I’m delighted to introduce the first of two special programs we will run this semester under the rubric of our “Urban Anthropocene” series.

Today, our colleague Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Professor of Political Science and Women and Gender Studies, and Director of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center, begins a series of three posts on “Cities and Our Future: Governance in the Anthropocene.” She will draw on her experience in city government in Norman, OK, including nine years as mayor, to reflect on the challenges to environmental governance at the local level in the Anthropocene. Her second post will appear on January 31 and the third on February 14.

Then, on Tuesday, March 6, at 4 p.m. Dr. Rosenthal will participate in a panel discussion of her ideas with Susan Atkinson of the Oklahoma City Planning Department, DeVon Douglas, Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Tulsa, and Cody Pepper of The Nature Conservancy Oklahoma City office. The discussion, which is free and open to the public, will take place on the OU Campus in the Gould Hall Gallery.

At the end of February we will begin another special program: working with urban theorist Stephanie Pincetl we will present a series of posts that explore the idea of “urban metabolism,” culminating in a visit by Dr. Pincetl to the OU campus, and a public panel discussion with her on Thursday, April 19.

Thanks to the units at OU that are supporting the public events on campus: Provost’s Office, the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center, the OU Biological Survey, the Departments of Biology, Geology, and Political Science, and OU’s Headington College.