The UNH Sustainability Institute and UNH Health & Wellness are thrilled that their proposal was selected by the UNH Center for the Humanities to collaborate to deliver the 2024-25 Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series. The 2024-25 Sidore Series, “Human Health, Planetary Health, and What Sustains Us”, will explore frameworks and outlooks that highlight the deep-rooted connections, and imagine possibilities for the future, and offer an expansive view of health and sustainability.
The series will pose questions and make connections meant to inspire and explore ideas about what it means to cultivate a community committed to supporting health, well-being, and sustainability for all. Using a participatory approach, community members will directly engage with speakers and one another in dialogue. Scientists, philosophers, indigenous knowledge keepers, and other speakers will raise and provide perspectives on critical questions including:
What are the connections between living wage, human, and environmental health? How does the climate crisis impact human and planetary health, especially among the most vulnerable populations? What are some of the perspectives, ideas, and solutions we need to ensure health, well- being, and sustainability for all, now and into the future?
This 2024-25 Sidore Series will align with and advance several important efforts at UNH. This includes the Health and Well-Being Committee, established in 2022, which is charged with identifying “how to best broaden and continue the creation of an institution that influences, improves, and supports the health, wellness and well-being of student, faculty and staff on the UNH campuses by embedding well-being into the culture of our campuses.” The committee called for UNH to become a Health Promoting Campus and join the U.S. Health Promoting Universities & Colleges Network, which it did in December 2022.
The U.S. network is guided by the Okanagan Charter, an international charter created in 2015 that calls on post- secondary schools to embed health into all aspects of campus culture; and to lead health promotion action and collaboration, locally and globally. The Health and Well-Being Committee’s vision is for UNH to sign the Charter by the end of AY 25.
UNH’s commitment to sustainability is stewarded by its Sustainability Institute, whose approach to sustainability has always been linked to health and had a collaborative relationship with UNH Health & Wellness for many years. As noted in the Okanagan Charter, “In the emergent knowledge society, higher education institutions are positioned to generate, share and implement knowledge and research findings to enhance health of citizens and communities both now and in the future” (pg. 5). In keeping with this sentiment, this series will not only align with strategic UNH initiatives but will have broad public appeal and have strong relevance and implications for local and regional communities, businesses, non-profit organizations. The timeliness of the series theme and expertise of the speakers will attract those beyond UNH’s borders.
The UNH Sustainably Institute is grateful to the UNH Center for the Humanities for selecting our joint proposal with UNH Health & Wellness, for the 2024-2025 Sidore Lecture Series, and for the funding that will make this possible. We are excited to find ways to collaborate with other colleagues across UNH and from the broader community to deliver this exciting program. If you have interest in being part of this series, please reach out to Fiona Wilson fiona.wilson@unh.edu.
