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The forest and the trees When the new dean addressed the new students in the new building, one question hung in the air. Finally, a faculty member voiced what was on everyone's mind: "How do you want staff, how do you want students to address you?" Sir Peter Crane—the new head of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a knight in his native United Kingdom—hesitated. "I think it … uh . . ." Laughter swept through the standing-room-only crowd on the top floor of Kroon Hall. Crane started again: "I think . . ." More laughter. "Peter is fine," he concluded. "In more formal circumstances, Dean Crane might be appropriate." Crane—tieless but wearing the requisite Yale blue blazer and khakis—had already run through some of the bullet points from his CV: an evolutionary biologist specializing in plant diversity who taught at the University of Chicago, directed that city's Field Museum, and directed the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London. In short, a scientist who, in his own words, is "not interested in much that's younger than about 60 million years." You might predict, then, that Crane will move the school away from the future- and policy-oriented direction it took under his predecessor, James Gustave "Gus" Speth '64, '69LLB, a lawyer and leading environmental advocate. But, to hear Crane tell it, that prediction would be wrong. "I think I'm here for the same reasons that you're here," he told the students: "I want to learn more, and I want to contribute. There's always more to do in science. But in the latter part of my career, I want to do more on the environmental side." He can do that, he continued, "by having more influence." Crane has long been concerned with the "relevance" of science, he said. For example, while at the Field Museum, he helped start the Chicago Wilderness Initiative, which he described as bringing together 200 organizations that focus on the environment in Chicago. Another example of relevance and influence: he is joining the board of the World Wildlife Fund. And he was knighted in 2004 for his service to plant conservation. Crane's scientific interest in prehistoric plants gives him a startling perspective on the planet's present and future. Where temperature increases of one degree or less might seem inconsequential to some observers, he looks at the very long-term picture. "I trade in not thousands of years, but millions of years," he said. "So one of the things I keep in my brain is how fast our world is changing" in response to climate change. We can adapt to natural change, he noted—"but not at such speed." |
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