Young Environmental
Issues Symposium

Colorado School of Mines

About the Young Symposium

The Young Symposium was established for the purpose of creating a forum for serious dialogue concerning critical issues regarding the environment and society. The program is held on an annual or more frequent basis and emphasizes the ways that scientists, engineers, lawmakers, public agencies, industry leaders and environmental leaders can work together to create a sustainable environment while maintaining a healthy economy.

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Upcoming Events

An Evening with Bestselling Author Ed Yong:

Interconnected Life

September 30 @ 6p.m.
Bunker Auditorium, Green Center

RSVP Here

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History of the Young Environmental Issues Symposium

The Herbert L. and Doris S. Young Environmental Issues Symposium Fund was established in 2007 at the Colorado School of Mines to support ongoing discussions on critical environmental issues. Herbert and Doris Young, deeply concerned about environmental degradation, created the fund to promote sustainable practices and ethical use of technology through annual symposiums.

The fund brings together scientists, industry leaders, environmental advocates, and community members to engage with questions of how we live with – and within – nature. The Youngs’ legacy lives on through these dialogues, which encourage both academic and public engagement with environmental sustainability.

Contact Us

Thank you for your interest in the Herbert L. and Doris S. Young Environmental Issues Symposium. Please complete the form below to contact members of the Young Symposium Committee. Use this form to join the mailing list, ask questions about past or future events, or recommend a speaker. [Let us know if you have a direct connection to the speaker.] We are particularly interested in speakers who advance the Young’s mission to create dialogue on critical issues regarding the environment and society. Please note: Response times may vary during the year.

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Past Events

2025

An Evening with Robin Wall Kimmerer

Lecture and Discussion, “Justice for Land” with a reading from Braiding Sweetgrass.

April 17, 2025 at 5:30pm-7pm in Bunker Auditorium, Colorado School of Mines

(Appetizers at 5pm. Event begins promptly at 5:30pm)

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.

She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

2024

An Evening with Terry Tempest Williams

An evening talk hosted by the Young Environmental Issues Symposium on engaging the climate crisis, including a reading from Wild Mercy.

April 25, 2024 at 5:00pm-6:30 pm in Coolbaugh Hall, Colorado School of Mines

(Appetizers at 4:30 pm. Event begins promptly at 5:00pm)

Terry Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer,” a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice.

Known for her impassioned and lyrical prose, Williams is the author of environmental literature classics such as Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Williams is currently writer-in-residence at the Harvard Divinity School. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Orion Magazine, The Progressive, and numerous anthologies worldwide as a crucial voice for ecological consciousness and social change.

Photo Gallery

2020

A Showing of Dark Waters and PFAS Discussion with Rob Billott

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Program

View the program (PDF)

WELCOME Stefanie Tompkins, Vice President of Research and Technology Transfer, Colorado School of Mines

KEYNOTE Robert Bilott, Partner, Taft Law

PANEL DISCUSSION: THE FUTURE OF PFAS IN COLORADO
Moderated by Ryan Warner, Colorado Matters host, CPR News