October 2007: Issue Three: Page 7
Udall: (continued...)
Governor Ritter, like many activists and policy-makers in Colorado, is committed to developing a state economy that makes full use of our state’s abundant sustainable energy resources, such as wind, water, and solar power.
Udall stresses the importance of comprehensive, multilateral action to remedy our reliance on foreign energy and oil. He speaks of the need for scientists, engineers, business leaders, educators, and policy-makers to cooperate with one another, and work together to strengthen our energy policy and resources by diversifying in ways that empower states to supply some of their own energy. In these ways we can build a society less beholden to foreign energy and less susceptible to the whims of world oil politics.
Udall sees education as a fundamental element in the process of state empowerment. “Public awareness is critical, and expectations must be realistic,” he says. “Organizations such as EESI have the ability to expand the public’s knowledge base, as well as help determine what options are most realistic and promising.”
Congressman Udall sees the future with reasoned optimism. When asked about EESI project IPECC, an effort that will compile energy law and policy data from around the nation and the world, Congressman Udall responds, “It could be a great educational and policy awareness tool, and I can imagine political leaders taking full advantage of the information.”
DiStefano: (continued...)
“Also,” DiStefano continues, “right now about 25 percent [of our students] have study abroad experience. I think in the next 25 years all of our students need to have study abroad experience, and, not in the traditional countries of England, Spain, or Italy. They need to be in Korea and China. So I really do think that the university of the future is a global university compared with where we are today.”
In congruence with his goals for the University, DiStefano was instrumental in starting EESI—providing the vision and seed funding that enabled EESI to traverse the gap between idea and reality. Talking about his decision to support EESI’s development, DiStefano says, “One of the challenges of this job is having to say ‘no’ to good ideas because you don’t have the resources to do everything,” he says. “Two years ago, when Lakshman”—EESI’s Director and Nicholas Doman Professor of International Law—“talked to me about sustainable energy, that was an issue that we put on the table with everything else, and it rose to the top.” DiStefano also considers the likelihood that initial seed funding will translate into additional external support as an essential variable in choosing which good ideas to support. “The money that we put into this initiative as seed money has really worked, it has leveraged.”
For DiStefano, EESI and other university efforts are a way to ensure that CU Boulder is making a tangible and positive difference in the world. “I look at our public mission as a University as: how do we create a better life, a better quality of life, not only for citizens of Colorado, but also citizens across the country and citizens around the world. As a public university, we need to give back to the state; we need to find ways to give the citizens of Colorado this opportunity to have a better quality of life. And so this initiative, in my mind, certainly does that.”
With support from DiStefano and under the leadership of Professor Lakshman Guruswamy and Dean David Getches, EESI has developed a portfolio of over a dozen funded research projects. I asked the Provost whether or not EESI was meeting his expectations. His response was unequivocal: “Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it. You measure ‘how good you’re doing’ by a number of factors. One is the engagement of faculty from around the campus. EESI has certainly done extremely well in that area. The second is on external funding. And the third, that’s related to the funding, is that you want to look at multiple sources of revenue. You don’t want to rely on one source of revenue because you don’t know how long that source is going to be available to you.” DiStefano continues, “Certainly to the campus it’s a worthwhile project because you have faculty buying into it, you have external constituents buying into it, you have state legislators and the Governor’s Office buying into it… It’s a very successful initiative.”
With DiStefano’s continued support, EESI is working to develop an innovative interdisciplinary graduate course on climate change and energy. I asked the Provost why this course would be important to the University. “Again, it goes back to our mission as a public institution,” he responded. “The problems today are much more complex than the problems in the past. And so when you’re dealing with complex problems you have to deal with complex solutions.” He continues: “This is where this interdisciplinary graduate course comes in. It’s going to look at complex solutions by bringing in faculty from various disciplines. That’s only going to enhance and improve the education that we provide for our students.”
Making a difference in the face of the extraordinary challenge of climate change is also important to DiStefano—and is one of the reasons he is such as strong supporter of EESI. “I think that one of the things that the initiative is doing is bringing in policy-makers,” he says. “Without the policy-makers sitting at the table, the scientists can talk about solutions and debate those solutions…but until you get policy-makers, including economists that can take a look at how feasible this is from an economic standpoint, and how feasible this is from a political standpoint—until you get those individuals and others at the table then we’re kind of stuck.”
