Vulnerable Communities: Pausing to Consider

I recently met with the Roberto Valdez, Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Institute of Health Policy, to share the story of the Writing Across Communities initiative at UNM as well as talk about this course in Environmental Rhetoric & Writing.

Professor Valdez summed up so beautifully what we are doing together as a class when he said to me, "Thank you for your role in trying to build a little community at UNM around improving and protecting the health of vulnerable communities" locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.

This is the point of it all, I believe, the reason for engaging our dialogue, pursuing our research, and including others in our discussions about environmental issues.

We have an exciting and ambitous series of events in the next few weeks. As we invite our guest lecturers and other voices to join our discussion, let's pause to consider what Professor Valdez means by "the health of vulnerable communities" (in terms of bio-diversity as well as cultural diversity issues).