Events Calendar
Sustainability at Southern Oregon University
Saturday, April 18
10:00am to 4:00pm
Community Event: Science Works
Ashland Earth Day
Celebrate Earth Day with ScienceWorks!
Join us outdoors on the ScienceWorks grounds for a day full of hands-on activities, local vendors, and engaging experiences that highlight the science of sustainability. Celebrate Earth Day while enjoying all that nature has to offer, rain or shine! Earth Day is a call to protect our planet for future generations — come learn, explore, and take action for a more sustainable future.
🎶 Enjoy a variety of musical performances by local artists
🧠 Play our EcoQuest game and earn prizes while connecting with community partners
🪴 Take home a FREE plant — courtesy of Southern Oregon Subaru (while supplies last)
🫧 Get hands-on at the bubble tables
🍴 Refuel at one of our tasty food trucks
Enjoy a day full of science, music, and community celebration as we honor our planet and the amazing people working to protect it. We’re sending a huge THANK YOU to all our incredible sponsors for making this event possible. Let’s make this Earth Day unforgettable — see you at ScienceWorks!
Please note that the entire event takes place outdoors and does not include admission to the museum building.
Learn more about the event details on Science Works’ website.
Thursday, April 30
10:00am to 3:00pm
in partnership with SOU Landscaping
Arbor Day Celebration
Arbor Day is an opportunity to celebrate Southern Oregon University’s 12th year as a Tree Campus. This is a recognition of our ongoing commitment to stewardship, sustainability, and the beauty of our campus landscape. From shaded walkways to diverse plantings, our campus is a shared resource that reflects the care and contributions of our community.
Arbor Day began in 1872 as a call to plant trees and invest in the long-term health of our communities. Today, it remains a powerful reminder of the role trees and green spaces play in creating resilient, vibrant places to live, learn, and gather.
Join us on April 30 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for Arbor Day 2026. We’ll be gathering around Hannon Library to expand pollinator gardens, build trails, install bird houses, and continue enhancing our campus environment. This is a rolling volunteer event so drop in at any time and stay as long as you’re able. Activities are designed for a range of skill levels and interests, whether you’re looking to get hands-on, learn something new, or simply spend time outdoors playing yard games or connecting with others.
Students, staff, and faculty are all encouraged to take part. Come celebrate, contribute, and spend time in the spaces we share.
In addition, students are invited to participate in our Arbor Day Sticker Design Challenge. Help us celebrate through art by creating a design that reflects the spirit of trees, sustainability, and community, especially with inspiration from our local landscapes and ecosystems. Submissions are due by April 20, 2026, and the winning design will be printed and distributed at the Arbor Day celebration. The selected artist will also receive a $50 gift card.
Event Details
Location: Southern Oregon University Hannon Library Grounds
Tuesday, April 7
5:00pm to 6:30pm
Mentorship Speaker Series
with Amy Bowers Cordalis
We’re excited to welcome Amy Bowers Cordalis, Yurok tribal member, attorney, mother, fisherwoman, and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, as our speaker in April for the Mentorship Speaker Series. Amy was honored as a UN Champion of the Earth and Time 100 climate leader. Amy’s work centers on Indigenous rights, environmental stewardship, and community-led conservation, including her leadership in the historic removal of the Klamath River dams, the largest river restoration project in U.S. history, and her advocacy for tribal sovereignty, water rights, and ecosystem renewal. Amy brings deep lived experience and insight at the intersection of law, culture, and environmental justice; her book, The Water Remembers reflects her family’s multigenerational fight to protect their river and way of life.
Join us for an inspiring conversation about her journey, lessons learned, and the pathways she’s forged toward sustainable, just futures that will resonate with students, community members, staff, and faculty alike.
Followed by a book signing!
Learn more about Amy.
Thursday, Mar 5
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Collective Cartography: Mapping as Community Storytelling
Dr. Fawn Canady, SOU Assistant Professor of Education
What if mapping is a form of community storytelling?
Collective Cartography is a place/community-based mapping project that brings people together to share individual stories, collectively.
In this IAS Collective Cartography session Institute for Applied Sustainability at SOU, we’ll explore cultural sustainability through mapping as a playful yet revelatory way to tell stories about ‘place.’ Cultural sustainability is about caring for a place by caring for the stories, memories, relationships, and cultural practices connected to it—recognizing that environmental stewardship and cultural preservation are deeply intertwined. If mapping is a form of community storytelling, what will we learn about each other and our places?
After a brief lecture, participants will create their own maps of Ashland—of memories, feelings, connections, or imagined futures. You can draw, write, doodle, or simply mark what matters. There’s no “right” way to do it. This workshop is about noticing, sharing, and imagining together.
Thursday, Dec 4
4:00pm to 6:00pm
From Southern California to Southern Oregon: The Legacy of Metal Pollution, Wildfire, and Environmental Justice
Dr. Wayne Hung, SOU Professor of Chemistry
Join us to discover how research on urban metal pollution in Los Angeles can shed light on environmental contamination, wildfire impacts, and environmental justice issues here in the Rogue Valley. This talk will share preliminary findings from a summer soil metal assessment.
Thursday, Oct 23
4:00pm to 5:30pm
Mentorship Speaker Series
Mentorship and Flow
Doug Robinson
Doug Robinson is a professional mountaineer known internationally for his climbing, guiding and backcountry skiing, as well as his poetic writings about the mountains and why we climb them.
Doug’s writing and photography credits include National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Journal, California, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Alpinist, Ascent, Climbing, Mountain, Rocky Mountain, Mountain Gazette, Powder, Rock & Ice, with translations in several foreign languages. Co-wrote Climbing Ice with Yvon Chouinard. Co-wrote screenplay “Hard Rock” with William Broyles, Jr.
Learn more about Doug
Event Details
Location: Southern Oregon University Library
Room: Meese Room #305
Address: 205 S Central Ave, Medford, OR 97501
Saturday, Nov 8
10:00am to 11:00am
Community Event:
Town Hall and Food Drive
Hosted by: Senator Jeff Golden
Join Senator Jeff Golden to learn more about SNAP benefits and challenges our community is facing regarding food access. If you’re able, please bring nonperishable food items to be donated to local food pantries to support our neighbors.
Event Details
Location: Medford Library
Address: 205 S Central Ave, Medford, OR 97501
Thursday, May 8
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Living with fire in the Rogue Valley: Building fire-resilient communities
View Panelist Speakers
Rob Strahan, Lomakatsi
Forest restoration and ecological monitoring
Kelly Burns, City of Ashland
Emergency management
Cass Cornwell, Firebrand Resiliency Collective
Community resilience
Manuel Machado, OSU Extension
Workforce development
Co-sponsored by the SOU Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning
Join us to discover how research on urban metal pollution in Los Angeles can shed light on environmental contamination, wildfire impacts, and environmental justice issues here in the Rogue Valley. This talk will share preliminary findings from a summer soil metal assessment.
Thursday, Feb 27
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Ecological sustainability from rivers to trees: plant community responses to dam removal
Dr. Chhaya Werner, SOU Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, & Sustainability
Join us to learn how wildflowers, trees, and grasses re-establish after the Klamath dam removal, and other watershed-scale restoration projects.
Thursday, Oct 3
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Towards Sustainable Coexistence With Wild animals: Monitoring Wildlife Use on I-5
Dr. Karen Mager, SOU Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, & Sustainability, and Biology
Wildlife is all around us, living in the shadows of our human infrastructure and urban lives. Yet, too many of our encounters with these animals are in wildlife-vehicle collisions that injure wild animals and threaten motorists. Join us to learn about the consequences of having heavily- travelled I-5 cut through our incredibly biodiverse local landscape, and to explore new possibilities for more sustainable coexistence with wildlife. See images from motion-triggered camera traps that highlight how animals use the I-5 corridor, and learn how this scientific research by SOU faculty and students is helping a coalition of local partners advocate for the construction of wildlife overpasses over the highway.
1. Sign up for our mailing list
2. Follow us on Instagram @sustainability_sou
3. Partner with us by co-hosting an event with us! (contact us for all the ways you can partner, small and big)
