I’d like to invite you all to join us in person or virtually on Wednesday, April 20 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. for our 2022 annual Earth Day event. This year’s program is titled “Time to Act on Climate Change.”  We’ve invited several environmental leaders to reinforce this theme by addressing the realities of the climate crisis and encourage us to leverage our individual innate strengths, interests, and relationships to solve our complex climate challenges. We are delighted Ohio State University President Kristina M. Johnson will offer remarks at this year's event. We will also hear remarks from Jennifer Morris, chief executive officer of The Nature Conservancy, who will join us remotely. We are also delighted to have Sophia Buggs, owner of Lady Buggs Farm and Mahoning Food Access coordinator delivering remarks in person. We’d love to have you join us at the Ohio Union's US Bank Conference Theater on campus for this event or virtually through the Environmental Professionals Network livestream. To learn more, visit our event website here.

I also am excited to share that as we wrap up this academic year, we are tracking toward having nearly 175 graduates from the School. We believe this might be the largest class we’ve ever graduated in a single semester (our records from the early 1970s are not entirely clear). We are tracking toward returning to our Spring tradition of having the graduation ceremony in Ohio Stadium and I’m so excited to see our seniors off.

And as we see some students off, recruitment of next year’s class is wrapping up with high school seniors having to accept admission offers by the end of this month. We’ve had some exceptionally large classes of incoming students in recent years and it’s looking like next years incoming class will come close to sustaining that trend. While environment is a widespread concern and attracting interest, we do want to thank all of you working as environmental professionals or concerned citizens for what you do in inspiring younger folks to consider an environmental career.

I also want to thank all our alumni for the generous donations we receive that allow us to provide scholarships to these new and existing students. We have just wrapped up our efforts to award over $140,000 in scholarship funds for this coming year. These funds truly make a difference. Our newest scholarship fund came into existence a couple weeks ago through the generosity of Ray Leard, a 1974 Ohio State alum, and owner of The Compost Exchange.  Ray established The Compost Exchange Sustainability Scholars Scholarship Fund. I got a chance to meet Ray recently and learn about his business, which seeks to divert organic food waste from local landfills. This scholarship fund will support students majoring in our Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability major. Thank you. And if any of you are interested in learning more about making a contribution, feel free to contact Director of Development Mandy Wood (wood.1584@osu.edu) or 614-216-7545. Mandy just joined our team and is excited to help us enhance our impact.

Jeff Sharp
Director, School of Environment and Natural Resources