ABOUT DR. SHALANDA BAKER:
Shalanda H. Baker is the inaugural Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action at the University of Michigan, where she leads interdisciplinary efforts to integrate sustainability across the curriculum, foster climate-focused research, and advance the university’s role as a living-learning lab for climate solutions. She assumes this role after serving in the U.S. Department of Energy as the Senate-confirmed Director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity, where she architected the agency’s equity initiatives—including the Justice40 framework—and previously held the position of Deputy Director for Energy Justice.
A legal scholar and advocate for energy and environmental justice, Baker co-founded the Initiative for Energy Justice, which provides communities on the frontlines of climate change with policy and legal support Initiative for Energy Justice. She has held law faculty positions at Northeastern University, University of Hawaii, and University of San Francisco, and is the author of Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition.
ABOUT LISA WOZNIAK:
Lisa’s career spans over two decades of environmental and conservation advocacy in the political arena. She is a nationally- recognized expert in non-profit growth and management and a leader in Great Lakes protections. Lisa is a three-time graduate from the University of Michigan, with a bachelor's degree and two ensuing master's degrees in social work and Education.
Lisa serves a co-host and content partner in 89.1 WEMU's '1st Friday Focus on the Environment.'
RESOURCES:
Michigan League of Conservation Voters
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability
"Shalanda Baker named U-M's first vice provost for sustainability and climate action"
University of Michigan Climate Week 2025
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and I'd like to welcome you to our First Friday Focus on the Environment. Each month, we get together and discuss the challenges and possibilities when it comes to the health of our air, land and water. A changing climate poses a myriad of challenges, and how we mitigate and adapt to that reality is a work in progress. I'm David Fair, and my co-host for these conversational journeys is Lisa Wozniak. Lisa is executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. And today, we get to talk about creating a climate conducive to progress when it comes to environmental health. How you doing, Lisa?
Lisa Wozniak: Well, I'm doing very well, David, but I am wondering how we got nine months into this year already. It's gone so fast, especially this summer!
David Fair: It has been a whirlwind!
Lisa Wozniak: It has! So, as the seasons change, so does the climate. And there are a couple of firsts when it comes to climate action at the University of Michigan. Later this month, the university is going to hold its first ever Climate Week. And there's no one better to talk about climate issues and the work ahead than the University of Michigan's first-ever Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action. Her name is Shalanda Baker. And she's on the other end of the WEMU phone line. So, thanks so much for the time today, Shalanda! We really appreciate it!
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Thank you so much! I'm really excited to be a part of this conversation!
David Fair: Well, before we talk about Climate Week, let's talk about your role on campus and what it brings to the climate conversation. How do you view your role as Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action?
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Oh, I love that question! So, as you mentioned, I'm the first-ever Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action here at the University of Michigan. And I see my role as one that stands on the shoulders of so many who made a way for a role like mine to exist at the very highest levels within the Provost's office here at the university. And so, for many years, I would say for a couple of decades, people have been advocating for leadership to organize, to coalesce, to catalyze our research community and our students to ensure that we can actually make an impact in real time. So many of your listeners probably know that the University of Michigan leads in so many areas, including those related to sustainability, energy, our built environment, but there hasn't been someone who can sort of steer the ship, if you will, to ensure that we're all moving in the same direction and we're moving toward impact, which is really what we need in this very decisive decade.
Lisa Wozniak: So, I am sure that your position could take you in a number of different directions. How do you identify the priorities and the major initiatives?
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Sure. So, you're absolutely right! I mean, I came into a blank slate, which I love. I'm a little bit of an entrepreneur by nature. But there are three kind of main categories of my work. There's the curriculum area, there is the research area, and then, there's the community impact area. And that's kind of how I've schematically organized it in my brain to keep me more focused. On the curricular side, we're really thinking about ways every single student who moves to the University of Michigan gets exposure to climate themes, climate education, sustainability education, regardless of major. And so, I'm working with our leadership across the university to ensure that that is true and to support our faculty to be able to teach about these topics, again, regardless of their own subject matter expertise. We know, in so many ways, climate is everything. It's going to impact every single area of life. And so, we need to get our faculty the tools, but then also to prepare our students for the world that they will absolutely inhabit when they leave our doors. On the research side, I think you're right. There are tons and tons of ways to approach the research aspect of this portfolio. The goal is to, again, synthesize our community, so that we're all moving together to solve the naughtiest problems of the day around issues of sustainability and climate and to begin to build interdisciplinary teams to tackle problems. One of the things that strikes me every day as I walk in the door is we have 100 programs in our graduate programs that are in the top 10 nationally. I mean, no other university has that kind of depth and breadth. And so, the question is, how do you get folks to work together to, again, solve the most challenging issues of the day?
David Fair: They say timing is everything, and you've come to work at a most interesting political time. We've seen significant rollbacks in environmental and climate protections at the federal level. We've seen rollbacks and research funding. How do these actions threaten the University of Michigan's sustainability commitments on and around campus?
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Yeah. So, I am so grateful to be at a university that is still laser-focused on climate action, on sustainability, on issues of equity in the environment. And the university has a very long history in all of those areas. I mean, we were one of the catalysts for the first-ever Earth Day in this country. We began the country's first-ever environmental justice program at a university, and now, that's the standard around the country. And we were the first-ever university to have a school for natural resources. So, again, I stand on the shoulders of all the folks who made that true. And now, I'm carrying the torch into the next decade to ensure that we continue to lead, particularly during this challenging moment. I mean, our students are coming into the university, in many cases, having experienced climate issues in their communities. So, we can't hide the fact that the climate is changing. We have some of the world's best scientists on climate science on our campus. Many of us have authored peer-reviewed publications dealing with the science related to climate change, dealing with science related to our water system, our energy system. And so, I'm grateful that we're staying the course. We're obviously wanting to just stay focused wanting to bring folks together to continue to be able to do their work.
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU's First Friday Focus on the Environment, and our guest is Shalanda Baker, the first ever Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate at the University of Michigan. The other voice you hear today is that of my co-host, Lisa Wozniak.
Lisa Wozniak: You mentioned environmental justice, and I was lucky enough to study with Dr. Bunyan Bryant, who was at the forefront of so much of that work at the University of Michigan and deeply connected to community. So, my question for you is, how is the university currently working to ensure that institutional sustainability goals complement and support community work and, notably, Ann Arbor's A2Zero initiative?
Dr. Shalanda Baker: I love it! So, I love that question! It's just sort of giving me chills because I come to this work as a scholar activist. I come to the university after having spent the last decade-and-a-half of my career as an academic really thinking about how our work can make a difference in real time in communities. And my work has mainly been around the energy system and energy justice. Here, though, the question is always about how we can leverage our community to move at scale. And so, you opened the program talking about Climate Week, and that is a way in which we can open the doors of the university to our community members. So, absolutely opening the doors to Ann Arbor, but we're also bringing in busses and busses and busses of students from Detroit from the 48217 zip code, which is the most polluted zip code in the state, to witness what is happening at this university. I'm hoping it will be electric. These are students who may or may not have ever been exposed to a place like the University of Michigan. And so, this is one way in which we're really trying to lower the barriers to access this community--this research community--the resources that we have within it. So, Climate Week is one way we're doing that where there would just be sort of concentric rings of engagement, again, starting at the university campus, but moving out through Ann Arbor, moving out into Detroit, and hopefully the state. We also have a day of service embedded in Climate Week, so our kickoff will be on September 30th in our Diag here, or actually, I think it's September 29th. I don't want to misspeak--
David Fair: I think it's the 27th.
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Well, the first day is the 27th, but we actually have our kickoff in the Diag on campus on the 29th on a Monday.
David Fair: Gotcha!
Dr. Shalanda Baker: So, that also kicks off our day of service, because we have to be in service to each other and in service of our community if we're going to get this right. So, Climate Week is one way we're doing the engagement that you talked about, Lisa. I think the other thing is the folks over at the Michigan Climate Action Network. I've been able to engage Denise, who is their executive director, pretty regularly, and, in the early parts of 2025, we said, "How are we going to catalyze our community to continue to move toward climate action?" And so, we put our heads together, we built a team, and, for the last eight months, we've been working to develop what I hope is a transformative fellowship program for students here at the University of Michigan to go into communities where the nodes of the Michigan Climate Action Network are located. And so, we're piloting that program. We're calling it the Michigan Community Climate Action Fellowship Program, where we hope to embed students in places like the U.P., Western Michigan, Central Michigan, of course, here in Southeast Michigan as well. And so, at scale, we'll have about 150 students a year embedded in places, and that'll change their lives. And so, we want that to be available to mainly our first and second year students from our Dearborn campus, our Flint campus, and also here at our Ann Arbor campus. And so, that's another way that we're trying to sort of expose our students to what's happening in the state in real time around climate, but also to support and uplift our climate warriors who are out there every single day working to make their communities a better place.
David Fair: I am fascinated and hope to talk to you again in the future and see how far we move forward in the months and years to come!
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Keep me accountable! I'm excited!
David Fair: That is Shalanda Baker, the first-ever Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action at the University of Michigan. For more information on the upcoming Climate Week and the work of her office, check in at our website at WEMU.org. The September edition of WEMU's First Friday Focus on the Environment is now in the books! And, Lisa Wozniak, I look forward to our next conversation in October!
Lisa Wozniak: I look forward to it, David! This has been a delightful conversation! Thank you, Shalanda!
Dr. Shalanda Baker: Thank you so much!
David Fair: That is my First Friday co-host and executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Lisa Wozniak. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating 60 years of broadcasting from the campus of Eastern Michigan University!
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