Environmental Justice & Community Resilience
The Environmental Justice & Community Resilience (EJCR) Program is an interdisciplinary and community-engaged initiative supported by the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, the Environmental Studies Program, and the Office of Sustainability. EJCR serves as a collaborative platform fostering action-oriented research and partnerships rooted in environmental justice principles. The program is dedicated to cultivating diverse campus-community collaborations that address the multifaceted challenges of environmental inequities. Environmental justice is inherently interdisciplinary and intersectional, recognizing that environmental issues are deeply entwined with social, racial, economic, and political factors. It encompasses various domains, including public health, climate policy, sustainability, the arts, food systems, and scientific research. By integrating these diverse fields, EJCR aims to address the complex web of environmental challenges that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
The program's genesis can be traced back to years of dynamic discussions linking environmental justice curricula with engaged scholarship, culminating in Swarthmore’s inaugural “Sustainability Charrette” in 2015. This campus-wide strategic visioning workshop convened students, faculty, staff, board members, alumni, and community partners to engage with experts and collaboratively envision the college's sustainable future. A pivotal recommendation from the Charrette was the establishment of a center dedicated to environmental sustainability aligned with social justice advancement. EJCR embodies this vision, aligning with Swarthmore College’s mission to promote critically engaged scholarship, racial and gender justice, and purposeful campus-community collaborations. Giovanna Di Chiro, Professor of Environmental Studies and former Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change, currently serves as the program’s inaugural faculty coordinator.
