Meet ENVX editor Julia Benford! Below you’ll find a brief bio, class level, and a digital scholarship (DS) site link, where you can view this Environmental Studies major’s own work. Below this information are all ENVX posts authored by the editor to date; cick on any post title to view the full post.
Class of 2017 | DS websiteMy name is Julia Benford and I'm a senior Environmental Studies major at Lewis & Clark College. I'm passionate about food politics, urban planning, and public health. In the future, I hope to serve as a link between the public and policymakers, working to understand complex issues and create a more just world. |
 Does the phrase “built environment” strike you as odd? When thinking about the word “environment,” does your brain conjure up images of sweeping meadows and lush green forests? Consider this: Cities provide a habitat, of sorts, for billions of people worldwide. Many different species live in and interact with human-built spaces, just as many different specie … |
 In Lewis & Clark’s Environmental Studies Program, we frequently discuss connections between the local and the global. The vernacular of the English language creates binaries between local and global, small-scale and large-scale, near and far. Yet phenomena that we consider local (such as weather) are often influenced to one degree or another by global fa … |
 Among students in Lewis & Clark’s Environmental Studies Program, transit is a popular research subject. Living in Portland, it’s not hard to see why; the city is well known for its public transit system, which includes buses, a light rail system, and a a streetcar. Current ENVS students have transit-related interests ranging from gentrification and trans … |
 As we advance towards the end of the semester, the weather has been gradually getting warmer, leading students to drag their books and laptops outside so they can work while lounging in the sun. I too have been enjoying the beautiful sunshine; however, I can’t help but think about how strange it is that the weather already feels like summer in the middle of … |
 When you hear the word “environment,” what do you think of? For environmental studies scholars this question can get complicated, but many people picture beautiful green landscapes. Even a quick Google search for “environment” mostly turns up pictures of forests and fields. The only trace of human beings in these images comes from the occasional depiction of … |
 Whenever I tell people outside of Lewis & Clark that I’m majoring in environmental studies, I typically get a reaction along the lines of, “Great! We need people like you to help the planet!” or the slightly more critical, “Wow, you’re so idealistic!” These responses are interesting because they both assume (to a certain degree anyway) that I chose this … |
 At Lewis & Clark, the Environmental Studies Program is interdisciplinary–drawing from and synthesizing multiple branches of knowledge. In the context of ENVS, interdisciplinarity has a particular significance because it allows us to move outside our preconceived notions of what an environmentally-based program should look like. Many people believe that … |