The Mellon Foundation has awarded a $1 million grant to Wake Forest University to create a model program for engaging scholars and the local community in advancing environmental justice.
Professor Corey D.B. Walker, who will lead the project, said the January 2022 Weaver fertilizer plant fire in Winston-Salem (GM Feb. 4, 2022) exposed the historic and ongoing legacies of race, racism, and environmental injustice in the local community and both shaped and gave urgency to the work the grant will fund.
The Jan. 31, 2022, fire at the Winston Weaver fertilizer terminal on the north side of Winston-Salem, N.C., completely destroyed the facility and prompted a three-day evacuation order for residents and businesses within a one-mile radius of the plant due to concerns about a possible explosion triggered by ammonium nitrate stored at the site.
“In many ways, Weaver served as a wake-up call to initiate, support, and sustain a model intellectual community built on the principles of collaboration, creativity, and commitment to our deepest values,” said Walker, who is Wake Forest Professor of Humanities, Director of the African American Studies Program, and Interim Dean of the School of Divinity.
Starting with a collaboration between Wake Forest’s African American Studies program and Environmental Studies program, the scope of the work will extend to departments across campus and into the community.
The three-year, multi-pronged effort–called “Environmental and Epistemic Justice: A Transformative Humanistic Model for Science and Technology Studies” – will help the University imagine, design, and develop a humanistic Science and Technology Studies curriculum that places environmental justice at the center. It will build on the STEM-focused programs in the local community supported by earlier Mellon grants.
The new grant will fund a variety of seminars, institutes, and public educational forums for citizens, environmental justice advocates, journalists, and public officials. It will also support paid research opportunities for undergraduate students and two new full-time positions: a project coordinator and a postdoctoral fellow.