An Investment in the Future
We suppose that there are lots of ways to invest in the future, but we’d be hard pressed to think of a better one than education – especially environmental education.
That’s why we’ve become involved with the
Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, one of the top graduate schools of environmental science and management in the United States.
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We’ve recently agreed to provide a $400,000 gift to the school to establish Toyota Environmental Science and Management Fellowships, an annual Toyota Summer Internship for students seeking their masters degrees, and support for a Professor-in-Residence program that will enable the school and its faculty to fulfill the university’s public-service mission
The gift reflects Toyota’s interest in providing training for the next generation of environmental leaders and teachers, as well as our desire to bring the cutting-edge research performed at a leading academic institution of environmental science and management to bear on environmental issues.
The Professor in Residence program will enable faculty members to accompany secondary-school teachers from around the nation on Toyota International Teacher Program (TITP) study trips to such locales as Costa Rica, the Galápagos Islands and, potentially, South Africa. To see previous posts here on Open Road about the TITP program, click here, and here. The program is designed to help educators develop curricula and to connect the intellectual dots linking scientific research, the region of study and relevant environmental issues.
Bren’s goal is to equip graduates with what the school calls "rigorous competency" in environmental science, policy and law so that solutions can be integrated in developing solutions to environmental challenges.
Certainly, some of the challenges are so great that "rigorous competency" will be an absolute requirement for solving them. We think our partnership with the Bren School is an appropriate step as we all move forward toward finding some of those solutions.
