From low flow toilets in UW-Madison facilities to vegetarian options in campus restaurants, Cathy Middlecamp, chemist and Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies professor, has been influential to many sustainability initiatives on campus.
A native of Queens, New York, Middlecamp came to UW-Madison as a graduate student, receiving her PHD in chemistry in 1976.
“Many women and men can progress in their career by moving somewhere else… but my family and my husband were here and nobody was moving anywhere so I had to stay here, make my home here and make the best of what was here and figure out what to do with it,” Middlecamp said.
Middlecamp teaches the Seminar for Community Environmental Scholars and oversees several doctorate students. She’s taught courses in Environmental Studies and Chemistry in the past, emphasising the importance of using real world context.
“There’s an expression that people are using now. It’s ‘campus is a living, learning laboratory’… it means that instead of going to a lab with test tubes and beakers and all that stuff, you go out into the campus and find resources… and use all of that as a means for teaching concepts relating to energy, water, food and waste,” Middlecamp said. “Go to where the trash cans are. You’ll learn a lot.”
Middlecamp also developed the Sustainability Certificate — a part of UW Madison’s curriculum since 2010 — and is hopeful for the effects sustainability education will have on campus.
“Lots of people have influence on this campus and I think the most important group to start with is the students… And to the extent that I can channel student interest and also bring it to the attention of those who are in higher positions and leadership — I do that,” Middlecamp said.
Serving 10 years as the Editor-in-Chief for ‘Chemistry in Context’ had a strong impact on Middlecamp’s desire to incorporate sustainability into her teaching.
“It was my beginning of trying to teach chemistry as if people on the planet mattered. When I went to school there was no sustainability curriculum… Most of what I’ve learned about energy, air quality, food and plastic, I’ve had to learn along the way,” Middlecamp said.
