Dear Carrie,

Yilan Xu and Madhu Khanna shared your name with me. I am the Associate Director of Campus Sustainability for the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (iSEE), and I coordinate implementation of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) with colleagues at iSEE and F&S. I am writing today to invite you to join the Resilience iCAP Team.

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) outlines a path for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2050, and to work with our local communities to build resilience to climate change. There are 56 specific SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) objectives crafted in pursuit of this goal, grouped into eight key themes: Energy, Transportation, Land & Water, Zero Waste, Education, Engagement,  Resilience, and Implementation. You can find the list of objectives for all themes here.

The iCAP teams are organized around these seven themes and comprised of students, faculty, staff, and a paid student clerk who work together to advocate for the advancement of the iCAP objectives. The Resilience iCAP Team specifically works to bring campus and the surrounding communities (Champaign, Urbana, Savoy) together to address what must be done to prepare for vulnerabilities to extreme weather and other results of climate change. Given your experience in community-level disaster preparedness and mitigation planning, we think you would be an excellent resource for the Resilience Team.

Teams meet at least once per month during the academic year to develop recommendations aimed at advancing the iCAP objectives, which are then reviewed by the iCAP Working Group, co-chaired by Morgan White and myself. Recommendations that are positively reviewed by the iWG are either transmitted to units for implementation or brought to the Sustainability Council for further review. The role of staff members on teams is to share ideas and knowledge, and assist with information gathering in support of campus sustainability goals. Paid student clerks are responsible for logistics, including scheduling meetings, working with the team chair to set the agenda for meetings, note-taking, and reporting.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please let me know. I look forward to your response!

Best,

Jennifer

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Jennifer-

Are the meetings in person or virtual?  I would love to participate, but not sure I can be on campus every month.  I current serve on the ECOP(Extension Community of Practice) Program Area Team (PAT) for climate change.  This national Extension initiative is looking at broader research and programming goals, but there seems to be a good synergy between the two. If you could give me a little more information on when and how the team meets, I would like to be involved.

Carrie

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Carrie,

The team meets virtually and the first meeting is this Friday, October 6, at 9 AM on Teams. Morgan White is serving as the chair, Mirim Keep (iSEE) is the vice-chair, and Claire Keating is the student clerk. I copied Claire so that she can share the details for the upcoming meeting in the event that you are able to attend.

It would be great to have you on-board!

Best wishes,

Jennifer