The Au Sable Institute and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) share a lot in common. Both have been instrumental in developing a new generation of Christian leadership for creation care. One of the founders of YECA, Ben Lowe, is a Trustee on Au Sable’s Board, and one of Au Sable’s Faculty, Rachel Lamb, has formerly served as National Spokesperson for YECA. So it’s not surprising that, with both people and purpose in common, new collaborations might emerge. Indeed they have, in an exciting new opportunity for leadership development and educational advancement that will benefit and bless an increasing number of current students!
YECA has, for many years, offered an exceptional program of leadership development in environmental activism through its Climate Leadership Fellows Program. Normally training 6-8 Fellows each year, YECA will, in 2020-2021, increase that number to 30-35! But an increase this large that comes quickly can sometimes leave an organization with an abundance of opportunity frustrated by a scarcity of candidates. To make the Climate Leadership Fellows positions as attractive as they are valuable, the Au Sable Institute, in cooperation with YECA, will support up to 8 selected Fellows with a new scholarship, the $4,000 Climate Action Scholarship, applied to the costs of tuition for two courses for each Fellow at Au Sable’s Great Lakes Campus in northern Michigan. Courses like Restoration Ecology and Environmental Applications for Geographic Information Systems and others will particularly enhance the ability of Fellows to both assess and remedy effects of climate change. The Climate Action Scholarship will cover 70% of tuition costs, and provide Fellows with the opportunity to become a part of the larger Au Sable community and benefit from the support and expertise of Au Sable faculty, alumni, constituents, and current students to increase and enhance their effectiveness in the efforts with YECA.
YECA Co-founder Ben Lowe knows how much specific knowledge and skills associated with climate assessment and remediation can matter. “As students at Au Sable are often reminded, we cannot practice virtue without skill. As the impacts of climate change continue to grow, we urgently need faithful leaders who can combine the moral courage to champion climate solutions with the concrete knowledge and skills to put them into practice,” said Lowe.
Rachel Lamb, Flagship Fellow at the University of Maryland and Au Sable faculty member, attests to the value of adding an Au Sable education to leadership training for climate action. “Historically, some Au Sable students have gone on to become YECA fellows, enriching their cohorts throughout the fellowship year with the skills they have learned from field-based environmental education,” said Lamb. “With this new joint opportunity, Au Sable and YECA will be able to provide a more cohesive training program that will better equip emerging climate leaders to couple faith-informed activism with skills in scientific inquiry and science-informed policy, to the benefit of both the students and our organizational communities."
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, current National Organizer and Spokesperson for YECA, sees mutual benefit for YECA and Au Sable in this collaboration. Mayaard-Schapp stated: "YECA and Au Sable are natural partners. Both are striving to equip the next generation with the skills to serve and protect God's good creation. Both are passionate about the church's potential to be a storehouse of hope in a world too often mired in despair. By launching the Climate Action Scholarship together, we're recognizing these shared values and resolving to work together to achieve them. I'm thrilled about the opportunities this will open not only for the students who will benefit from it, but for the church and for the world."
Fred Van Dyke, Au Sable’s Executive Director, explained, “I started pursuing the idea of a collaboration with Kyle this year when I learned how much YECA had increased their capacity to support Climate Leadership Fellows. We know that this generation has to face, and solve, today’s problems in creation care, including climate change. This means that leadership development in creation care is perhaps the best investment of Au Sable resources that we can make.”