In June 1993, National Geographic Magazine featured Dickinsonian and CBF educator Bo Hoppin ’88 in an article and on the cover, leaping between pilings at Fox Island, Va.
Photo credit: Robert W. Madden/National Geographic

“Dickinson tugs at my heartstrings,” Hoagland says about why he comes back to be a guest teacher in Prof. Pohlman’s class. “The college shaped who I am.”

Jessica Spencer ’03 in the “crow’s nest,” overlooking the Chesapeake Bay at Fox Island, Va.

— Dickinson Professor Candie Wilderman, from her acceptance speech when she was named the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Educator of the Year in 1998.

The best partnerships work not only for the mutual benefit of the partners, but also for the betterment of all. Dickinson and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) have such a partnership, one that has been nurtured over the years by a committed network of faculty, students and alumni through service to one another and to the environment.

The Chesapeake Bay is North America’s largest estuary (where fresh and salt water mix), comprising parts of six states, and it is the world’s third largest. For 64,000 square miles, all flowing waters, big and small, including the pollutants in those waters, move in one direction—to the Chesapeake Bay. But the river of knowledge and expertise coursing between CBF and Dickinson College flows in both directions.

“This really started in 1985 with our first trip to the Bay,” says Professor of Environmental Studies Candie Wilderman, whose specialty is the study of freshwater systems with a focus on water quality. She also is founder of the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM), a statewide water-quality monitoring program in which Dickinson students work with community members.

Wilderman’s work upstream has a direct impact on the Bay, and every year she takes students from her aquatics class and freshman seminar to the Bay. She describes the experience as a rich, interdisciplinary study of the environment, which includes the social, cultural and political roles of the government in managing resources. In addition to studying the ecosystem, the students also talk to the Bay’s watermen and their families to learn how dwindling resources affect their lives and work.

“It is the centerpiece of the courses,” she says. “I’ve never taken a group of students for whom it wasn’t a great trip.”

These field trips have been career launching for some students. For example, Robert “Bo” Hoppin ’88 went with Wilderman on that first trip in 1985. “He fell in love with it,” Wilderman says. “Bo was the first one to become a CBF educator.” Seven years later, while still working as an educator at the CBF center on Fox Island, Va., Hoppin graced the cover of National Geographic Magazine (see page 1).

Representing another of the college’s many ties to the organization is CBF’s Virginia executive director, attorney Roy Hoagland ’77. Each year he returns to Dickinson to teach students in Prof. Harry Pohlman’s Law & Public Policy “gateway” class about environmental litigation from the plaintiff’s perspective.

“It’s fun to come back here,” Hoagland says. “The students in this class are engaging, challenging and delightful. Generally, it’s hard for young people this age to suddenly have a dialogue with a visiting teacher and feel comfortable doing it. But these kids do.”

Hoagland is impressed, too, with the number of Dickinsonians working for CBF, saying this de facto partnership has evolved between these two small but prestigious organizations as a result of a mutual sense of social consciousness. “I think it’s amazing,” he says, taking a moment to tick off a list of six or seven people he works with who hail from his alma mater.

“These are very competitive jobs at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation,” he adds. “There aren’t that many positions in environmental advocacy, where people can work on the ‘white knight’ side and still get paid.”

Dickinson’s liberal-arts education gives its graduates a leg up on the competition because they are uniquely qualified for jobs requiring diverse skills. “Our students have an interdisciplinary background,” Wilderman says. “They understand connections and are comfortable in all disciplines, whereas graduates [from other institutions] with straight biology backgrounds have to do a lot of scrambling to catch up.”

Another Dickinson alum, Laura Burrell Baxter ’94, is CBF’s education recruitment senior manager. Though she didn’t major in environmental studies, she says, “My liberal arts education provided me the ability to look at the world from many angles. [Dickinson and CBF] are similar cultures, and the most important factor to me was finding a place to work that had people as passionate and dedicated to their life’s work as [people are at] Dickinson.”

The newest addition to the list of Dickinsonians working on behalf of the Bay is Jessica Spencer ’03. This summer she was an intern and educator at the CBF center on Bishop’s Head Island, Md. From mid-June through mid-August, she worked with gifted and talented middle-school-aged children and also with teachers who came to the CBF center to learn more about environmental studies.

“The [Chesapeake Bay] Foundation is like a family,” Spencer says. “It’s a unique organization with a homey atmosphere. I stayed in the large lodge on Bishop’s Head Island. It’s hard work. You’re out in the elements and away from civilization. The days run from sunrise until 10 p.m., when you’re reading the kids a bedtime story about the environment. It was an amazing experience.”

Spencer’s interest in the Chesapeake Bay began with one of Wilderman’s class trips to the CBF center on Fox Island, Va., during her freshman year. “She’s my adviser and a great woman to look up to,” Spencer says of Wilderman, who in 1998 was named CBF’s Educator of the Year and this year was the recipient of Dickinson’s highest faculty recognition, the Distinguished Teaching Award.

This semester, Spencer is student teaching environmental studies in a high school near Carlisle. “It’s a good way for me to compare my outdoor education experience [with CBF] to traditional classroom education,” she says.

Spencer is considering going back to work at CBF after graduation and plans to submit her resumé, but she knows CBF, like many nonprofit organizations, has suffered economically post 9/11, and that job cutbacks are a possibility.

Of the ties between the college and CBF, Spencer says, “The environmental studies department does a great job of bringing them here, and so does the Career Center. It works both ways. Both [CBF and Dickinson] show interest. And both get the benefits.”