The distinguished speaker for this coming spring will be Professor Charles Wilkinson from the University of Colorado. Professor Wilkinson is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker on law, ethics, and public policy of natural resources and water rights on U.S. federal land and Native American land. His talk will include themes of public policy and ethics in regard to natural resources and Native American rights as well as environmental sustainability in the Pacific Northwest.

Charles Wilkinson, the Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, graduated from Stanford Law School in 1966 and practiced with private law firms and the Native American Rights Fund for 10 years before joining the law faculty at the University of Oregon. In 1987 he moved to the University of Colorado as a Distinguished Professor in the UC system.

 Wilkinson’s primary specialties are federal public land, Indian, and water law and policy. He has written hundreds of articles in law reviews and popular journals and his thirteen books include the standard texts on public land law and Indian law. In recent years he has written for a more general audience about society, history, and land in the American west with books such as The Eagle Bird (1992), Crossing the Next Meridian (1992), Fire on the Plateau (1999) and Messages from Frank’s Landing (2000). The last title in this list is particularly focused on water and natural resources and Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

 Wilkinson has received teaching awards from students at the Oregon, Colorado and Michigan law schools. The Universities of Oregon and Colorado have given them their highest awards for leadership, scholarship, and teaching. In 1990 the National Wildlife Federation presented him with its National Conservation Award. In 1992, Outside magazine named him one of 15 “People to Watch”, calling him “the West’s leading authority on natural resources law”. He has served on numerous boards of nonprofit organizations, has been appointed to many governmental task forces, and has served as a facilitator in major land use negotiations throughout the West.

The Seminar Course (BGEN 591)

A seminar course has been organized to provide faculty and students an opportunity to explore scholarly material related to the presentation of the UW Bothell distinguished speaker for 2002. This course includes faculty and students from most of the academic programs at UW Bothell. Five meetings and a field trip will be held apart from the distinguished speaker event to discuss related readings.

The seminar course participants will hold a discussion dinner with Professor Wilkinson after the public event on May 9th and will also participate in a field trip to the Tulalip Reservation on the following day. This field trip will include an examination of the intersection of culture and environmental management as well as a round table discussion among Tulalip staff, tribal members, and UWB participants led by our students. Student participants will register with each program’s participating faculty.

4:00 – 4:40         Reception (open to the UWB community & general public)

4:45 – 5:45         Speaker’s presentation (open to the UWB community & general public)

5:45 – 6:15         Question & answer session (open to the UWB community & general public)

6:15 – 7:00         Post talk reception & mingling (open to the UWB community & general public)

7:00 – 8:30         Discussion Dinner (open only to seminar class participants)

9:00 – 5:00         Environmental Management at Tulalip Field Trip & Roundtable Discussion