New Prize Promotes Preservation

Campus News

by Lauren Davidson

July 1, 2012

During the 2012 Commencement ceremony, a new prize was awarded to a prominent environmentalist, journalist and scholar. William McKibben accepted The Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism. The $100,000 prize will be awarded annually to an individual or group dedicated to preserving the planet and its resources, and it includes a two-day on-campus residency, which McKibben will complete April 10 and 11, 2013.

The prize honors John H. Adams, co-founder of the National Resources Defense Council, which now boasts more than a million members and activists working to preserve the environment. Adams accepted an honorary doctor of public service degree at Commencement.

“Julie and I wanted to endow the prize at Dickinson because we fully support the curriculum, which promotes student awareness of the environment and training for professional careers in the sciences as well as responsible living for the protection of all life forms,” says Sam Rose ’58.

McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment and founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org. Time magazine called him “the planet’s best green journalist,” and The Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was “probably the country’s most important environmentalist."