HEADLINERS + RESOURCES + PARTNERS + U = tUrn
tUrn is designed as a dynamic interplay of transformative headliner events,
resources grouped by themes to spark conversation and action,
and partners near and far who are making it all happen
+, most importantly,
U!
tUrn takes pace for one week in October and one week in April
fall 2024 tUrn11 will be Oct 14-18 beginning on Indigenous Peoples' Day
spring 2025 tUrn12 will be Apr 21-25 during Earth Week
We cannot fashion a more just, humane, and sustainable world
if there is no world to fashion. Climate action needs to be everyone’s business
and everyone’s part-time side hustle!
To navigate our site, please check out these areas to learn more...
SHARED GOALS
What could change by having a week in fall and in spring
dedicated to climate crisis awareness and action?
Goal 1:
Re-center vulnerable communities & voices
as leaders/teachers with regards to climate crisis.
Goal 2:
Cultivate awareness of the climate crisis
through interdisciplinary examinations of truth, beauty, justice and the common good
and further educate and inspire even the already committed.
Goal 3:
Raise alarm & sense of urgency to appropriate, situation-matching (but still productive) levels.
Goal 4:
Inspire hope in and engagement from non-specialists.
Goal 5
Shape commitments toward focused, strategic, spiritually-grounded,
equitable, informed actions (small and large scale).
Deep dives into all different aspects of the climate crisis
from health to business, from arts to sciences.
Each event has a unique focus and feel.
Examples of headliners include
a marathon reading of laudato si’,
the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,
Indigenous leadership & activism, Mexican-American water relations, California Wildfires, Plant-based Diets, Youth & Climate Creativity, Disinformation, Renewables, Racism, Neuroscience, Friendship, Fossil Fuels, Agroecology, and so much more!
See the headliners tab above
for a sample of what
previous tUrns
have offered.
Teach with tUrn or hold your own discussion.
tUrn curates a single click pdf downloadable document
containing interdisciplinary perspectives in thematic chapters.
For articles, talks, videos,
data visualizations, and research on
climate crisis awareness and action see the resources tab above.
tUrn works with a local and global network of partners
who lead their own sustainability efforts, create their own tUrn events or attend headliners at SCU
including Jesuit Volunteer Corps and Earth Day Network,
the global organizer of Earth Day Events.
Become a partner by emailing us at turnproject@scu.edu
FUTURE tUrns
WHAT ARE YOU DOING every APRIL & OCTOBER this decade?
Consider what you might do between now and the next tUrn week
to make the future less perilous for all those to come.
Report out on changes, small and large,
that we've undertaken
between tUrn weeks.
KEEP IT TOGETHER | BRING PEOPLE IN
It is important to work together and not be in isolation while facing the scientific
consensus that we are in a climate crisis.
Expanding our notion of expert, we seek the wisdom of lesser heard voices.
Let's create that supportive community that can do great things.
We got this.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In an effort to affirm indigenous sovereignty we intentionally begin our inquiry into climate crisis in the fall on what is recognized as Indigenous People's Day and in the spring during earth week because "there are no 'old' ways, there are no 'new' ways, there are just ways that respect Mother Earth and nature and ways that do not."
-Shannon Rivers, a member of the Akimel O'otham or River People
LAND & PEOPLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT
tUrn acknowledges that at Santa Clara University
we work, teach, and study on the traditional lands of the
Ohlone & Muwekma Ohlone.
In an effort to affirm indigenous sovereignty, we intentionally center our inquiry into
the climate crisis by turning to Indigenous leaders of this land and of diverse lands
as our guides and teachers when we embark.
Throughout the week
—and always—
may we strive to honor, affirm,
support, listen to, learn from and stand with
Native Peoples, for whom the climate crisis of colonization,
experienced as both actual and cultural genocide, began 528 years
ago in the Western Hemisphere and just 242 years ago in California.
tUrn Headliners, Resources, and Partners reflect our attempts to shape
this endeavor with humility and with gratitude for the contributions
of Indigenous people past, present and
future,
but surely these efforts very imperfectly honor the magnificent
resilience and spirit of a people who did not cause
the impending climate crisis
and who will
hopefully endure it
because of being in right relationship
with each other, with the
Creator, and
with the
Earth.
LABOR ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Inspired by concepts from Waeli Wang & Dr. Terah “TJ” Stewart.
Version for scu.edu/tUrn by Kristin Kusanovich
We acknowledge the labor of enslaved Africans and their descendants
who worked this stolen land for the colonists, and we acknowledge
all Black families and individuals who continue to
disproportionately face economic oppression,
racism, violence, exploitation and
climate injustices due to systemic,
systematic, group-level or individual racism.
For all who have toiled under duress, and who are
already suffering, or whose lives have been taken as a result of
racism, colonialism and the climate crisis, we encourage all of us engaged
in the tUrn project to consider how our work and learning in this space and in our daily lives
can address historic and present-day atrocities, perpetrated against Black, Brown,
Indigenous and other racialized or marginalized peoples
and, in so doing, how we might re-center
those voices, those wisdoms,
those worldviews
and uplift them.
We invite
everyone in this space
to recognize your ancestors,
and the forces of history that brought you here,
as well as the work you and others are engaged in to support the collective
liberation of all people and all beings now and in the future.
Thank you for taking this moment with us before we
endeavor to lean in to the climate crisis.
May the themes and threads found in tUrn headliners, the offerings and priorities of tUrn's resources, the diversity of the partners, and the spirit of how the tUrn Advisory Council guides the project all reflect this intention.
This effort to normalize the discourse around climate crisis and move into solution mode is greatly assisted by
Santa Clara University College of Arts & Sciences Dean's Office
Key partners in 2021-24:
The Interdisciplinary tUrn:
A Climate Crisis Research Group for Faculty & Staff
Office of Multicultural Learning | Rainbow Resource Center
Environmental Justice and the Common Good Initiative
Department of Environmental Studies & Sciences
Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education Arrupe Program &
Jean Donovan Fellowship Program
Center for the Arts & Humanities
Center for Sustainability
Child Studies Program
de Saisset Museum
&
key student partners:
Emily Pachoud | tUrn Research Intern 2020-2023
Environmental Law Society
Net Impact
SLURP | Sustainable Living Undergraduate Research Project
SCU ENACT Students for Environmental Justice
NACC | Native American Coalition for Change
SCU SUNRISE MOVEMENT Chapter
SCU GREEN Team
contact us at turnproject@scu.edu