Madison Kollar/The Mossy Log
Throughout the week of Sept. 29, the environmental studies department at Lewis & Clark hosted the 28th Annual Environment Across Boundaries (ENVX) Symposium, with this year’s theme being “Common Ground: How We Can Engage Across Difference With a Shared Love of Land.” Starting Monday, Sept. 29, an event was held each day to address working and engaging across differences. On the evening of Oct. 3, the symposium will conclude with final remarks speaking to labor on farms in Oregon, as well as a closing reception. This year’s panels included topics about forests, farms and livestock, all connected to the speakers’ love for the land.
Compared to ENVX symposia of the past that focused on lectures, this year’s symposium features a new format: working group discussions. Traditionally, the ENVX symposium has centered its events around keynote presentations, workshops and various forms of storytelling. As Sandoval explained, it was a very rich way for students to learn and be exposed to the different aspects of the environment. Still, the committee wanted to find a way to test the boundaries of a generic symposium format. The symposium website shares some of the divisions in environmental discussions that it seeks to explore.
“Environmentalists have not always collaborated with people and organizations representing our natural resource economy; and those who work the land are often suspicious that environmentalists don’t have their interests in mind,” the website states.
What better way to engage and work across political divides in the land than directly inviting the agricultural, livestock and forestry communities to LC? To better understand this new shift in the ENVX symposium, The Mossy Log interviewed ENVX Student Co-Chair and environmental studies major Joaquin Sandoval ’26, who has been working on the symposium since the early spring of 2025.
“It was partially inspired by the election results and how that divided people, and it still has people divided in all types of communities,” Sandoval said. “We’ve discussed in our ENVS courses a strong rural-urban divide, especially from Portland to the surrounding agricultural hubs in Oregon. So sort of testing those divides, both partisan, spatial and ideological, testing those boundaries, and kind of showing that engagement can be done across them.”
A vast and diverse group has been invited to contribute to the ENVX events, comprising five organizations and over 30 guests. Members of the LC community across the CAS, graduate and law campuses are represented at the symposium, as well as local farms, nonprofits and communication groups that have led each event. As Sandoval explained, after success in reaching different contacts from previous field trips, guest speakers and other events, working groups began meeting in March.
“To get all those people to be in just showed the power, value and excitement of the working group concept. Because pretty much everybody said, ‘this is an awesome idea, let’s go for it,’” Sandoval said.
Community Dialogues (CD), an LC program that aims to bring people together through facilitated dialogue to build capacities to listen, speak and learn, had a critical role in bringing the working groups together, which also inspired the structure of symposium events. First, on March 19, working groups met and were guided through a CD to discuss the overarching theme of ENVX and the land, Sandoval said. These meetings also oriented what specific topics would be insightful to discuss during their events — often, responding to current divided issues each workgroup was facing.
The spring was dedicated heavily to planning the different aspects of the symposium and materializing events that would occur outside of the working group events held from Tuesday through Thursday. During the summer, Sandoval and Student Co-Chair Violet Wojno ’26 met with the Symposium Advisor, Professor of Environmental Studies Jim Proctor, to work on outreach and check in about the quickly-approaching event series.
“Right when we showed up on campus, it was like a full collective sprint. Our committee had to think about publicity, (preparing) the working group for the panel and all of the logistical prep for who is going to be there,” Sandoval added.
After their first preliminary meeting, the working groups have continuously been in contact through formal meetings and informal conversations. In total, groups have spent six hours in CD together, and have dedicated hours outside of this to prepare for their events.
“So it’s only been six hours total (of CD), but still it’s been a world of value, and so much information passed along to one another, and more preliminary engagement than there ever has been in past symposiums for an event,” Sandoval said. “I think it’s perfect, and I think there’s been enough left unsaid to where the panel is going to be rich, and there’s going to be some new information and a great, interesting conversation (to be) had.”
Considering the success of the working groups format, Sandoval looks forward to how future symposiums implement this structure in addressing Environment Across Boundaries. In addition, he encourages any student to get involved with next year’s symposium. Students can reach out to the environmental studies department for more information and to Proctor to explore possibilities of engaging as a co-chair or volunteer.
While a majority of events have passed, students are invited to join the final discussion and reception held today, Friday, Oct. 3, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Stamm Hall in the Fowler Student Center. In all, Sandoval encourages students to engage not only with people similar to them, but to reach across differences sensibly.
“My end goal is to have people inspired and motivated and empowered, to have engagement across difference, to not be fearful, or even if you are feel fearful, just know that it is productive to talk to people that are different than you, and it’s important because right now, we’re divided, you know, not by the fact that we’re humans, but by the fact that we are thinking different ways and thinking different things,” Sandoval said. “Expose yourself to others within and outside of Lewis & Clark. I think it’s the most mindful way to engage towards progress in the future.”
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