Paul E. Julian
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Let me begin by saying how grateful I am to have been invited to join the Udall family. Its resources, both financial and otherwise, have done much to enrich my past year. Since receiving a Udall Scholarship, I have seen many of the projects for which I have worked so hard come to fruition. The Environmental Semester—for which I was the student member of the Steering Committee—ran its successful course in Spring 2005, offering many interdisciplinary classes, hosting conferences and symposia, drawing world-renowned environmental scientists, activists, and artists to campus, and much more. The campus-wide residence hall energy conservation program I founded, “Make Orange Green,” completed its pilot run in the spring. It resulted in a nine percent reduction in energy consumption among students in residence halls, saving the university $29,000 and preventing the release of 2000 tons of carbon dioxide, among other pollutants. The UT Environmental Policy, for which we lobbied on the Committee on the Campus Environment, was finally promulgated by the Chancellor on Earth Day 2004.
It is both regrettable and exciting that I could not witness the effects of these successes in person. Its regrettable aspect is, I think, self-evident. My excitement, however, stems from the fact that my absence from UT has been due to my presence at Oxford University, where I have been studying philosophy for the academic year. I have been able to focus on ethical theory and other topics while working in tutorials and small seminars with some of the most talented philosophers in the world. During my vacations from Oxford, I have spent several weeks climbing in Fontainebleau, France and I completed a 1200 kilometer cycling trip from Paris to Bilbao.
Last summer, I was chosen as one of fifteen undergraduates from across the nation to take part in the three-week Colorado Summer Seminar in Philosophy, run by the faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This opportunity was invaluable, as it allowed me to work with some of the brightest young philosophers in the U.S. in the atmosphere of an intensive, graduate-level seminar. Furthermore, we focused on Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, a section of which I had been working on for the majority of the summer as part of my research grant.
This research grant was funded jointly by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the UT Chancellor’s office. I worked closely with Dr. John Nolt, an environmental philosopher and logician, on the connected topics of intergenerational justice and temporal fairness in environmental decision-making. After hiding myself away in a tiny office for two months to read and write on the subject, I had a much more nuanced understanding of the problem but, I regret, no logically satisfactory solution. And thus, I continue to work.
A highlight of my year has been my selection to return as a 2005 Udall Scholar, and I look forward to coming back to Tucson this summer.