The Midsouth Environmental Symposium, "Managing Our Regional Watersheds," was the second SOPHIA symposium in 2009. It was hosted at the Southern Illinois University Carbondale in Carbondale, IL, on April 22nd in the Mississippi Room of the SIUC Student Union. Dr. Christopher Lant, Professor of Geography and Environmental Resources at SIUC and Executive Director of the Universities Council on Water Resources, joined us as the workshop facilitator and keynote speaker. Dr. Lant is author of numerous articles on watersheds and among his current projects is an NSF-funded study called “Virtual Watershed: Agricultural Landscape Evolution in an Adaptive Management Context.”

Flyer
Program
PHOTOS - New
Directions and Parking
Contact Information

Program

Workshop Schedule

Participant Discussion: 10-11:30 am in the upper level of the Student Center, Mississippi Room (click here for a map of the Student Center, which points out the Mississippi Room). Participants had an open discussion on water usage in our region. We used two readings provided by Professor Lant to get discussion started.  Doug Anderson moderated the discussion.

Lunch: 12-1 pm. Each participant received a card ($10-12, but more available if you need it!) that was used to purchase lunch in the Student Center, and we convened at tables toward the south end of the Center.

Afternoon Public Session: 1:30-3 pm in the upper level of the Student Center, Mississippi Room. The session began with a short presentation by Professor Lant on the rivers in our region. An open discussion followed. To help focus discussion, Dr. Lant was joined on a panel by Brian Rodely of Illinois EPA, and Dr. Jonathan Gray of SIUC’s Speech Communication program.

You can click here for a printable version of this program.

Photos

Here are some photos of the event.

Directions and Parking

Directions: For directions to SIUC, click here. To see a map of SIUC's (very large) Student Center, which points out the Mississippi Room, click here.

Parking: There are two parking options. Participants can park below the SIU Arena—this requires a several minute walk to the Center. Or, participants can park directly across from the Student Center in the visitor parking area behind McAndrews Stadium.  One can park here for several hours for a few quarters (which we will happily supply)—the drawback is that we will have to add quarters at least once during the day.

Contact Information

If you have comments or questions about SOPHIA or about this particular event, you can direct them to Dr. Doug Anderson, Executive Director of SOPHIA and Program Organizer for this symposium. You can contact him via email at dra3@siu.edu or by phone at 618.453.7435.