What is the Environmental Justice Symposium?
The Environmental Justice Symposium is a two day virtual speaker event beginning on March 19th that will feature a series of talks given given by experts in the environmental justice field.
Climate change and environmental degradation are incredibly pressing issues, and while their impact on our planet and ecosystems cannot be ignored, the impact these issues have on human populations is also incredibly important. Environmental issues disproportionately affect historically marginalized and underserved communities, and environmental justice is the field born to address these inequalities.
The goal of this symposium is to introduce Duke students and other participants to a wide range of experts, activists, organizers in the environmental justice field. We have speakers from all around the globe, and we hope that through this symposium participants will gain a new found appreciation for the scope of this movement in addition to an increased interest in environmental justice.
The team
Duke Conservation Tech
Duke Conservation Tech is a student organization dedicated to solving pressing issues in wildlife conservation, ecosystem management and sustainability with the various technical skills of undergraduate students. The club aims to be a leading force in the drive for the use of technology to solve solutions in the environment, acting as the student intersection between the Pratt School of Engineering and the Nicolas School of the Environment. Both Duke Facility and outside persons/organizations have the opportunity to utilize the club's students as a resource to crowdsource and develop prototypical solutions to the issues they are facing in the area. In return, members have access to working directly with leading faculty and organizations on important and impactful real-world projects while utilizing the technical skills they are learning in class.
Duke Muslim Student Association
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) at Duke University is a student-run and SOFC-chartered group on campus. The association strives to represent Muslim students at Duke, and foster campus and community-wide engagement with Islam and Muslims. Duke MSA’s constituency is comprised of a diverse group of students - undergraduate and graduate, international and American - united by each student’s common belief or interest in Islam. For these students, the MSA is responsible for supporting their religious needs and interests by arranging appropriate facilities, networks, and accommodations on campus. Duke MSA plans religious, social, political, and cultural activities on campus related to Islam and Muslims in order to serve the needs of the wider Duke community, regardless of their beliefs. Students come to MSA events to build faith together, learn more about Islam and Muslims, or simply to hang out with friends and get to know more people. Whatever your reason, we hope to see you around!
Blue Devils United
Blue Devils United is the largest student group for LGBTQ+ undergraduate students, allies, and friends at Duke. Blue Devils United seeks to provide social opportunities for LGBTQ+ students and their allies, outreach to students at Duke and in the community, and to advocate for social justice initiatives at Duke and beyond.
The Undergraduate Environmental Union
The Undergraduate Environmental Union is a student led organization that strives to serve as the hub of all undergraduate environmental activity, communications, and programming at Duke. The UEU seeks to support environmental groups with their own missions, promote collaboration among organizations, serve as a communal place for groups to share support and information to existing groups and projects, and create a unified student voice to advance and publicize environmental issues on Duke’s campus.
Our Sponsors
This event would not be possible without the tremendous support from these sponsors. Thank you to the Integrated Toxicology & Environmental Health Program and to the Environmental Justice Campus Committee for your incredible assistance. Please check out their missions and contact information to learn more about them!
Research conducted within the Duke University Superfund Research Center (DUSRC) focuses on a central research question: How does early life exposure to hazardous substances elicit developmental toxicity, and what are the later-life consequences? Our researchers are committed to investigating the vulnerability of the developing organism to hazardous chemical exposures. Within the DUSRC, our researchers emphasize research on both Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry priority chemicals (e.g., PAHs, metals, organophosphate chemicals) and emerging chemicals of concern (e.g., halogenated flame retardants) that are known to, or have potential to, adversely affect development. Learn more at: https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/superfund/.
The mission of the Duke Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health Program (ITEHP) is to prepare pre-doctoral students from a variety of backgrounds and educational disciplines for participation as rigorously trained research scientists active in environmental health careers. The field of environmental health is inherently interdisciplinary in nature, and participation in the ITEHP develops holistic thinking skills in trainees to better enable them to perform cutting edge research and to solve real-life problems in this field. This is achieved through the program’s focused classroom instruction largely completed during the first two years of training and laboratory rotations followed typically by two to three years of focused research.
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Policy for the People (PftP) is a graduate student organization at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. We aim to provide an inclusive environment for Sanford students to dive into leftist ideology, bring progressive voices and events to Sanford, challenge the status quo within the Sanford curriculum, and push for progressive policies outside of the classroom.
To ensure that conversations and education around environmental justice issues remains a priority at Duke for years, decades even, to come, we aim to bring together representatives from Duke departments (both environmentally-centered and culturally-centered departments), Duke’s administrative and engagement entities (diversity centers), and environmentally, culturally, and racially-centered student organizations. The purpose of this committee is to discuss what Duke has done/is doing in this space, what Duke could do better, and ensure that topics of racial and environmental justice are pervasive throughout undergraduate academia and programming as well as with conversations with Durham. Current sub-committees include: Curriculum Development, EJ Practitioner, Duke-Durham Outreach, Research & Communication.
