both the Camilla Chandler Frost Professorship of Environmental Studies and the Frost Professorship in Environmental Science. Her support for the Frost Center for the Environment builds on her substantial legacy of fostering the study and research of environmental issues at the College.
We wish to acknowledge and extend our deepest thanks to the Frost Center steering committee, made up of students, faculty, and staff from across the College, whose thoughtful planning over the previous academic year was integral to the development of the programs and activities we are launching this fall. Erich Hatala Matthes, associate professor of philosophy, led the committee and will also serve as the Frost Center’s inaugural faculty director, and Jess Hunter will serve as program manager.
After the Science Center project is completed next academic year, the Frost Center will be located in a wing in the new building, and its location at the intersection of Science Hill and Global Flora will promote engagement with the environment in the broadest sense. In the meantime, the Frost Center is launching a number of initiatives this fall that will help galvanize generations of Wellesley students to be the teachers, researchers, activists, and storytellers who will shape our environmental future.
Student Ambassadors
Seven student ambassadors will serve as a mobilizing force for the Frost Center, engaging the community and building awareness of environmental issues and the initiatives, courses, and opportunities the center encompasses.
Weekly Community Meetings
Beginning September 23, the Frost Center will be hosting weekly community meetings during community time at 10 a.m. on Wednesdays. Open to all faculty, students, and staff, these regular Zoom meetings are designed to give community members an opportunity to propose programming for the center and discuss environmental issues from around the world.
Frost Center Reads
This fall, the Frost Center and Wellesley’s Native American Student Association will co-host the inaugural “Frost Center Reads” seminar and discussion group. The group will read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, an exploration of the intersection of Indigenous knowledge and natural science; the book is available to the Wellesley community as an ebook. Kimmerer is an environmental biologist and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. To join the discussion group, please visit the Frost Center website.
Practitioner Fellows Program
The Frost Center’s Practitioner Fellow Program will invite experts in the field with a diverse range of backgrounds, including environmental engineers, journalists, activists, and others, to work with students and participate in workshops and courses affiliated with the Frost Center. The very first Paulson-Frost Practitioner Fellow, Rae Wynn-Grant, an ecologist who specializes in science communication and conservation issues, is already meeting and collaborating with students remotely.
A New Home for Ongoing Initiatives
The annual Marjory Stoneman Douglas lecture will now be hosted by the Frost Center. We are pleased to announce that the renowned environmental sociologist Dorceta Taylor, of the Yale School of the Environment, will be delivering the Douglas lecture this spring, as well as holding workshops and meetings with students in conjunction with the Frost Center. Douglas’ Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she was awarded in 1993, will also be prominently displayed in the new Frost Center.
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At a time when we are all reminded daily of the urgent challenge of climate change and new regulatory threats to longstanding environmental protections, the Frost Center is poised to become a catalyst for multidisciplinary inquiry, understanding, and activism. We hope you will join us in congratulating all those whose hard work made the Frost Center possible, and that its many offerings will inspire you to take up the important work we have ahead of us—for our own community, and for our planet.
