Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 27-October 4, 1999

Volume 28, Number 6

James Gustave Speth

Forestry school dean will open
lecture series on bioethics

Forestry School Dean James Gustave ("Gus") Speth will open the fall series on "Bioethics and Public Policy" with a lecture on ethics and the formulation of environmental policy.

His talk, "Sustaining the Biosphere: Thoughts on the Academy, the Environment and the New Century," will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 29, in the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 80 Wall St. It is free and open to the public.

"The challenge we face as we enter [the forestry school's] second century is extraordinary, for never has the need been greater for a new generation of environmental leaders and for new ideas and insights," Speth has said.

"Environmental challenges are growing daily more serious and increasingly linked to subjects we once thought remote from our field," he notes. "Environmental leaders must be prepared to understand the international context in which many issues arise and to integrate environmental, economic and developmental concerns."

The Dean's talk marks the inauguration of the Arthur and Dale Galston Lectureship Series in Environmental Ethics, which is part of the "Bioethics and Public Policy" seminar program jointly sponsored by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Slifka Center.

The seminar program, now in its fifth year, features speakers who are experts in science and are concerned with the ethical implications of their work for society. The seminars focus on three areas: medicine, genetics and the environment. The lectures on the environment were recently endowed by an anonymous donor in honor of Arthur W. Galston, the Eaton Professor Emeritus of Botany at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES), and his wife, Dale, who have helped organize and run the bioethics seminars for the past five years. The theme of this fall's series is "Ethical Dilemmas at the Millennium."

Before assuming the F&ES deanship in July, Speth was administrator of the United Nations Development Program, the U.N.'s principal arm for the funding and coordination of technical assistance and development. He held that post from 1993 to 1999.

Prior to his tenure at the U.N., he founded the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 1982 and served as its president until January 1993. Based in Washington, D.C., WRI is a center for policy research and technical assistance on environmental and development issues. Following his tenure at WRI, Speth was senior adviser to President-elect Clinton's transition team, heading the group on natural resources, energy and the environment.

Before founding WRI, Speth chaired President Carter's Council on Environmental Quality, and then went on to teach environmental and constitutional law for two years as a professor at Georgetown University. From 1970 to 1977, he was senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an organization he cofounded. Prior to that, he was law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

Speth graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1964 and earned a J.D. from the Law School in 1969. He also attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a M.Litt. in economics. He recently received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Clark University.

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