Terry Tempest Williams Student Dialogue 2009 - Part 1.wmv

The Terry Tempest Williams Student Dialogue is a signature event of the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education at Florida Gulf Coast University. The series focuses on education for a sustainable future, including our role as stewards of our natural, cultural, and political environments. The event was free and open to the public. Intended to spark youth action and inspire the intellectual climate among the FGCU and Southwest Florida communities, the initiative fosters an open space for dialogue and student ownership of that dialogue.

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, returned to FGCU for the Terry Tempest Williams Student Dialogue on November 4, 2009. In A Long Way Gone, a chronicle of his experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, Beah uses words to create a powerful message of hope in extreme adversity. Incoming FGCU freshmen read A Long Way Gone in 2008 as part of the First Year Experience Readership Project. Beah was also the special guest speaker for the 2008 Convocation.

This year, the Center invited him to join a discussion on how young people can communicate and collaborate for a sustainable and peaceful future. The event explored topics such as digital collaboration toward sustainability, critical engagement with consumer media, and the theme of hope, despair, and the future in environmental rhetoric.

Panelists included Arabella Daniels of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, Cruz Salucio of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and Center Advisor Jacob Scott. Jacob participated virtually from Bristol, England using telecommunication software. FGCU President Wilson G. Bradshaw welcomed the panelists and offered opening remarks. The Dialogue took place on Wednesday, November 4, 2009, at 7:00pm in the Student Union Ballroom. Stakeholders, community members, students, and campus leaders congregated outside the Ballroom for conversation and snacks before the event.

For more information, please visit www.fgcu.edu/cese.

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