Dear Rachel Carson Fellows,
 
As you probably all know, Cindy Ott our President of five years ended her term this past September. We cannot thank her enough for her love of the RCC and the amazing work she and the executive committee (Nicole Seymour, Daisy Onyige, Siddhartha Krishnan, Claudia Leal and Elin Kelsey) have done to promote the ideals and goals of the Rachel Carson Center. We commend them all on their efforts to keep our global network of scholars vibrant and more interconnected than ever.
 
Rob and I are delighted to continue in their footsteps.  A number of initiatives are being planned for this year and one of these is to launch a regular SOF newsletter. It will include highlights of our get togethers, workshops, visits, accomplishments, meetings, and life events. This will help us continue to foster the kind of strong bonds that have characterized the RCC community over the past years. So please keep us posted and do send us photos about things you would like to share!

The global map is complete! The questionnaire was sent in an earlier email from Cindy, and is linked in the section towards the end of this newsletter. We would appreciate if you could send us your updated information so that we can include it as soon as possible. One of the goals of the Global Map is for you to see members of the RCC community that are close to your home institution in case you would like to collaborate, visit, or invite them to your campus. In fact, we would like to encourage each of you to think about inviting RCC alumni to your institution as part of our joint effort to promote an ongoing collaborative spirit of scholarship. Each year many of our universities, departments, and programs organize speaker series in which scholars from around the world are invited to our respective campuses. In planning for such a series, do look over the roster of our alumni. 
 
We welcome your ideas and suggestions for strengthening our community and collaboration and we are very excited to be able to have this opportunity of continuing the excellent work of Cindy and the executive committee.

Sincerely, 
 
Sophia and Rob 
 

After twelve years of generous support, funding from Germany’s Ministry of Research and Education will end on July 31, 2021. But the Rachel Carson Center will continue to go strong, with plans to expand rather than shrink in the coming years. The RCC will be building new graduate programs; it will expand its function as a research institute; and it will continue its funding for international fellows and alumni. The number of fellows which peaked in 2019 at 55, will be reduced but the fellowship program will remain strong in the foreseeable future.

Major funding for the RCC’s new graduate program in Environmental Humanities comes from the “University of the Future” funding line of the Volkswagen Foundation, which will run from the end of 2019 through 2027. It will provide transformational funding to develop an exceptional Masters Program at LMU. Specifically, the grant will be used to help the RCC to learn productively from the opportunities and pitfalls of existing environmental humanities and science programs from around the globe; to finance workshops and short-term-visiting professorships; and to design and become experts in using innovative teaching tools, such as MOOCs, field seminars, digital multimedia presentations, and exhibitions. An inaugural workshop on Teaching Environmental Humanities (convened by Anna Antonova and Christof Mauch) took place on November 22 and 23, 2019.

More updates on the RCC’s exciting future programs and projects will be announced over the course of 2020.
 
 

The Society of Fellows Global Map is done! This is a great resource for connecting with former fellows and visiting scholars in your region, or wherever you may be traveling or visiting. We will be refining and updating the map in the coming months, and if you have not entered or updated your contact information, please do so here. 
 

Interested in returning to Munich as an Alumni Fellow? Do you have a great idea for a public outreach or collaborative project? The Society of Fellows is accepting applications for Carson Society Munich Fellowships, and Public Outreach and Collaborative Grants until Jan. 31, 2020. Follow this link for more information.