A search for common ground

Phil Brick's field trips to Oregon and Nevada, which have become legendary among Whitman students, are another way to ask and answer questions. "There is scientific knowledge and there is place-based knowledge," says Brick."I want the students to know that there are more answers than just one."

With hotly contested environmental conflicts so close by in Oregon, and just a little farther away in Nevada, Brick is committed to giving students the advantage of seeing firsthand what they study in class and what he's been researching for years. An expert on the land rights movement that swept the United States in the '90s, Brick conducted a 1995 survey of Hells Canyon area residents in Oregon and Idaho asking their views on environmental legislation. The results showed that despite conflicts, angry words, and even a hanging-in-effigy over natural resources in the area, environmentalists and farmers had more in common than they realized. He wants his students to see this common ground and understand that "solving problems may not be a compromise but just a different way of doing things."

Senior politics major Leah Larson did just that on the Nevada field trip her Environment and Politics in the New West class took in October. "I thought these old-time ranchers were just too set in their ways, and they needed to understand environmental groups and the new policies that will save our environment." But as the class proceeded on its trek, meeting and talking to ranchers and Shoshone Native Americans, the students discovered that these people love the land and they want to preserve it, too. "It was a real eye-opener."

Larson and the others discovered that the traditional Nevada ranchers already use sustainable grazing practices, and their main goal is to save the land for the future. "The trip impacted a lot of us long-term. It made me aware of how issues aren't as black and white as they seem."

The week in Nevada, says Larson, was as beneficial to her as a semester's worth of classes. "We were all so glad Professor Brick put this together and that our other teachers were so supportive. The experience of actually meeting these people was wonderful. It gave us two sides to the discussion and let us see the people and interact with their way of life, not just read about it in the text and talk about it." The trip must be a lot of work for Brick, she concedes, what with cooking meals and dealing with a group of college students for a whole week. "I commend him for that."

It is a lot of work, agrees Brick, and the toughest part is setting up an itinerary that includes a dozen people who live 500 miles away. "But you can't really learn about natural resources policy until you talk to the people involved." Brick says he uses the trips as a whole experience that not only teaches but builds an irreplaceable camaraderie among classmates. And for some, it's the first time they have camped, or seen the incredible terrain of the Nevada or Wallowa mountain ranges.

"It brings people together." And for Brick, who at one time worked as a guide in northern Minnesota and California, "Taking people on trips is a natural."