Personalized teaching and close mentoring relationships between faculty and students are at the heart of a Middlebury education. To ensure small classes, excellent advising, and meaningful mentoring, the College intends to add 25 new faculty positions, create professorships to honor exceptional faculty achievement, provide additional funds for curriculum development, and support collaborative research by professors and students.
“I was studying in China during my junior year, and I got
an e-mail from Jeff, who had won a grant to do geological research
in the Tibetan mountains. He asked me to join the project team. I spent
several weeks there, acting as an interpreter and extra set of hands.
For me, that was the turning point. I came back and did my senior thesis
on the mountain range where we worked. I keep a copy of that thesis
on my desk. It reminds me where it all first came together for me.”
— Daniela Salaverry ’03
Hometown:
Born in Hong Kong; grew up in New York and Singapore.
Major: geology, environmental studies, and Chinese
Mentor: Jeff Munroe, assistant professor of geology
“The professor who helped me bring together my interests in China, environmental science, and geology was Jeff Munroe in the geology department,” Daniela says. “I took his class in geomorphology, the study of the earth’s surface. I was really interested in that, because I’m an avid outdoors person. Jeff became one of my key professors and later my thesis adviser.”
The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future, by Elizabeth C. Economy. This book provides both an overview of China’s water pollution challenges and details on how the problem can be resolved, according to Daniela.
State of the World 2006: Special Focus: China and India. The WorldWatch Institute. A survey of the variety of environmental and social challenges China is dealing with as a result of its rapid growth. You can download the publication at www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/38.
www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/53 One of the increasingly critical issues resulting from climate change is changing resource availability and food security. This is the informative site of the Institute for Food and Development.
www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com China Development Brief provides independent reporting on social development and civil society in China.
www.wilsoncenter.org The China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars creates programming and publications to encourage discussion about environmental and energy challenges among U.S. and Chinese scholars, policymakers, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations.
www.pacificenvironment.orgPacific Environment protects the environment of the Pacific Rim by promoting grassroots activism, strengthening communities, and changing international policies.
Think of any kind of environmental problem you can imagine, and you will probably find worse examples in China than anywhere else. Of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, 17 are in China. Seventy percent of the country’s lakes and rivers are polluted, and a quarter of the population lacks access to clean drinking water. Air pollution, deforestation, toxic waste, soil loss—all are severe and urgent problems. China’s success or failure in addressing them will affect the whole world.
China’s
Changing Environment
- With 1.37 billion people, China is home to more than a fifth of the world’s population.
- China’s economy is second largest in the world. Gross domestic product has grown tenfold since economic liberalization of the late 1970s.
- Of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, 17 are in China. Over 100 million Chinese have left rural areas to seek work in the cities.
- Over 70 percent of Chinese lakes and rivers are polluted. Only half of the nation’s sewage is treated before returning to rivers and lakes. Over 350 million Chinese now lack access to clean drinking water.
- China’s contribution to global warming is second only to the United States, and some recent reports say China has now surpassed the U.S.
- On any given day, up to 25 percent of the particulate matter in the air over Los Angeles comes from China.
“The challenges are so big,” says Daniela Salaverry ’03, “it almost makes you wonder: Where do you begin?”
Salaverry is codirector of the China Program for the nonprofit organization
Pacific Environment, which makes small grants to community-based environmental 
groups
so they can tackle issues like water pollution and species conservation
at the local level. “As we saw in the environmental movement
in the United States, the real change often comes from the grassroots,” she
observes.
Daniela first saw how environmental and economic issues are intertwined when she was a student in Middlebury’s Environmental Studies Program—the first undergraduate program of its kind in the U.S. and the model for many that have been started at other colleges and universities. “The program gives you the opportunity to go into environmental consulting, work to develop alternative energy sources, help corporations to clean up their manufacturing processes, or do research that will guide policy makers,” she says. “Every piece of the global economy has an environmental component.”
Daniela studied Chinese at Middlebury and spent eight months at the
C.V. Starr-Middlebury School Abroad in China.
She
has traveled widely in the country, studying Chinese in Harbin, conducting
geological research on the Tibetan Plateau, and exploring the Silk
Road, and she has witnessed the environmental cost of China’s
rapid development as an economic superpower. But she has also seen
that in many communities there are people speaking out for cleaner
air and water and for protection of natural resources. “The issues
are huge,” she says, “but one piece of the solution is
local, grassroots efforts. As these groups grow, their influence will
increase.”
Daniela is now spearheading Pacific Environment’s China Program,
helping grassroots environmental groups get organized, grow, and network. “This
is a small seed,” she says of the program, “but it will
grow… I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t optimistic.”
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