Skip To Content Skip To Menu Skip To Footer

The Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism

To help educate leaders who will build a more sustainable world, the Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism awards $100,000 each year to a prominent individual or group dedicated to preserving the planet and its resources. The winner then serves a residency at Dickinson to help students prepare to combat climate change and restore the natural world.

 Committed to restoring and sustaining the natural world for future generations, Rose and Walters created this prize to focus attention on the need to reduce the impact of human lives on the planet, particularly given the rising population predictions for this century. “Education is a necessity if we are to understand the problems facing the natural world and its inhabitants,” said Rose. “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.” (Read the award's full statement of purpose here.)

Rose, a real-estate developer and attorney, was a member of the 1958 Dickinson lacrosse team that made college history when it won Dickinson’s first and only national title. A founding partner of Greenbaum and Rose Associates, he has more than 40 years of experience in commercial development, primarily in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. An emeritus trustee of Dickinson, in 2001 he established the Samuel G. Rose ’58 Scholarship at Dickinson for economically disadvantaged students. Rose also serves as vice chair at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and he and Walters are members of Dickinson’s Founders’ Society.

As long-time supporters of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Rose and Walters endowed the prize to honor NRDC co-founder John H. Adams and his 40 years of dedication and service to environmental causes.

The award is given annually to an individual or group dedicated to preserving the planet and its resources. Recipients are carefully vetted and selected by a committee including environmental science faculty, the provost and several leaders in environmental organizations including a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council.