Students: There is still Summer 2020 online course availability. Get a head start on your requirements with offerings including creative industries through crisis, film and media, festivals, tourism, the hospitality industry, and disease throughout history, across literature, media, cultural expression, religion, and more. View all Liberal Arts Summer Courses.
Current Work
Liat is a currently serving Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala. She is working with rural extension agents from the Guatemalan ministry of agriculture in the western highlands of the country to improve rural food security. In particular, she is using grant funding from Peace Corps to construct an organic supply and distribution center in her community to help bring local, healthy produce to schools. She is also picking up the local language, Ixil, and learning to weave in the traditional style (check out that shirt!)
Inspiration
Liat, as a Tulane senior double majoring in Environmental Studies and Psychology, won the 2017 EVST departmental honors thesis of the year with her work, An Ecofeminist Analysis of Rural Agricultural Development. Much of her drive to join the Peace Corps derived from the inspiring professors who served on her undergraduate thesis committee, Laura McKinney, Amalia Leguizamon, and Mark VanLandingham. Moreover, she is constantly inspired to question systems and fight for food sovereignty by the work of activist, Vandana Shiva, whom she had the opportunity to invite and introduce to lecture at Tulane in March 2017. Her advice to current EVST students is to build strong relationships with the professors and peers you meet throughout your studies. These people form a foundation for immense future personal and intellectual growth!
EVST/Tulane experience
The Tulane Environmental Studies program in conjunction with the Center for Public Service introduced the course in Urban Gardening in the Spring Term of 2018. Growing out of the understanding of the pioneering environmentalist Aldo Leopold that our encountering and becoming connected with the dynamic of the “land pyramid” is critical to the establishment of a genuine environmental ethic within each individual human, Urban Gardening emphasizes a hands-on approach to learning with students gardening both in home gardens and within various community partners’ gardens on a daily basis. This Spring Term (2019) students in Urban Gardening have partnerships with Edible Schoolyards at Samuel Green and Phyllis Wheatley Schools, and with St. Anna’s Community Center, The Chapel of the Holy Spirit and Newcomb Children’s Center among others.
In their learning with the children and youth served by these community partners Tulane students participate in the age-old practice of passing along the skills of gardening to a new generation both as an enjoyable pastime and as a fundamental cornerstone of human community.
“I love the passion from both EVST students and faculty about environmental justice and climate change mitigation. I’ve learned so much in this program because I’ve been able to take courses from all different disciplines yet each with an environmental focus. It’s been such a unique opportunity to experience the environmental issues that take place in the Greater New Orleans area and learn firsthand how local citizens and organizations are affected by climate change.”
Rachel has been a very active member of the EVST community at Tulane and one well known and respected by both EVST Faculty and her peers.
Rachel has interned with the following organizations:
Student Organizations:
Study Abroad:
During her junior year, Rachel participated in the Sustainable Development in Northern Europe program at DIS Copenhagen.
Rachel's favorite EVST classes include:
Bradley's Current Job:
Bradley is an Associate Analyst in the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Division of Moody’s, focusing on Latin America and US power and renewables.
Bradley has interned with the following organizations:
Study Abroad:
Bradley spent one year studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He studied environmental studies at the University of Buenos Aires, taking courses in Oceanography, Advanced Oceanography, and Urban Geography.
Bradley's favorite EVST classes include: