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It was a summer of teamwork for students Kaitlyn Thayer ’19, Julia McGuire ’20, Nora McEntee ’19, and Amarilys Milian ’20 as they worked with a sociology professor to investigate local food systems in Central New York.

Food issues and environmentalism remain hot topics at Hamilton, as exhibited by the well-attended panel hosted by The Levitt Center Sustainability Program, “Envisioning the Future of Food.” Panelists included scholars of sociology, geography and political science.

“We aren’t all producers, but we’re all eaters,” Danielle Nierenberg pointed out last night. Nierenberg is the president and founder of Food Tank, a nonprofit organization begun in 2013 that is “dedicated to building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters.” The event was part of the Levitt Center Speaker Series, and was additionally supported by the Arthur Coleman Tuggle Fund.

Between all the statistics, graphs and technical language, some find it difficult to conceptualize the real local impacts of climate change. On April 13, Jody Roberts, director of the Institute for Research at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, spoke to the Hamilton community about art’s ability to help people visualize the pressing consequences of environmental shifts. His lecture, titled “Sensing Change: How Art and Science Work to Communicate Climate Change,” was the final event in the Levitt Center’s Sustainability Lecture Series.

Rachel Sobel ’15 is among six student delegates sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) who are currently attending the UN Climate Talks in Warsaw, Poland. A videoconference with the student delegates will take place today, Thursday, Nov. 21, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Levitt Center Conference Room (KJ251A).

As Hamilton  prepares for its new bike path, cultural anthropologist Luis Vivanco’s lecture, “Reconsidering the Bicycle,” could not be more timely. Vivanco, director of the Global and Regional Studies Program and founding director of the Global Studies Program at the University of Vermont, spoke about the current global state of using bikes as alternative transportation.

Jen Kleindienst ’09 returned to Hamilton on Oct. 21 to speak to the community about her career in environmental activism and give advice to those interested in the campus sustainability movement.

Jen Kleindienst ’09, sustainability coordinator at Wesleyan University, will present a lecture titled “Challenges and Successes of Promoting Campus Sustainability,” on Monday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m., in the Red Pit, KJ.  Her lecture, part of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center Fall 2013 speaker series, is free and open to the public.

In his April 22 lecture, author and University of Western Ontario professor Tony Weis traced the beginning of the global food crisis to advancements in agribusiness, farm subsidies and global food aid that then forced many small scale farmers in developing countries out of business.

Breena Holland, associate professor of political science and the environmental initiative at Lehigh University, takes a different approach to academic research than many of her colleagues. Holland is less interested in massive data driven studies and more concerned with the real world impact of her work. That’s why much of her time has been spent conducting research intended to directly benefit underprivileged members of Lehigh’s local community of Bethlehem, Pa.  Holland was a guest speaker in the Levitt Center Sustainability series on Feb. 7.