Draft Proposal, Fall 2001
Washington State
University, Tri-Cities
College of Liberal Arts
The Tri-Cities, Washington, area first catapulted into global significance in the 1940s and '50s, as home of the Hanford nuclear works, location of one of the first, full-scale nuclear reactors ever built; home of eight plutonium-producing nuclear reactors – more operating in one place at the same time than anywhere else on earth; and location where the plutonium used in manufacturing the bomb used by the USA in Nagasaki, Japan, was manufactured. The Hanford site is well known around the world, including in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. Today at the turn of the 21st century, the Tri-Cities has evolved into a highly active, international scientific community, with ongoing world-class research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle, Inc., for the US Dept. of Energy; and with billions of dollars per year being spent by a variety of multinational contractors in development of scientific & technological capacity to clean-up an important part of the "cold-war legacy": high- and low-level nuclear wastes, stored temporarily in very large tanks on the Hanford site.
Washington State University, Tri-Cities, in cooperation with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and locally-based international scientific & engineering firms, is developing a world-class program in Studies in Globalization, Technology and the Environment. This effort will be broadly multi-disciplinary, involving faculty and student researchers in the social sciences, humanities, sciences, and engineering. It will make use of unique historical archives contained in the joint Washington State University, Tri-Cities/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory "Consolidated Information Center" Library, as well as locally housed US DOE archives. The program will focus on historical and contemporary studies of linkages between processes of globalization, development of scientific, technological and environmental research; science and technology policy; and technology, environment and culture. A key characteristic of the Studies in Globalization, Technology & the Environment program will be its international character: participants will include visiting scholars, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows from around the world. International fellows resident at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will have opportunities to participate & teach in the program as well. Planned emphases within the program include International Affairs; Science and Technology Policy; History of Science and Technology; Science and Technology Studies; Environmental Social Science; Humanities and the Environment. In addition to degree programs, the Program in Globalization, Technology and the Environment will sponsor monthly forums on topics of International Affairs, Science, Technology & the Environment of interest to the general public.
The Studies in Globalization, Technology, and the Environment program at Washington State University, Tri-Cities, will be conducted in cooperation with a variety of existing programs and initiatives at Washington State University, including graduate programs in Environmental History, Environmental Sociology, International Affairs, Environmental Science and Regional Planning; the International Program; and university-wide initiatives in environmental studies, and global/ international studies.
David A. Sonnenfeld's Home Page
last updated January 25, 2002