The Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute has announced the winning 2019 books for the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA). Author Diana Beresford-Kroeger has been selected for the top prize in nature writing for her autobiographical release, To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision…
Just west of where the Missouri meets the Mississippi lies a growing Missouri town called Wentzville, an area I should hope I know fairly well. Until August of 2019, I had lived there for all twenty years of my life. Moving to Ashland, Wisconsin was quite the transition as I adjusted to a new landscape,…
As coronavirus moved closer to home, people in the Chequamegon Bay region began to express a desire to do something to help one another. A Facebook group was created and alumna Jenise Swartley ’19 and Assistant Professor of Education Dani O’Brien along with two other people started organizing a network of volunteers. Called the Chequamegon…
On March 13 at 2:36 p.m., Michaela Jurewicz, a senior chemistry student, discovered she had just taken her last in-person class at Northland. “It was a bit . . . unexpected,” she said. An Emergency Response Team had met for days, listening to experts, and working through the implications of coronavirus and how decisions would…
The Great Lakes keep rising. Last year the five lakes that together hold 20 percent of the fresh surface water on the planet broke 10 high-water records, and more are expected to fall this year. The inundation follows a 15-year span from 1999 to 2014 when the so-called upper lakes of Superior, Michigan and Huron…
A recent report by Northland College shows increased vulnerability in Lake Superior’s water quality. More severe storms are contributing to erosion, infrastructure damage and algae blooms. WPR Host Larry Meiller talks with Matt Hudson, water scientist at the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, about the report, and ways citizens can alleviate the impacts…
In 2017, the college’s board of trustees voted to divest all the school’s endowment funds from fossil fuel-related investments. About $823,000 of the college’s $28 million endowment was invested in fossil fuels, which the vast majority of scientists say has caused global climate change. The student-led effort had been years in the making, said Northland alum…
This column excerpted from Intentional Endowments Network. On September 27, 2019, an estimated 500,000 people, mostly high school, college and university students marched in a “climate strike” held in Montreal, Quebec. My two stepsons were among those led by Greta Thunberg. The Montreal event was not an outlier. These climate strikes occurred across North America…
Northland College has announced a partnership with Mount Ashwabay to provide free season passes to Northland College students. More than 180 students have already claimed their passes. Under the agreement, students will have unlimited access to downhill skiing, snowboarding, the terrain park, and over 40k of groomed cross country ski trails. “In short, I’m pumped!” said…
In the world of research, it takes a lot of failures before you get a hit. For Professor Nick Robertson and four students that hit came the day then-student Ariah Law walked into Robertson’s office and told him a solid substance had formed and wouldn’t come out of the vial. “I didn’t believe her at…
