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Events at Smith

Artists Jackie Brown & Erin Mallea in the Jannotta Gallery
September 7, 2021
Two artists are now showing in the Jannotta Gallery in Hillyer Hall. Jackie Brown’s primary focus is on sculpture installation. In Malleable And Changeable, she combines three previous installations and invites viewers into imagined biological systems where it can often be hard to tell if the forms are healthy or harmful growths. Erin Mallea is a multidisciplinary artist motivated by an attempt to better understand the spaces she inhabits. In Refuge, she examines the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and explores the past and present of particular microcosms as metaphors for larger human and environmental conditions. July 26th-September 24th, Daily.
Jannotta Gallery, Hillyer
9:00 am to 5:00 pm

CEEDS Lunch and Chat for students
September 7, 2021
Bring your own lunch and join staff from the Center for the Environment for an informal chat about your interests in sustainability and the environment. Are you passionate about the environment and sustainability and want to pursue your passion at Smith? Want to think through how you can connect what you're studying to issues of environmental justice? Need to talk through an article you just read or an idea you just learned about? Just want to hang out? You'll find good company at CEEDS.
CEEDS Office, Wright Hall, Lower Level
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm

Events Off Campus

The Housing Revolution Starts at Home
September 2, 2021
With Dr. Anaid Yerena, Associate Professor, The School of Urban Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma. Current approaches to affordable housing focus on policy and legislative strategies that explicitly uphold White dominant culture and perpetuate capitalist practices and legacies of settler-colonialism while undermining and erasing the knowledge, innovation, and social contributions of Indigenous, Black, and individuals from other marginalized communities. These practices and legacies fuel the current housing crisis in the U.S. My work argues that to counteract these forces, we must decolonize housing by identifying approaches to shelter that support community resilience, particularly in times of crisis. I examine examples from different cultures, in particular, those from indigenous peoples, and the Global South. I take stock of the many modes of shelter that are possible beyond the hegemonic model of housing that clings to individualistic approaches. This work supports the radical imagination needed to change how we address the shelter needs of all members of society and contribute to a future that centers healing, justice, and dismantles systems of oppression. Dr. Yerena holds a Ph.D. in Planning, Policy and Design from the University of California Irvine. Her scholarship focuses on housing, community development, social inequality, and urban governance in the U.S. and Mexico.
UMASS Olver Design Building, Room 170
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Events Off Campus

Defining and Enacting Food Sovereignty in Native American Community Gardening, Culinary Work, and
September 9, 2021
Land Defense. Taken up by activists and academics alike, food sovereignty has become a rallying cry for both established tribal programs and grassroots projects across Indian country. However, what is meant by the term often varies considerably. This talk will place the term within specific notions of American Indian sovereignty, as well as the context of the broader food sovereignty literature, and explore in detail how Native American community farmers and gardeners, Native chefs, and people on the frontlines fighting pipelines and mines describe and define food sovereignty as both concept and method, and a tool for pursuing community goals of promoting health and reclaiming and maintaining tribal culture. With Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California - Berkeley. Register at link below.
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Virtual via zoom
12:00 pm

A Non-Traditional Journey, Exploring a Community-Based Landscape Architecture Model
September 9, 2021
with Daniel Winterbottom, Professor, University of Washington, Department of Landscape Architecture
UMASS Olver Design Building, Room 170
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Opening Reception: Rising Waters/Blazing Earth
September 10, 2021
To address climate change, experts from all walks of life will need to collaborate. That is one of many messages of the Fall 2021 exhibition Rising Waters/Blazing Earth and a particular focus of the opening reception. Smith alumna Gabrielle Russomagno, photographer and installation artist, and Professor Robert M. DeConto, geoscientist, will take part in a 40-minute discussion (Begins at 6 p.m.) on climate change to share their knowledge and experience on issues raised by the artwork displayed. Rising Waters/Blazing Earth is an exhibition presented by Florence, MA studio Zea Mays Printmaking. It features multimedia works by 30 artists about the political, social, and personal issues related to natural resource exploitation—its forms and its consequences, including its effect on art making and human life. The exhibition is associated with a pan-global art project, Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss (recently featured in Orion Magazine), “a multimedia, multi-venue, cross-border art intervention that will investigate extractive industry in all of its forms from mining and drilling to the reckless exploitation of water, soil, trees, marine life, and other natural resources.”
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Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Introduction to Small-scale Biogas
September 10, 2021
Kathy Puffer of SolarCities and NE Womyn in Permaculture is coming to Western Mass this September to empower more people to take global cooling and safe, renewable, resilient, local fuel production into our own hands. Learn about how the technology works, recent local and global developments, and the economic and environmental benefits of methane biogas production. $10-20, sliding scale, * notaflof * RSVP to elyssa.serrilli@ gmail.com (of Patch Neighborhood Farm). Additional donations welcome and will go to relief for Haiti from recent hurricane and earthquake events. * notaflof * = no one turned away for lack of funds.
Virtual
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm

Events at Smith

Arava Institute for Environmental Studies Info Session
September 17, 2021
Students are invited to learn more about the The Arava Institute - an environmental and academic institution in the Middle East, dedicated to preparing future leaders from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and around the world to cooperatively solve the regional and global challenges of our time. Students should email studyabroad @smith.edu to request the zoom link.
Virtual
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm

CEEDS Lunch and Chat for students
September 17, 2021
September 21, 2021
Bring your own lunch and join staff from the Center for the Environment for an informal chat about your interests in sustainability and the environment. Are you passionate about the environment and sustainability and want to pursue your passion at Smith? Want to think through how you can connect what you're studying to issues of environmental justice? Need to talk through an article you just read or an idea you just learned about? Just want to hang out? You'll find good company at CEEDS.
CEEDS Office, Wright Hall, Lower Level
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm

Smith's Notable Trees
September 18, 2021
Take a late-summer walk (rain or shine) with one of Smith's arborists, John Berryhill, and enjoy a multi-sensory, casual learning experience about Smith's fabulous trees. Open to all Smith students, but registration is capped at 30 people! The walk will be accessible to all. Brought to you by the Smith College Botanic Gardens and CEEDS. Use your Smith email and register at the link below:
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Meet on Chapin Lawn
11:00 am

Sustainable Development: Four Years Linking the Smith Campus and the Global Challenge
September 20, 2021
Join Dano Weisbord, Smith College's Associate Vice President for Administration and Campus Planning in this ENX 100 lecture series discussion about carbon mitigation policy and practice. All members of the Smith campus community welcome.
McConnell B15
2:45 pm to 4:00 pm

Events Off Campus

The Northeast's Paraglacial Shore and Its First Order Control.
September 15, 2021
Hosted by Dr. Jon Woodruff and Dr. Brian Yellen from Umass Northeast Climate Adaptation Center. In the Northeast, glacial deposits serve as the predominant sediment source for shorelines extending from New York City to the Maine/Canadian border. In this talk, active research on the spatial distribution and characteristics of these paraglacial deposits and their first-order control on both the current and future integrity of coupled marsh-beach systems will be presented and discussed.
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Virutal via zoom
4:00 pm

Field Notes (and bluegrass!) with CISA
September 17, 2021
An evening of live music and stories about local food and farming in western MA, told by your neighbors. Enjoy live bluegrass music before the film starts at dusk (around 7:45pm). Six amazing local storytellers share their adventures (and misadventures) in farming, cooking, navigating new cultures and relationships, building community, and more! Traditionally a live show, this year’s Field Notes performance was instead filmed at the Academy of Music Theatre by Reelife Productions and edited into a feature film for all to enjoy. If the weather looks bad, the event will move to an online livestream. Check CISA’s Facebook page on Friday afternoon for updates and information on how to stream. A free event brought to you by CISA and River Valley Co-op.
Millside Park, 2 Ferry St, Easthampton.
6:30 pm

Constructing a Small-Scale Biogas System
September 18, 2021
Hosted by Kathy Puffer and Dr. Martin Hunter of the UMass Biomedical Engineering Dept. Participants will construct 3 1-gal and 1 55-gal biodigester, and learn how to retrofit a small camping stove for use with non-pressurized methane. Community members will learn alongside students in the UMass Biomedical Engineering Department who have chosen this as their capstone project. UMass students have studied and experimented with small-scale biogas for several years, and now the university is exploring supporting the development of small-scale biogas systems for home, neighborhood and small farm usage. Welcoming local farmers, food cooperatives, neighborhoods and intentional communities who are interested in the development of small-scale biogas for their operations. 4 hour long workshop- time and location to be shared with registration. $25-50, sliding scale, * no one turned away for lack of funds.* RSVP to elyssa.serrilli@ gmail.com (of Patch Neighborhood Farm) Limited to 10 community members.
TBA

Neighborhood and Small Farm Biogas Systems
September 19, 2021
Hosted by Kathy Puffer, Elyssa Serrillli of Patch Neighborhood Farm & Dr. Martin Hunter of UMass BME. Participants will construct 1 55-gal biodigester, see a demonstration of a 1-gal digester, learn how to retrofit a small camping stove for use with non-pressurized methane, and learn more about the 300-1100 gallon HomeBiogas systems, suitable for larger homes, neighborhoods and small farm use. We will also discuss some of the logistics of home and small farm use through examples in action, as well as the current zoning and building requirements for these systems. $25-50, sliding scale, * notaflof * RSVP to elyssa.serrilli@gmail.com Additional donations welcome and will go to relief for Haiti from recent hurricane and earthquake events. * notaflof * = no one turned away for lack of funds.
TBA with registration
10:00 am to 2:00 pm

The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere
September 21, 2021
This talk focuses on a reclaimed history of the deep past Indigenous people in North and South America during the Paleolithic. Dr. Paulette Steeves, Associate Professor Sociology/Anthropology and Canada Research Chair Tier II Healing and Reconciliation, Algoma University, will share evidence from archaeology sites and Paleolithic environments, landscapes, and mammalian and human migrations to make the case that people have been in the Western Hemisphere not only just prior to Clovis sites (10,200 years ago) but for more than 60,000 years, and likely more than 100,000 years. Steeves will also discuss the political history of American anthropology to focus on why pre-Clovis sites have been dismissed by the field for nearly a century. She will share supporting evidence from genetics and linguistic anthropology regarding First Peoples and time frames of early migrations. Part of The Peabody Museum's "Diggin In" series. Register for the link to join below:
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Virtual via Zoom
1:30 pm