The Institute for Mountain Research provides a hub to coordinate and support interdisciplinary research and learning related to the cultural, economic, scientific and political facets of mountain landscapes and the people who live in them. We encourage deep and abiding interests in the mountains, the people who live in and near them, and the connections between the two. The Institute supports thinking across disciplinary and political boundaries in order to foster conversations about the landscapes that are part of our lives. We strive to serve as a home for exploration, a refuge for reflection and thought, and a forum for community conversation.
The Institute for Mountain Research has hosted seven Episodes.
During the 2017 Fall Semester, 14 students, two professors, and a program coordinator loaded a bunch of books and some camping gear into a trailer, piled into a couple of vans, and took off on a 10,000 mile, 84 day academic adventure around the American West. We've been back for a little more than a year and were curious about what students remembered and what they learned on the trip. This is what they had to say.
The trip is designed as an exploration into the issues at the heart of the contemporary West. Students will earn 16 credits in environmental studies and history as they study Environmental Cooperation and Conflict, Landscape and Meaning, the History of Public Lands, and the Native West.
This prolonged journey into the field will allow us to learn directly from landscapes and ecosystems, as well as from people who live, work, and study in those places. Together, we expect to build a cohort of impassioned scholars with a particular breadth and depth of experiential knowledge who are equipped to build a better future for the West.
Brenden Rensink, BYU historian and assistant director of the Charles Redd Center, talks about how his trail-running hobby influences his scholarship.
In this episode, Westminster College Environmental Studies Professor Xiumei Pu sends us into winter with a reading of a poem by T'ao Ch'ien (translated by David Hinton). The episode is, perhaps, best enjoyed with a glass of wine.
We continue our series of stories about the Great Salt Lake today with 2 stories about Pelicans, a piece of new music, and a report from a couple of our summer collaborative research grants. First, Kara Kornhauser discusses her research related to pelicans and tar seeps near the Spiral Jetty on the shores of the lake. Next, I interview Connor Lockie about his new piece of music, "Mass for Pelicans," and we'll share that composition. Finally, Hikmet Loe and Scout Enviros talk about the work they did this summer as part of their summer collaborative research project, "The Necessity of Landscape."
Today, the most famous resorts in northern Utah are in the mountains. But that wasn't always the case. For much of the 20th century people flocked to the shores of Great Salt Lake to spend time swimming, listening to music, dancing, and sunbathing. We'll explore some of the history of those resorts in today's episode, the first of two episodes in which we'll focus on the lake. We begin with Jeff Nichols discussing the history of the lake resorts and their connection to the city. Then we'll have a chance to hear Rebecca Richard talk about her own personal experiences of spending time at the lake in the 1970s.