On Thursday, my first intern, Rick, called me. It was wonderful. I was in my second semester back at Penn State, co-teaching Foundations of Leadership in Sustainability. Rick was an Engineering student who was eager to be more than engineer by challenging himself with ethics and education. We did this by diving into the ethics of the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan and by helping his fellow students prepare for the Power Dialogue in Harrisburg. He was such a good teaching assistant and easy guy to work with.
On Thursday, he called because we now have a mutual colleague from Johnson Controls. And it looks like Rick can help us with a microcredential we are building into the Local Climate Action Program. All that is great. I’m excited. More exciting and gratifying is hearing about his two young kids, his wife, and what he has been up.
Got me thinking a little. A few days before that, I was on a Climate Action Campaign panel called “Building Climate Action Together” with two recently graduated Penn State Sustainability interns and someone from DCNR to talk about climate, advocacy and activism, justice, staying centered, and working with others. Yesterday, I worked with my most recent intern on our research paper, her thesis, and life after December graduation. Next week, I’ll have a Zoom lunch with a summer intern from the Drawdown Research Experience for Undergraduates from 2020.
This got me thinking. I hear from my interns from pretty often. We check in, just to see how the other is doing, have a question the other can answer (maybe?), or because we now have professional overlaps. They are diverse by race, by sex and gender, and by religious affiliation. They have gone into water science, the energy transition, planning and policy, the law, and education. Some are in the private sector, non-profits, and others in government.
I hear from my non-intern students, too. I’m in touch with folks I taught Rhetoric and Composition 20 years ago, Philosophy of Education 15 years ago, Environmental Science and English and ran trail half-marathons 12 years ago, and quite a few students from Sustainability Leadership from the last 10 years and the Local Climate Action Program from the last three.
Every teacher hopes for durable relationships that come from learning together. I’m grateful for mine.
Peter Walks for Democracy 
And we, your students, are grateful to be in touch with you! To me, you are still the Pole Star, pointing the way to the future!! “Grandma” (Every classroom needs one!) “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justice now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.” The Talmud
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