Johnson County Community College
Press Release

College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Associate Vice President, Marketing Communications, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122

10/12/09
Story by Peggy Graham

Wes Jackson to give first address in Kansas Lecture Series at JCCC

Wes Jackson

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Wes Jackson, president, The Land institute, will present What We Need to Know to Meet the Sustainability Challenges of the Next Half-Century at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11, in the Hudson Auditorium of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College. Jackson’s lecture is the first-ever in the Kansas Lecture Series sponsored by the new Kansas Studies Institute at JCCC. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Land Institute, Salina, was founded in 1976, and has worked for more than 30 years to develop an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops. Scientists with The Land Institute have researched, published in refereed scientific journals, given hundreds of public presentations and hosted countless intellectuals and scientists. Their strategy now is to collaborate with public institutions in order to direct more research in the direction of natural systems agriculture.

Born on a farm near Topeka, Jackson received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, a master’s degree in botany from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University. He was a professor of biology at Kansas Wesleyan and later established the environmental studies program at California State University, Sacramento, where he became a tenured professor. He resigned that position in 1976.

Jackson’s writings include both papers and books. His most recent work, The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge, co-edited with William Vitek, was released by University of Kentucky Press in 2008. Other books are Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place, also co-edited with Vitek; Becoming Native to This Place, sketching his vision for the resettlement of America's rural communities; Altars of Unhewn Stone; Meeting the Expectations of the Land, edited with Wendell Berry and Bruce Colman; and New Roots for Agriculture, outlining the basis for the agricultural research at The Land Institute.

The work of The Land Institute has been featured extensively in the popular media including The Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, National Geographic, Time Magazine, The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Life magazine named Jackson as one of 18 individuals they predict will be among the 100 "important Americans of the 20th century." In the November 2005 issue, Smithsonian named him one of “35 Who Made a Difference” and in March 2009 Jackson was included in Rolling Stone’s “100 Agents of Change.”

Jackson is a recipient of a Pew Conservation Scholars award, MacArthur Fellowship and Right Livelihood Award (Stockholm), known as “Alternative Nobel Prize.” He has received four honorary doctorates and in 2007 received the University of Kansas Distinguished Service Award.

The Kansas Lecture Series will continue each spring and fall as part of the Kansas Studies Institute. For more information about Jackson’s presentation, call James Leiker, director, KSI, at 913-469-8500, ext. 3673.

###