Professor Meadows dies at 59
Dartmouth Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies Donella Meadows died Tuesday of bacterial meningitis. Meadows, 59, was hospitalized at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center two weeks earlier, battling the rare and usually treatable disease. Arrangements had already been made for Associate Professor of Philosophy Julia Driver to take over Meadow's Environmental Ethics course for the term. A member of the faculty at Dartmouth for 29 years, Meadows was an eloquent advocate for environmental sustainability, her academic specialty. Her 1972 international best-seller, The Limits to Growth, placed her as one of the leading experts in the sustainability movement, which aims to reduce damaging global trends in human population and environmental degradation. She also managed an organic farm and wrote a weekly newspaper column, "The Global Citizen," which in 1991 earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination. For 18 years Meadows lead an international coalition of environmental scientists, The Balaton Group, in addition to serving on numerous other scientific committees and international boards. Just four years ago, she founded the Sustainability Institute, a "think-do-tank" which lead to the development of a sustainable residential community in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont. According to faculty and students, Meadows' amazing and inspiring presence will be sorely missed, not only at Dartmouth but throughout the world. "Everyone is very sad, not just in the Environmental Studies program, but all over the Dartmouth campus, the Upper Valley, U.S., and throughout the world," Professor of Environmental Studies and Environmental Studies chair Andrew Friedland said. Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Environmental Studies James Hornig, who hired Meadows back in 1972, called her the most inspiring person he ever knew. "Over the past 24 hours I've probably looked at 50 email messages that came from people all over the world who knew her, and I think 'love' appeared in every one of them," Hornig said. According to Friedland, "Dana was beloved by her students; they were just passionate about her," and not one passed through her classes unaffected. Although Hannah Jacobs '02 was Meadows' student for only one month of this term, she said she's never had a teacher change her life as much in so short a time. "She made me look at life in a different way," through her inspiring message and alternative teaching methods, Jacobs said. Meadows wrote out detailed comments on students' papers instead of grades, and spurred class discussions that forced students to confront the difficult issues, Jacobs said. Meadows, in fact, was a large part of the reason Jacobs, an Environmental Studies major, came to Dartmouth. Jacob's New Hampshire hometown ran Meadow's weekly column, and ever since she was young Jacobs hoped to take a class with the professor. "She was willing to speak out on all kinds of important issues, and had the background of a scientist but the understanding of a journalist, and above all, enormous love of humanity," Hornig said.