Uniquely Close: Biodiversity at Congaree and Diversity in Columbia
“Biosphere preserves are learning places for sustainable development when approaches are rooted in participatory conservation and community.”
-John Kupfer
As part of the series of events surrounding Columbia’s 2024 ONE BOOK Project featuring the environmental novel, Beaver Girl, by Cassie Premo Steele and sponsored by the Jasper Project, One Columbia for Arts and Culture, and All Good Books, you are invited to join us for a discussion of the unique aspects that the biodiversity in the Congaree National Park and the diversity of the Columbia Metropolitan Area have to offer residents and visitors. The panel features locally based scholars, writers, artists and activists invested in the intersectionality of racial, social, economic and environmental justice, including:
Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., Author of Beaver Girl
Jessica Elfenbein, Ph.D., Chairperson of History at the University of South Carolina
John Kupfer, Ph.D., Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina
Rhonda Grego, Ph.D., Dean, School of English and Humanities, at Midlands Technical College
Tameria Warren, Ph.D., SE Rural Community Outreach Organization Board Member and Instructor in the School of Earth, Ocean & Environment at the University of South Carolina
Bios
Dr. Jessica Elfenbein is Professor and Chair of the History department at the University of South Carolina. She had the great good fortune to oversee the 2019 Historic Resource Survey for Congaree National Park which led her to her current multi-faceted project, Wood Basket of the World: Lumbering, Manufacturing, and Conserving South Carolina’s Forests which includes a traveling exhibit, anthology, and oral history project, among other things. Jessica is spending lots of time learning about Sumter, South Carolina - for nearly a century the center of the state’s wood products industries. She is especially interested in the community’s transition from agriculture to wood products, the history of furniture production, and the environmental degradation that followed.
Dr. Rhonda Grego was born in Florence, SC and earned degrees from Wilson High School, the College of Charleston, and Penn State. Over the past 40+ years she has taught and/or served as writing program director and grant administrator at Penn State, the University of South Carolina, Benedict College, and now Midlands Technical College. At MTC she was named the 2018 Albin S. Johnson Teaching Excellence Award winner, and since 2020 has served there as Dean of the School of English and Humanities. Throughout the years, she and collaborator Nancy Thompson pioneered and developed Writing Studio programs that ensure access and support for college student writers nationwide. Another passion has been promoting greater local awareness of Tales of the Congaree, a 1920s collection of African American folktales from Lower Richland County. Since 1989 she and husband John have lived in Columbia where they raised two daughters and are long-time members of Friends of Congaree Swamp. She is an avid amateur photographer.
Dr. John Kupfer is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Senior Affiliate in the School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment at USC. As a landscape ecologist and biogeographer, his research explores the ecological effects of habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, and disturbances, with a special interest in protected lands management. He has served on the Senior Advisory Panel for the National Science Foundation’s Geography and Spatial Sciences Program and as a Fellow of the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. He was also a member of the National Academy of Science’s Committee on the Long-term Management of the Spirit Lake/Toutle River System in Southwest Washington. He is currently one of the Principal Investigators for the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center and is a member of the National Working Group for the U.S. Biosphere Reserve Network and the Congaree Biosphere Region’s Advisory Council. He has recently served on the organizing committee for the 2022 and 2024 Congaree National Park Research Symposia and helped to organize a community workshop associated with the visit of the Smithsonian Water/Ways Exhibit to the park and Columbia in 2021.
Dr. Cassie Premo Steele is an environmental poet, novelist, and essayist whose writing focuses on the themes of trauma, healing, creativity, and mindfulness. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and is the author of 18 books, including 3 novels and 7 books of poetry. Her poetry has been nominated 7 times for the Pushcart Prize. She was a Finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award judged by the former US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. She has also been awarded The DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Society Prize, the Stephanie Ellen Siler Memorial Prize, the John Edward Johnson Prize, the Carrie McCray Literary Award for Poetry, and the Archibald Rutledge Prize named after the first Poet Laureate of South Carolina, where she lives in Columbia with her wife.
Dr. Tameria Warren is a native of Detroit, Michigan, but has lived in the Columbia area since 2008. Tameria serves as the Senior Environmental Specialist at Samsung Electronics Home Appliances in Newberry, as well as an adjunct professor in the School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment (SEOE) at the University of South Carolina. She also provides technical assistance for environmental justice grants with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Prior to her current positions, she worked as a Senior Environmental Scientist at U.S. Army Garrison Fort Jackson and as an Environmental Engineer in multiple Midwest facilities with General Motors. Tameria works with the South East Rural Community Outreach (SERCO), which has partnered with such entities as the Congaree National Park and Congaree Biosphere Region to educate the Lower Richland community about its rich environmental history and cultural significance. Tameria has a deep interest in understanding the connections African Americans have with nature and the environment.
