Events Calendar
Sustainability at Southern Oregon University
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’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.
Event Details
Location: Southern Oregon University Stevenson Union
Room: Rogue River Room
Address: 1250 Siskiyou Blvd, Ashland 97520
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)
