AU Receives $867K NSF Grant to Advance Wildfire Prediction with AI

Computer Science Professor Leah Ding awarded grant to develop innovative AI and machine learning algorithms to detect and forecast wildfires. Wildfires are growing faster, fiercer, and harder to predict—but artificial intelligence may soon tip the balance. Backed by a $867,245 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), American University Professor Leah Ding is building an AI system that can detect, forecast, and assess the risk of wildfire activity in real time and with unprecedented precision.

Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate Enters Next Phase With Official Launch

Building on last year’s announcement of its creation through Discovery Vanderbilt, the university has officially launched the Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate to advance research and partnerships. “This is a landmark moment for Vanderbilt University as we officially launch a center dedicated to advancing bold solutions to some of the most urgent challenges of our time,” Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs C. Cybele Raver said at the center’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

With New Recycled Fabric, Poster Printing Goes Green at Yale

Historically, the printing and publishing industry has taken a high toll on the environment—consuming vast amounts of water and energy, accelerating deforestation, and emitting hazardous air pollutants. 

Yale Printing & Publishing Services (YPPS) knows this reality better than most—which is why the print shop has spent years working to reduce its environmental footprint.

Vassar College and the Environmental Movement

If you had to choose a spot where the American environmental movement had its origins, it would be, surprisingly, just north of New York City and along the Hudson River, including upstate New York. That’s what Rachel Carson Council President and CEO, Dr. Robert K. Musil, told his audience at Vassar College at the start of his fall tour of campuses. Musil was invited to Vassar and hosted by the chair of the Environmental Studies Program, Dr. Alison Spodek Keimowitz.

Trinity’s Long Walk to a Greener Tomorrow

Since the early nineteenth century, Trinity College has helped shape the heart of Hartford, its tree-lined campus woven into the rhythm of Connecticut’s capital city. Along the storied Long Walk, brownstone buildings stand as enduring landmarks that have inspired generations of students. Beneath this historic charm, Trinity is forging a bold new vision for climate justice and civic engagement. One that marries the liberal arts tradition with a forward-looking commitment to environmental action.

Davidson and the Legacy of Rachel Carson

Davidson College, founded in 1837, is among the most selective and historic liberal arts colleges in the nation, but one that emphasizes not just excellence, but purpose and commitment to the greater good and to the dignity and equality of all people. That commitment includes a deep concern for the environment that is reflected in the college’s strong and interdisciplinary Department of Environmental Studies, an ambitious Climate Action Plan, and student and faculty engagement in environmental justice and health projects.

From Coast to Campus at the University of Miami

Since its founding in 1925, the University of Miami has been a hub for innovation and discovery, where subtropical landscapes and coastal life shape both scholarship and daily experience. Beneath the lush palms and coral-stone walkways, the university is forging a bold, forward-looking vision for environmental leadership—one that blends research, policy, and community partnerships to confront the climate crisis and build resilience across South Florida and beyond.

New Tool Helps Wastewater Treatment Plants Across North Carolina

When is the last time you thought about your sewer system? While often overlooked, sewer systems play a crucial role in transporting and treating wastewater and are an integral part of our infrastructure when it comes to public health. A recent project, led by professor Chris Osburn of NC State’s Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences Department (MEAS) and funded by WRRI, aims to improve the efficacy of wastewater treatment plants by monitoring stormwater dilution. Sara Cornejo-Zepeda, a masters student in MEAS, works with Osburn on this project.

Indiana University Launches New Interdisciplinary Institute to Tackle Global Environmental Challenges

The Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, in collaboration with the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences, is proud to announce the establishment of the Environment, Society, and Sustainability Institute, a new interdisciplinary hub to address pressing environmental and sustainability challenges while preparing the next generation of scientists, policymakers, communicators, and leaders.

‘All action is local’: Clark to reestablish Sustainability and Climate Committee

On Monday, at a tree-planting ceremony held to celebrate the launch of the School of Climate, Environment, and Society, President David Fithian announced the reestablishment of the Sustainability and Climate Committee. The committee will be composed of faculty, students, and staff, who will help guide the University’s efforts to shape a strategic vision and action plan that will serve as a roadmap for achieving sustainability goals through its operations, academics, and community engagement.

WVU Launches Sustainable Energy Student Ambassadors

SESA is a new student organization aimed at empowering students with the knowledge, skills and resources needed to lead the future of sustainable energy research, advocacy and innovation.

Student officers from five different colleges will come together to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and advance sustainable and diversified energy leadership and workforce development at WVU.

Associate Professor K.C. Busch Appointed to Education for Thriving in a Changing Climate Committee

K.C. Busch, an associate professor of science education in NC State’s College of Education, has been appointed to serve on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Education for Thriving in a Changing Climate Committee. This committee will draw on activities in science education, environmental education, sustainability, civic engagement and communication.

Trinity Student Receives National Recognition for Urban Pond Research

Avery Sands ’26, a Trinity College environmental science major with a minor in legal studies, has been awarded a National Environmental Leadership Fellowship by the Rachel Carson Council (RCC), one of the nation’s oldest environmental advocacy organizations. This national recognition supports her research and community outreach efforts focused on environmental health and justice in urban communities. Sands is one of 35 students selected for this fellowship nationally.

Why Dismantling Hispanic Serving Institutions Is a Direct Attack on America’s Workforce

This National Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Week should have been a time of celebration — honoring the more than 600 colleges and universities that educate two-thirds of all Hispanic undergraduates and drive America’s workforce forward. Instead, the week, which coincides with National Hispanic Heritage Month and is recognized by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), has turned into a call for action fighting for the very existence of the federal HSI designation.

Education Department Cancels $350M in Grants For Minority-serving Institutions

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Wednesday decried the specialized funding as promoting “government-mandated racial quotas.”

The cut grants have supported myriad initiatives at MSIs, such as purchasing laboratory equipment, improving buildings and classrooms, supporting student services like tutoring, and establishing endowment funds.

Federal Judge Declines to Restore $1B in Grants Cut by NSF

The lawsuit over the agency’s mass grant terminations will proceed, but plaintiffs will have to seek monetary relief in another court.

In April, NSF issued a new statement of priorities asserting that grant awards “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

The Justice Department had demanded that James E. Ryan step down in order to help resolve a civil rights investigation into the school.

The Trump administration on Friday secured perhaps the most significant victory in its pressure campaign on higher education, forcing the resignation of the University of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, over the college’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Judge Reverses Trump Administration’s Cuts of Billions of Dollars to Harvard University

A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in research funding for Harvard University, delivering a significant victory to the Ivy League school in its battle with the White House. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of the Trump administration’s demands for changes to Harvard’s governance and policies.

Texas A&M Fires Professor After Viral Video, Raising Free Speech Concerns

The termination came the day after a state lawmaker shared the clip and accused the professor of perpetuating “DEI and LGBTQ indoctrination.”

Texas A&M University this week quickly fired a children’s literature professor and removed a department head and a dean from their administrative positions after a state representative shared a video of the instructor teaching about gender identity.

UC Employees, Unions Sue Trump Administration Over ‘financial coercion’

In part, the federal government wants $1 billion from the University of California and regular access to “a wide variety” of employee and student records.

A coalition of University of California faculty groups and employee unions sued the Trump administration Tuesday over the federal government’s efforts to “exert ideological control” over the system and its 10 institutions.

Civil Rights Pioneer and A&T Four Member Joseph McNeil Dies at 83

Maj. Gen. Joseph McNeil, one of four North Carolina A&T State University students whose 1960 sit-in protest helped catalyze the Civil Rights Movement, died Thursday morning. He was 83. McNeil's death leaves Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair Jr.) as the sole surviving member of the A&T Four, the group of Black college students who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960. The protest sparked a nationwide movement that contributed to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Vanishing Bayous: On a Boat at Ground Zero for Sea Level Rise

Eric Verdin clearly knew where he was going. These waters are like family, after all, but his GPS plotter was frantic. Using the latest marine charts, its line tracing our path on the screen in front of us blinked red, warning us that we were about to plow into dry land. It was a good time, it seemed to suggest, to ABANDON SHIP. But we had open seas ahead of us and 8 feet of water under our keel.

“There used to be an orange grove here,” our captain conceded with a shrug.

An Energy Department Climate Change Report ‘Completely Ignored’ Adaptation, Rutgers Professor Says

Pamela McElwee joined a group of 85 climate scientists who refuted DOE’s faulty science last week. Trump’s climate denialism, she believes, is designed to sow confusion—and inaction.

In late July, the U.S.  Department of Energy released a 141-page review of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the United States. The report questioned formative peer-reviewed work on climate change.

2025 National Student Vote Summit

On November 12-14, 2025, the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition is proud to host the 10th annual National Student Vote Summit.

At the summit, we’ll unite nonprofit leaders, campus staff, administrators, faculty members, philanthropic partners, election officials, and students from across the country to continue a decade-strong tradition of collective action and impact.

The Attack on Higher Education and the Rise of Anti-Intellectualism

It’s officially back-to-school season. Kindergartners are starting their first of what will be the next thirteen years of their education. All across the country, students are preparing to learn. This is my 16th first day of school. I’m entering my graduate program in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Instead of the joy and excitement I expected to feel, there’s a cloud hanging over what should be one of the most important days of my life.

A Very Huggable Wasp

Upon my arrival at the urgent care clinic in mid-July of this year, I was informed that I was the third person to come in that week from a wasp sting.

“It’s just the season for it,” shrugged the lady at the check-in counter.

I guess it was. At the sting site, my hand had swollen to twice its normal size, flamed to the color of a ripe Heirloom Tomato, and my skin felt as though its cling wrap elasticity was being stretched too tightly over last night's leftovers.

Requiem for the American Chestnut

I was hiking with my dad one summer when I was old enough to carry my own pack with my very own Kindle tucked in a safe inside pocket, but young enough that everything still had that haze of magic. Time and memory stretched and shifted in ways that seemed to be lost once I got safely into the double-digits. So that moment when he stopped and put his hand on a small pale tree shifting slightly in the wind comes back to me quickly and more clearly than much of my more recent history.

Preserving the Quiet Beauty of the Salt Marsh

Trees and buildings rush by in a blur as I stare out the window. I’m on the first leg of my six-hour train ride from Boston, Massachusetts, to Washington, D.C. When the train slows down, I observe the changing landscapes outside: from cities and small neighborhoods to coastlines and harbors.

As an aspiring naturalist, I tend to observe everything around me, appreciating the beauty of nature, but also noting the undeniable human impacts on the environment

Why Can’t We Ban Mancozeb?

I have two pairs of my Dad’s old pants. They look similar to the distressed, ripped, and discolored jeans that are trendy right now. However, they were once perfectly stiff blue jeans with no hint that they could one day fray. Each one of the tears, rips, and stains tells a new story of my father working on the banana plantation. From the long days of working in the hot sun to the chemical burns he experienced from pesticides. Many people have heard of pesticides, and over time, thanks to activists like Rachel Carson, we have learned they can be dangerous to our environment and the people who work with them.

Choosing to Look Up

Sometimes change arrives quietly, disguised as an ordinary evening. For me, it came in February of my freshman year, when I pressed play on a documentary called Cowspiracy. I started it on a whim, half curious and half bored. Ninety minutes later, I was sitting in the dark, unable to shake what I had just seen. The film pulled back the curtain on the global food system and revealed the staggering costs of something as ordinary as dinner. Cattle ranching was tearing apart the Amazon. Animal agriculture was consuming more water than I could imagine.

Waves We Cannot Touch: Our Beaches, Their Boundaries.

The first time I saw Jamaica on a map, I was struck by its smallness. A sliver of green floating in endless blue, as if the island could be swallowed whole by the sea around it. And yet, within that tiny speck was my entire world, the roads that took me to school, the hills that framed sunsets in, the voices of neighbors carrying across concrete walls. The map made Jamaica look fragile, but living there made it feel infinite.

The Soldier Who Carved Roads Through Mountains and Barriers

Born enslaved in Mays Lick, Kentucky, in 1864, Charles Young began life amid the nation’s greatest fracture. His parents, Gabriel and Arminta Young, escaped slavery when he was an infant, carrying their son across the Ohio River to freedom. In Ripley, Ohio—a town alive with the daring of the Underground Railroad—Young grew up steeped in both the promise of liberty and the persistence of prejudice. His life would become a hallmark of resilience, carrying him from the classrooms of a small border town to the high Sierras and the highest ranks of the United States Army.