By William H. Schlesinger

The wonderful $70 million gift from Peter and Ginny Nicholas will carry the Nicholas School of the Environment to its next level. (It is part of a $72 million gift from the Nicholases to Duke University. See news release.) Only a dozen years ago, the Nicholas School was the nation’s first “School of the Environment,” but it has quickly carried its mission of education and research to renowned stature. Our faculty members receive national acclaim for their scholarship, and they are elected to office in professional societies across a broad range of environmental disciplines. Our graduates populate the halls of environmental policy in federal, state, and local agencies, non-profit organizations, and, increasingly, the corporate world.

Yet, daily, we see that government and corporate decision-makers continue to struggle to find the best science, unbiased analysis, and policy options for the difficult environmental problems and critical decisions they face. With the rising price of natural gas, how can we supply electricity from coal without releasing toxic quantities of mercury into the atmosphere? How can we prevent climate change, when the economic well-being of modern people seems so closely linked to energy, derived from fossil fuels? Should we log our national forests, when the price of lumber is already so low that many private timber producers are leaving the business? As they wrestle with these issues, policy makers are often influenced by politics and special interests. They need the best science that academia can supply.

We anticipate that a critical part of the Nicholas gift will create the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, within the Nicholas School, to fulfill the nation’s need for the best science, delivered without bias, to the development of effective environmental policy. With a renowned faculty in place, the Nicholas School can be the first stop for expertise on many important issues. Significantly, the Nicholas gift also ensures that the Institute can call outside the Nicholas School to bring the best minds to Duke as visiting faculty and consultants on particular problems. In the process, these visitors to Durham will enrich the daily intellectual life of the Nicholas School and provide opportunities for our graduates. We look forward over the next several months to working out the details for the proposed institute.

Carefully selected new faculty in joint appointments with other schools at Duke will enable the Nicholas School to be the “big-tent” for environmental expertise on the Duke campus. The school will share its excitement with the public by providing opportunities for leaders of media, policy, and business to participate in the Nicholas Institute, receiving advanced knowledge of current projects and gaining insight into current and future environmental problems and attractive policy options. The Nicholas Institute may also provide office space and an opportunity for partnerships with NGOs that focus on environmental advocacy and preservation.

So, to the Nicholas family, on behalf of the school that bears your name, let me say “Thanks to all of you. We will fulfill your vision of how to ensure a better environment for Planet Earth and the people who will populate it.”

William H. Schlesinger is former dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment