Great Decisions of Wayne County lecture series returns to Wooster

WOOSTER, Ohio — The lecture series, The Great Decisions of Wayne County, is set to return to The College of Wooster campus in March after a two-year pause. The presentations will focus on global sustainable development and will feature three speakers. This annual event is sponsored by The College of Wooster and the local community and has been bringing experts to Wooster since 1981 to expand the ongoing education of both the College and the outside community.

Experts will present on campus in the Gault Recital Hall of the Scheide Music Center (525 E. University St.) at 7:30 p.m. Both the College community and public visitors are welcome, and all attendees are required to follow COVID-19-related rules.

The series begins on Wednesday, March 2 with a presentation by Vijay Vaitheeswaran, titled “Energy in Today’s World.” Vaitheeswaran is a Global Energy & Climate Innovation Editor at The Economist, and an award-winning author of several books on energy, such as Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet (2015). Vaitheeswaran is also a life member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and a sustainability and innovation advisor to the World Economic Forum at Davos. He’s been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and The Financial Times, and has appeared in numerous media outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, BBC, and NPR. He has addressed groups at the U.S. National Governors Association, the United Nations General Assembly, and the TED and Aspen Ideas conferences.

On Tuesday, March 8, Colin Mangham will present “Nature’s Global Design Challenge: Biomimicry and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” Mangham is a leading international expert on biomimicry, a design discipline seeking sustainable solutions by emulating natural patterns in engineering, architecture, and design strategies. He is the founder of Biomimicry LA, director of Net Zero Accelerator, and co-founder of Morpho Energy. He formerly served as the chief marketing officer of the Biomimicry Institute and Biomimicry 3.8, the world’s leading biological intelligence consultancy agency. Over the course of his career, he has utilized biomimicry to help dozens of global brands and hundreds of entrepreneurs to succeed in an environmentally sustainable manner. He has also been a visiting faculty member at Reutlingen University in Germany, a TEDx speaker, and has been featured on CNN International’s “Going Green” series.

The final presentation on Thursday, March 31 features Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells with “What Happens Upstream Doesn’t Stay Upstream: Land Use, Stormwater Management and Water Quality in Northeast Ohio.” Dreyfuss-Wells is Chief Executive Officer of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. As CEO, she oversees one of the largest clean-water agencies in Ohio, providing sanitary and stormwater management services to Cleveland and 61 suburban communities in Northeast Ohio. She also manages a 25-year Project Clean Lake program and a regional wet-weather strategy for the health of Lake Erie. Before becoming CEO, she coordinated the district’s watershed management, including the Regional Stormwater Management Program and the District’s Green Infrastructure Policy. She is the past chair of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) Stormwater Management Committee and the One Water Council of the U.S. Water Alliance. She also serves on the NACWA Board and chairs the District 1 Natural Resources Assistance Council for the Ohio Public Works Commission’s Clean Ohio Conservation Program. 

Published Feb. 1, 2021.

Posted in Faculty, News on February 1, 2022.