Invitation for You and Your Students to Participate in the PA Power Dialog

[Please share this invitation with colleagues who teach courses about climate change, climate policy, environmental policy, environmental science, energy policy and/or economic development]

Dear Colleagues,

If you are teaching a course in spring 2016 that includes content on climate change, climate policy, environmental policy and/or energy policy, you and your students are invited to participate in the PA Power Dialog in Harrisburg on April 4, 2016. The PA Power Dialog, which is being organized by the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium (PERC), will engage Pennsylvania college and university students in meaningful dialog with state regulators, legislators and peers about the Clean Power Plan and its implementation in Pennsylvania.

Please contact Neil Leary (learyn@dickinson.edu) for more information or to reserve places for you and your students.

The program for the Dialog is still being developed (draft appended at end of this email), but will include a keynote talk by DEP Secretary John Quigley (confirmed), student panels in which students will share their work and viewpoints, small group roundtable discussions and opportunities for dialog. Topics for student panels will be decided in consultation with participating faculty.

We will also provide opportunity for student organizations to participate and will provide more information about this option in coming days.

The PA Power Dialog is one of a number of state-level dialogs that are being organized across the country by the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. Bard CEP is developing and sharing resources for teaching about the Clean Power Plan. PERC will assemble complementary resources that are Pennsylvania specific, which we will make available for your use.

We are working to make the conference free of charge. But there may be a small registration fee to pay for the venue and possibly food depending on whether we decide to provide lunch or have everyone get lunch on their own.

Draft Program:
9:30 – 9:45        Welcome & Overview
9:45 – 10:30      Student Panel 1
10:30 – 11:15    Student Panel 2
11:15 – 12:00    Student Panel 3

12:00 – 1:30      Lunch and keynote talk from DEP Secretary John Quigley

1:30 – 2:15        Implementation of the Clean Power Plan in PA: Status, Opportunities and Challenges
                          ·      Invited DEP official
                          ·      Invited Republican legislator
                          ·      Invited Democratic legislator

2:15 – 3:00        Open Q&A
3:00 – 3:45        Student Roundtables – small group discussions on selected topics
3:45 – 4:00        Closing Session