Richard Rorty once described the future of humanity as “a fuzzy but promising project” which we need to work together to create. If we embrace this challenge, the inevitable question is what sort of project we work on. I’d like to propose three cornerstones from an address Jeff Frank offered in a “last lecture” this spring to graduating students at St. Lawrence University. He argued for the value of stewardship, generosity, and dignity in building a common future. As you can see in the stories that make up this newsletter, each of these is a focal area for our work as a community of teachers, students, volunteers, and staff.

• Stewardship includes efforts to preserve and restore nature, of course, but it can be much more. Teachers have a stewardship relationship with the students entrusted to their care—a trust they share with staff and volunteers in our collaborative ventures. Volunteers and staff also function as stewards in their care and commitment for the LREC site, which serves as a locus for our work together. In each of these cases, the time we take to care for people and places builds our commitment to something broader than ourselves.
• Generosity abounds as volunteers give freely of their time and expertise—whether that be in restoration projects, site maintenance, or leading groups of students. Our teacher partners show generosity as they share their expertise with colleagues in workshops and conference sessions, and as they go above and beyond to create meaningful learning experiences. Empowered by these experiences, students in turn practice generosity when they act as stewards for projects they undertake for the good of the community.
• Dignity runs throughout our efforts as teachers reclaim their professional voices even when standardized approaches to schooling work to reduce their roles. With that, teachers also add to the dignity of students’ lives when they create situations for meaningful work they can undertake today. To be of use, schooling needs to be more than just preparing students for a future job. We also strive to ensure dignity for our volunteers by treating them as full partners in our work, giving them ownership of their efforts, and opportunities to continue growing and sharing their expertise.

None of these three points is easy, and none are ever fully realized. As we begin a new school year, I ask you to join me in recommitting to these values to make our community—as well as the broader world—a little less fuzzy and a bit more promising.