We are delighted to announce that Michael Beevers will be
joining the department this coming summer as a professor with primary
responsibility for environmental policy.
Michael, whom many of you already met, hails from the
University of Maryland Department of Government and Politics. His Ph.D dissertation,
which he will defend next month, argues that externally imposed requirements on
natural resource management, such as with timber and minerals, may actually
work to impede sustainable development rather than promote peace and
reconciliation in war-torn Western Africa.
Hailing from upstate New York, Michael has an undergraduate
training in geology, followed by two masters degrees from the University of
Washington in natural resource management and international development.
Subsequently serving in the Peace Corps (alongside our own Jenn Halpin) in the
1990s, then as a county planner in Washington State, and even as a
mountaineering and climbing instructor, he brings a wealth of geographic
experience and technical expertise to our program. More recently he served as a
consultant to the UN and the World Resources Institute, contributed to the
research team of Professor Michael Oppenheimer at Princeton University working
on climate change and costal vulnerability, and currently serves as principal
advisor for undergraduates in the Environmental Science and Policy Program at
the University of Maryland.
Here at Dickinson, Michael will offer one
section of ENST 330 (Environmental Policy) in the fall, and then the
introductory environmental science course, ENST 130, in the spring. An amateur, but still accomplished, bluegrass
musician, we look forward to Michael's contribution not only in the classroom but
also at our social events.