built environment & communities

Seminars Addressing Environmental Equity and Justice

March 16, 2022

The GCSC Seminar Series has featured a number of speakers whose research and scholarship address issues related to equity, justice, and the environment. Log in to Canvas with your U of U network ID to view these seminars.

Aradhna Tripati, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA. February 26, 2019, ″Frontiers in the study of past climate and environmental change: From new tracers to piloting a new inclusive science model”  Read more.

David Pellow, Environmental Studies, Global Environmental Justice Project, UC Santa Barbara. April 16, 2019, ″Toward a Critical Environmental Justice: Exploring State Violence and the Settler Colonial Conflicts” Read more.

Jeff Rose, University of Utah Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. November 5, 2019 “Homelessness, Political Ecology, and Critical Sustainability”
A critical spatial approach to unsheltered homelessness positions it as both a social and environmental justice concern that confronts common understandings of sustainability.  

Elizabeth Kronk Warner, Dean, S.J. Quincy College of Law. January 14, 2020, “Tribal Environmental Law”  Read more.

Julie Sze, Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. September 22, 2020 “Interdisciplinarity, Intersectionality and Environmental Justice: The Time is Now ”
What role can colleges and universities in particular, and specific fields (sustainability, environmental policy, etc.)  play in addressing climate and other crises?   

Daniel Mendoza, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah. October 13, 2020, “The confluence of air quality, urban development, health, and social justice”  Read more.

Liliana Caughman, Faculty, Native Environmental Science, Northwest Indian College. April 13, 2021, “From Climate Action to Climate Justice: How scenarios, partnerships, and community priorities are driving equitable urban sustainability and resilience planning in Portland, Oregon”  Read more.

Stacy Harwood, City and Metropolitan Planning, University of Utah. September 14, 2021, “Everyday Racism in Integrated Spaces”
Many college campuses promote themselves as integrated multicultural spaces where students from diverse backgrounds live, study, and play together in unity. This study reveals that many students of color experience racial hostility and exclusion in their daily routines.  

Heather Tanana, College of Law, University of Utah. October 19, 2021, “Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities”
 Lack of clean water access in tribal communities threatens public health and economic growth.  Read more.

Faculty recognized for critical research efforts during the pandemic

April 13, 2021

These GCSC faculty affiliates were recognized for their efforts on critical health and social justice issues brought on, or exacerbated by, the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The following is excerpted from a story by Rebecca Walsh in At the U.

Some of the best long-term, basic research is often made immediately relevant by current events.

The COVID-19 pandemic and social justice disparities have transformed everything from the way Americans buy groceries to how we work and play. University of Utah faculty are responding with innovative projects that explore virus transmission, unequal access to healthcare, and how members of our community talk about their lives during a time when the country faces critical social issues.

With those forces in mind, University of Utah Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Dan Reed has named a new cohort of Banner Project recipients—nearly two dozen researchers, teachers and librarians who are working to generate new knowledge and document this extraordinary time in human history.

“The faculty members working on these projects deserve recognition for taking on some of the thorniest problems facing our society,” Reed said. “This scholarly work will help us improve COVID-19 treatments; weather this global health crisis; expand access to health care; and bridge the social, economic and racial differences that divide us.”

The Banner Project recognizes mid-career faculty who are intellectual and thought leaders, not only at the U, but also in the community. “The goal is to put faces to the world-class scholarship, groundbreaking discoveries, unique innovations and creative works generated by our scholars,” Reed added.

How vegetation effects microclimates in urbanized Salt Lake Valley

October 19, 2020

A new study by Carolina Gómez-Navarro and GCSC affiliate faculty Diane Pataki, Eric Pardyjak, and Dave Bowling, looks at how trees and grass can help mitigate excessive heat in urban areas. Hard surfaces like roofs, buildings, and pavement absorb the sun’s heat and radiate it into the surroundings, creating a “heat island effect”. While trees cast cooling shade, the team found that a more effective cooling solution occurs with a mix of trees and turf grass. Read about the study in At The U.

GCSC seminar: disaster resilience in an unjust world

August 25, 2020

By Maria Archibald, Sustainability Office

As climate-induced wildfires rage across the West and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten our communities, many of us have disaster on the mind. How will we respond when disaster strikes close to home? How will we recover? How can we build our communities to be resilient in the face of crisis?

In her upcoming Global Change & Sustainability Center seminar, “A Grassroots View of Disaster Recovery,” Dr. Divya Chandrasekhar will explore these questions, as well as examine what it means to be disaster resilient in a complex, uncertain and unjust world. Chandrasekhar, associate professor in City & Metropolitan Planning and an urban and regional planner who has studied disasters across the globe, is particularly interested in the importance of community autonomy to the recovery process.

Because disasters impact every dimension of our lives, from our collective economy to our individual psychology, disaster recovery must happen at the grassroots level—from the bottom up.

“When you say a community has recovered, it means every individual in that community should have recovered in some meaningful way,” Chandrasekhar says. This can only happen when individuals have agency and power in their own recovery process, so she cautions fellow urban planners and other eager outsiders to take care in their recovery work. Without a deep understanding of the community’s needs and capacities, their efforts will be irrelevant or even harmful, she says. Her call to action? Engage communities in deciding their own futures.

While one might think that a person who spends her life studying disasters would feel rather pessimistic, Chandrasekhar says she finds great hope in her work. While disasters inflict trauma and tragedy, they also present an important opportunity.

“Disasters shake up existing structures,” Chandrasekhar says. “They don’t just destroy your building, they smash government structures. They smash patriarchy.” If a community is ready to address these underlying issues, the recovery process presents a good opportunity to demand justice and build resilience, she says. Climate change and COVID-19, which have hit communities of color and under-resourced communities the hardest, demonstrate that oppressive structures like racism and colonialism cause the effects of disaster to be felt disproportionately.

“The process of going from recovery to resilience requires addressing those larger structural issues,” Chandrasekhar says. “There can be no resilience unless there is social justice.”

So, amidst the grief, the anger, and the loss that disaster brings, Chandrasekhar finds hope—hope for healing, for a more just future and for resilient communities that can withstand disaster.

Whether you’re an organizer doing mutual aid in your neighborhood, an urban planner hoping to better engage communities in your work, or an individual searching for hope in this trying time, Chandrasekhar’s talk will have something for you. Join us from 4-5 p.m. Tuesday, September 1 at https://tinyurl.com/gcsc-disaster as she explores the complexity of disaster recovery and calls for social justice as the only path to true resilience.

Our new parter – Center for Ecological Planning and Design

August 15, 2017

We have a new partnership with the newly-constituted Center for Ecological Planning and Design. Two entities in the College of Architecture + Planning, the provisional Ecological Planning Center and the Integrated Technology in Architecture Center, have melded to “bridge the gaps between research and the design and planning fields, both within CA+P and across campus, with a focus on the built environment and the human communities that inhabit it.”

Read more