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From the Archives: A Corner Office—in the Basement

April 10, 2022

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This is the second installment of From the Archives. To read about the Institute’s first advisory board, read the third installment.

A sign for the Sigurd Olson Institute of Environmental Studies in Bobb Hall

A corridor in Bobb Hall directing visitors to the Sigurd Olson Institute of Environmental Studies

In its early days, what was then the Sigurd Olson Institute of Environmental Studies was based in Bobb Hall. The basement, to be specific.

Bobb Hall was one of Northland College’s main academic buildings at the time, and many faculty and alumni passed through its doors in the time it stood on campus. Co-founder and Executive Director Bob Matteson spent countless hours in this space, shepherding an advisory board and collaborating with the College’s Environmental Studies Committee—then chaired by longtime Professor of Geology Bruce Goetz. While it may have been a humble workspace, it was still a corner office, and it boasted one short window to the world outside.

It was from Matteson’s desk in this space that “The Institute Brochure” came to be. This eighteen-page publication, which features faculty from the era like Goetz and Dick Verch, served as a prospectus for the Institute, and it includes a statement of philosophy attributed to Sigurd Olson: “the enhancement of life in our beautiful northern region” and “the encouragement of practices that… protect and preserve the unique character of our homeland here in the North.”

“The Institute Brochure”

50 years of the Sigurd Olson Environmental InstituteThis is the second installment in the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute’s From the Archives series, which tells the story of the Institute from the past to the present to commemorate its 50th anniversary. Sign up for our email lists for news and stories from the Institute—including From the Archives.

  • Red canoe on a lake

    Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute

    The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute provides leadership in citizen science, outreach, and education on regional conservation issues while fostering the next generation of environmental leaders.

    Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute
  • Northland College students meet on the deck of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute

    Give to SOEI

    The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute seeks to empower citizens with objective information about the environmental issues of the north woods, advance understanding of northern species…

    Give to SOEI
  • Several issues of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute’s north land journal

    From the Archives: Into the north land

    By the spring of 1973, the Sigurd Olson Institute of Environmental Studies, still less than a year old, was humming with activity. Three Johnson Lectures…

    From the Archives: Into the north land
  • From the Archives: Olson Delivers the First Johnson Lecture

    Sam Johnson was an early supporter of environmental studies at Northland College. In 1970, he provided a grant through The Johnson Wax Fund to develop…

    From the Archives: Olson Delivers the First Johnson Lecture
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