Gloria Barron Wilderness Society Scholarship

Overview

The Gloria Barron Wilderness Society Scholarship is available to qualified graduate students. It is created in honor of Gloria Barron, dedicated educator and tireless advocate for wilderness protection, and administered by The Wilderness Society, a leading conservation organization based in Washington, D.C. We award a $10,000 scholarship to a graduate student for the coming academic year to support research and preparation of a paper on an aspect of wilderness. We strongly encourage proposals relating to climate change, as well as other topics regarding wilderness conservation. Additional funding will be provided to pay travel expenses for the recipient to work with staff members of The Wilderness Society on this project. The Society wishes to encourage the publication of this work in an academic journal or other appropriate medium and has additional funds to help cover expenses of publishing and publicizing the final paper.

The scholarship seeks to encourage individuals who have the potential to make a significant positive difference in the long term protection of wilderness in North America. In the past, individuals like Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson have made that kind of lasting difference. They possessed all the skills needed to excel in their respective professions, but they also possessed something more: the courage and the vision to think afresh about how and why to protect our wild lands and the ability to communicate those ideas effectively to others.

View scholarship application procedures and guidelines.
Read about past scholarship recipients.

Letter from the Founder, Tom Barron

Dear Applicant:

To think like a mountain, as one of the founders of the Wilderness Society, Aldo Leopold, urged, is to take the long view of life on Earth. To see the forests, air, water, and other species of this planet as permanent parts of ourselves. For our well-being is unalterably tied to the well-being of the planet, just as human history is unalterably tied to geologic history.

This attitude guided my mother, Gloria Barron, throughout her long life. As a conservationist, teacher, civic volunteer, parent, and lifelong learner, she walked lightly on the land and encouraged others to do so. That is why I created the Gloria Barron Wilderness Society Scholarship — to honor this inspiring conservationist and to support conservation leaders of the future.

The goal of this scholarship is — like the goal of The Wilderness Society — both bold and simple. While the Society seeks to protect America's wilderness forever, the scholarship hopes to encourage some of our nation's best conservationists at a crucial point in their careers. We want nothing less than to identify, support, and honor the future Aldo Leopolds in our midst — as well as future Rachel Carsons, Mardy Muries, John Muirs, Howard Zahnisers, Bob Marshalls, and Gaylord Nelsons.

Our nation needs such visionary, capable conservationists. So does our planet. For the ultimate key to our survival — spiritually as well as physically — is to think like a mountain.

Sincerely,

T. A. Barron
December 2007

photo: Dedicated educator and wilderness protection advocate Gloria Barron.