Bill Vitek
Bill is Director of The New Perennials Project, Editor of New Perennials Publishing and a Scholar in Residence at Middlebury College. He taught philosophy for 32 years at Clarkson University, always with the objective of helping his students understand that the philosophical imagination can and must do useful work in the world. Much of his writing has engaged ecological issues, including collaborations with Wes Jackson and The Land Institute for over three decades. Vitek and Jackson co-edited two books, Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place (1996) and The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge (2008). Bill is also a semi-professional jazz pianist (that means he plays a lot and gets paid sometimes). billvitek.com
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Nadine Canter
Nadine is the Community Engagement Specialist for The New Perennials Project and co-teaches The Perennial Turn in Ag and Culture. She is also a Professor of the Practice in the Environmental Studies Program at Middlebury College and teaches the course Approaching Sustainability from the Roots each spring. She has a 30-year career in strategic community engagement, journalism, advising, mentoring, facilitation, and teaching that began with a master's degree thesis focused on the collaborative top down-bottom up community process to protect river segments under the Federal Wild and Scenic River Act. Much of Nadine's work focuses on strategic coalition building in the areas of land use, transportation, air quality, conservation, and climate change. She is a student and teacher of contemplative practices including Tai Chi Chuan. Her roots are in New England including 22 years in Vermont, but she also calls the Pacific Northwest home. wooddragonadvising.org.
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Marc Lapin
Marc is Associate Laboratory Professor of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College where his teaching focuses on socioecological systems, ecology, the Perennial Turn, and land conservation. Marc is also the College Lands Ecologist, responsible for stewardship of Middlebury’s 6,000 acres of forest, wetland, and agricultural land leased to local farmers. As a consulting ecologist for nearly three decades, he works with state and federal agencies, conservation organizations, and private landowners. Exploring multiple ways of knowing, traditional ecological knowledge, ecophilosophies and Earth-based sacred practices, Marc has emerged as a leader at Middlebury in both contemplative pedagogies and place-based learnings.
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