Sue Weller, director of administration for the Department of Environmental Studies, adjusts the hood for new grad John Peckham, MS ’13.

Consider your investments, Oran Hesterman, president and chief executive officer of Fair Food Network, advised the graduates at AUNE’s graduation on May 18. But it wasn’t money he was talking about.

He meant investments of “time, passion, intellect, and focused energy…The returns on investment that really matter most are the ROIs that educate our children, cool the planet, provide biosecurity, care for the most vulnerable, and nurture democracy.”

AUNE awarded degrees to 145 graduates and finishers at the ceremony held at Keene Middle School. President David A. Caruso, who is retiring after seven years at AUNE, welcomed the graduates and guests and awarded the diplomas. Six new PhDs were hooded, as well as Roxanna Wolfe, PsyD ‘89, a member of AUNE’s board of trustees who wasn’t able to attend her commencement from the Department of Clinical Psychology in 1989.

Judith Jeremiah Karangi, MS ’13, and her baby son are congratulated by Julie Dickson, executive assistant to President David Caruso.

Hesterman, a long-time friend of Caruso, emphasized the importance of investing time and attention in discovering the purpose of our lives. As a successful executive at the nonprofit W.K. Kellogg Foundation, he was working with donors who wanted to fund a foundation for sustainable food systems. The year was 2008, and he was considering how to use all that money when the donors called him. “Bernie has been arrested,” they said. “Bernie,” of course, was white-collar fraudster Bernard Madoff. Their money was gone.

That fiasco forced Hesterman to answer a critical question: “What is the universe asking me to do next?” The answer led him to organize the Fair Food Network, a nonprofit that works for a fair and just food system.

Then he held up an heirloom apple, picked from a tree he had planted at a California commune forty years ago. “This is the sweetest return on investment that I ever taste…My hope is that you understand the importance of the investment that you have made here at AUNE, and you’ll find as a sweet a return on those investments as I found in this apple.”

Larry Stone, chair of the Antioch University Board of Governors; Charlton MacVeagh, vice chair of AUNE’s board of trustees, and Robert Bull, MS ’09, also spoke. Maisie Tyler Rinne, MS ’13, led the audience in the Sustainability and Social Justice Pledge.

Tom Burgess, MBA ’13, performed a song that he wrote; the Monadnock Brass Quintet also  provided music.

These degrees were awarded:

• 113 master’s degrees in applied psychology, education, environmental studies, and management
• 25 doctoral degrees (PsyD) in clinical psychology
• Three doctoral degrees (PhD) in environmental studies
• Three doctoral degrees (PhD) in marriage and family therapy
• One certificate in post-master’s principal certification

For the 2012-2013 school year, 288 master’s and doctoral degrees and certificates will have been conferred on AUNE students.

Read coverage of Commencement by the Keene Sentinel and by  the Union Leader.

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Caption: Students in AUNE’s Climate Change: Resilience, Adaptation, and Mitigation class:
Front-Timothy Demers, Viola Katusiime, Mari Brunner, Victoria Gasidlo, and Megan Kennedy.
Back: Eliza Kovnat, Marilyn Castriotta, Miriam Rubinstein, Michael Nork, and Jordan McCarron.

Students in the Climate Change: Resilience, Adaptation, and Mitigation course in Environmental Studies presented the results of their consulting project to the City of Keene’s Cities for Climate Protection Committee (CPC) on May 9.

The students’ project updated the city on implementation of its Climate Change Plan. They assembled the data for a final report  and did a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis; they also provided recommendations for future action.

Keene’s City Council created the CPC in 2000 to help reduce  greenhouse gas emissions through  a climate action plan, adopted in 2004 by the city,  and for public education and outreach.

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This noncredit certificate program is for you if you’re planning to lead a green team or integrate sustainability practices into a business or nonprofit.

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Working professionals with a graduate degree in counseling who want specialized training in Marriage and Family Therapy will find what they need in this certificate program. Check out our new reduced price!

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Check out this program for working professionals.

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•Monday, May 13. 10:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., Monadnock Peer Support Agency, 64 Beaver Street.

•Tuesday, May 14. 9 a.m. – Noon, Prospect Place, 361 Court Street.

•Wednesday, May 15. 12:30 – 3 p.m., Franklin School, 217 Washington Street; 3:30–5 p.m. Rise, 147 Washington Street.

CGC is building the local capacity to grow food and address issues of food insecurity related to climate change, personal and communal health, and resiliency.

For more information, contact Megan Kennedy, 513-767-5324, or mkennedy7@antioch.edu.

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The goal of Project Eye to Eye is to pair college students with elementary and middle school students with learning disabilities and ADHD, and to facilitate the growth of self-esteem and self-advocacy skills, using art-based one-to-one mentoring.

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The scholarship, the highest award given by the faculty of the Department of Environmental Studies to one of its students, goes to a student who has displayed academic excellence and environmental leadership.

Marilyn aspires to learn and embody the principles and practices of sustainable leadership, according to the faculty. At AUNE, she represented the Conservation Biology concentration in the Student Alliance, and served on the President’s Council and the recent Presidential Search Committee. She works as a Summit Steward on Mount Monadnock for the ES Department’s Monadnock Ecological Research and Education project and is co-coordinating, with faculty member Peter Palmiotto, the biannual Northeast Alpine Stewardship Gathering, hosted by AUNE this November.

In the community, Marilyn attends the monthly meetings of the Keene Conservation Commission and is the education and outreach coordinator for the Greater Keene Air Quality Campaign. Actively engaged in volunteer community service,  she was recently awarded a Keene Elm City Rotary scholarship for “service above self.”  She attended the Climate Reality Leadership Corps training with Al Gore, and volunteers for Climate Reality Project by serving as a training mentor for area climate presenters. She also volunteers as a team leader for Wilderness Heals, an annual three-day pledge hike in the White Mountains benefiting the Elizabeth Stone House in Boston, which provides shelter and services to the homeless. Meanwhile, Marilyn has been a full-time graduate student with excellent academic standing. Her research thesis is on alpine ecology.

The Ginsberg-Wessels Award was created in 2008 by the estate of William R. Ginsberg, a pioneering environmental lawyer who attended Antioch College, and Tom Wessels, AUNE faculty emeritus. The scholarship is awarded annually to a student who displays academic excellence and true leadership.

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 •The 2013 Community Member Environmental Excellence Award will go to W. Rhett Lamb, planning director for the City of Keene.

•The 2013 Alumni Environmental Excellence Award will go to Amber Pairis, PhD ’05, climate change advisor for the California Department of Fish and Game’s emerging climate change program.

The awards are presented each year to an alumnus and to an individual in the community who have contributed significantly to sustainability and environmental protection through their work or personal actions.

About Amber Pairis
As the climate change advisor for the emerging climate change program, Amber coordinates the California Department of Fish and Game’s (CDFG) activities on climate change adaptation and mitigation. Her work focuses on developing a climate change strategy for fish and wildlife within the CDFG’s management and policy branches and integrating a thought process that actively addresses climate change into all natural resources activities.

Amber manages the internal climate change task force, works closely with stakeholders and technical specialists to develop and disseminate climate change information, participates as the CDFG’s representative on several of the California Resource Agency’s climate action team subgroups, and regularly convenes a working stakeholder group to determine the views and priorities of partners.
Before coming to California, Amber worked for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in Washington, D.C., where she was the science and research liaison coordinating research and policy between the state fish and game departments and federal natural resource agencies on energy and climate change issues. She completed her PhD in Environmental Studies with an emphasis on Conservation Biology at AUNE.

About W. Rhett Lamb
Rhett Lamb has been the planning director for the City of Keene, New Hampshire, since 1996. His planning tasks include developing comprehensive plans, drafting zoning ordinances and subdivision/site plan regulations, and reviewing development proposals.  He is involved in the implementation of management systems and computer mapping to support planning functions and municipal decision making.

Rhett has a master’s degree from Tufts University’s Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, where he specialized in land use and water resource protection.  He served on the New Hampshire Governor’s Climate Change Policy Task Force and has been working on the City of Keene’s Climate Initiative since 1998. ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability-USA recently gave a Sustainability Leadership Award to Keene for its integration of climate adaptation and climate mitigation into the city’s Community Vision and Comprehensive Plan.

Rhett is on the board of directors of the Hannah Grimes Center and the Monadnock Conservancy. He is co-chair of the New England Municipal Sustainability Network. He helps coach the Keene High School alpine ski team and is long-time member of the New Hampshire Alpine Ski Racing Association.

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