Environmental Excellence Award History

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In 2003, the ES awards in their current form were preceded by awarding honoree MS degrees to Jayni Chase, Eleanor Briggs and Sharon Bloome for their contributions to Environmental Studies.

The Department of Environmental Studies Environmental Excellence Awards were officially established in 2004 to be given annually at the ES Department finishing ceremony. The Environmental Service Awards were created to recognize a community member and an alumni who have made outstanding contributions to the sustainability of the environment through their professional or personal actions.

The first annual awards were presented in May 2004. Rosemary Conroy '92 received the Environmental Service Alumni award. Donald and Lillian Stokes received the Environmental Excellence award.

Below are other past recipients of the Environmental Excellence Awards, which are presented annually in the spring.

2005: Mr. Richard Donovan '82 MS RMC and Ms. Cheryl King Fischer

Mr. Richard Donovan is the founder of SmartWood under the auspices of the Rain Forest Alliance. Today SmartWood is one of only four green certification organization worldwide that operates under the Forest Stewardship Council and is a major force in changing the way forests worldwide are managed.

Cheryl King Fischer is the Executive Director of the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund. She has a long history in the environmental field, and she has made a dynamic contribution of vision, financial help, and technical support to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups in New England.

2006: Mitchell Thomashow & Dean Cycon

For thirty years, Dr. Mitchell Thomashow guided Antioch University New England's Department of Environmental Studies from the single degree program from which he graduated in 1976, to an interdisciplinary department housing six master's programs and an innovative doctoral program. He is now the president of Unity College in Maine.

Dean Cycon is the founder and head of Dean's Beans® Coffee, Using its power as a coffee roaster and distributor, Dean's Beans® only purchases shade-grown, organic coffee beans. The company buys directly from the small-scale, village-based producers who grow the beans and guarantees an independently verifiable fair-trade price to these farmers.

2007: Cindy Thomashow & James Rousmaniere

Cindy Thomashow graduated from the Department of Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England in 1978 and went on to serve as a core faculty member in the department for over twenty-five years. During this time, she directed the school's Environmental Education program and worked closely with Teacher Certification students. She also directs the Center for Environmental Education Online, a dynamic electronic clearinghouse and resource center for environmental education throughout the world. She has also been a major innovator in the integration of environmental literacy into educational arenas such as zoos, museums, aquariums and other public venues that cultivate a conservation ethic in the public-at-large. Her most recent outreach project was the development of a school-based radio curriculum for Living on Earth, NPR's environmental radio program. Working mostly in urban centers, she worked with Antioch's graduate students to train high school students to use radio programming as a way to document and broadcast environmental information focused on local place. She is currently writing a book on her experience directing this program. She has also been a leader in the development of an interpretive trail and the design of signage for an Audubon-certified “wilderness” golf course and has just finished six years on the Appalachian Mountain Club Board of Directors where she volunteered as a consultant in the development of The Mountain Classroom curriculum and the construction of the new “green” Highland Center in the White Mountains. She is nationally recognized as one of the most innovative and inspiring leaders in the field of environmental education today.

James Rousmaniere (Jim) is the editor and president of The Keene Sentinel, a progressive daily newspaper serving southwestern New Hampshire that was founded in 1799. At the start of his career, Jim graduated from Harvard, spent a summer as a reporter for the Durango Herald in Colorado, joined the Peace Corps, and spent two years surveying irrigation canals in southern India. He then took a reporting job with The Keene Sentinel in 1970 and two years later joined The Baltimore Sun, eventually reporting on economics in the paper's Washington bureau. He returned to Keene as editor of the Sentinel in 1981. In addition to his management of the Sentinel, he has been president of the New England Newspaper Association. Though international media development organizations, he also undertakes management and journalism consultancies with editors and publishers in Asia, Africa, and Central Europe. During his many years of service as the editor of the Sentinel, Jim has made his paper a showcase for some of the best environmental reporting in the region. Besides a weekly Environment Section, Jim has made sure that the paper has published major pieces on environmental issues and activism in its front news section and on its editorial page. Jim has also taught an environmental journalism course at Antioch, where successful students published their environmental pieces in the Sentinel, and he has held editorial meetings for Antioch students where they role-play pitching their ideas about key environmental stories that his paper could cover. His commitment to civic journalism and providing local citizens with well-researched facts, insightful opinion, and inspiring stories of environmental activism are a remarkable contribution to the environmental literacy of his readers.

Samuel Kaymen, 2008 Community Member Environmental Excellence Award Recipient

Samuel Kaymen was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. In the 1970’s he studied Bio-Dynamic Agriculture with Herbert Koepf and Peter Escher. He went on to serve as a Director on the board of the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association. In 1971 he founded the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) and served as President for ten years. Samuel founded and served as Director of The Rural Education Center, an organic farming school in Wilton, NH. He served on the administrative council of The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NESARE) program of the USDA for three years (http://www.smartgrowth.org/library/articles.asp?art=2421&res=1280). Samuel founded Stonyfield Farm in 1983 and after 17 years in the yogurt-making business, Samuel decided it was time for something new. He is presently the Vice-Chair of EARTH University Foundation, a private, non-profit, international University contributing to the sustainable development of the humid tropics through education in the agricultural sciences and natural resources. He also serves on the Boards of Sustainable Harvest International, the School for Community Economic Development at Southern NH University and the Midcoast Green Collaborative. Samuel and his wife Louise are now growing their own food, cutting their own firewood, and getting their electricity and hot water from the sun in Walpole, Maine. They are grandparents of six beautiful, lively children, who live nearby and visit Nana & Grandpa often!

David Wiley, 2008 Alumni Environmental Excellence Award Recipient

David Wiley is the Research Coordinator for the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and has been investigating the marine environment for over 20 years. He received his PhD in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England with a focus on environmental decision-making and conservation biology. His dissertation, “Conservation Research under Conditions of Social Conflict and Scientific Uncertainty,” developed the theoretical aspects of a "post-normal science" approach to research and applied them to a vexing conservation problem involving the accidental entrapment in fishing gear of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. Dr. Wiley’s research has ranged from studying the reproductive and foraging ecology of baleen whales, to mapping marine toxic/hazardous dumpsites. He has worked with fishermen to redesign fishing gear to reduce the risk of whale entanglement and pioneered methods to successfully rescue mass stranded whales and dolphins. Most recently, his research led to the shifting of shipping lanes into the port of Boston, MA, an international effort to reduce the risk of ship strike to endangered whales. Currently he is leading a multi-organizational study of sound and noise in the Stellwagen Bank sanctuary and a multi-organizational study using advanced multi-sensor telemetry and novel visualization software to explore the underwater behavior of endangered whales. His results have appeared in numerous scientific journals such as Conservation Biology, Animal Behavior, Fishery Bulletin, Marine Technology and Marine Mammal Science. He is the past recipient of a Switzer Environmental Leadership Award, a Gulf of Maine Visionary Award, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Human Hero award, and was a 2007 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Employee of the Year. For more information on Dave and his activities visit: http://stellwagen.noaa.gov/welcome.html.