Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Wilmington, N.C. (Sept. 22, 2015) - UNCW Environmental Studies Professor Jack Hall will host The Ecology Webinar Series™ premiering on www.ecology.com, streaming live from the UNCW campus on Sept. 30, 2015, from 12-1 p.m. (Eastern Time), the university announced today. 

Ecology.com is the central website for the Ecology Global Network^® (EGN), the multimedia service of Ecology Communications Group Inc. Noted environmentalist and actor Ed Begley Jr., a long-time spokesman and ambassador for EGN and ecology.com, will co-host the series with Hall and also serve as commentator for each webinar in the series. Begley Jr. “is widely known as the environmental conscience of the entertainment industry and everyday living,” according to series creator Eric McLamb, founder and senior executive vice president of EGN.

The premiere, titled “Environmental Unity: All Are Connected,” will be broadcast live from the UNCW campus in the Leutze Hall television studio in front an audience of university students and school ecology clubs. Students and educators around the globe are invited to watch and participate in the program for free with registration on ecology.com. 

This webinar will focus on transecting relationships, such as global climate change and the human population explosion over the last 200 years, as well as the continuing evolution of Earth’s natural processes and the health and development of life on the planet, according to McLamb, a 1978 graduate of UNCW. The program format will be interactive, with the audience invited to participate via Twitter.

“Everything and everyone on this Earth is interconnected through our environment, which both shapes us and is shaped by us,” Hall said. “I am excited about this collaboration with EGN and ecology.com and this excellent opportunity to introduce UNCW and the extraordinary environmental research conducted by my faculty colleagues across campus, to students, educators, businesses and ecology clubs around the world.”

The series is a campus-community collaboration between UNCW and ecology.com, Hall added, involving the Department of Environmental Studies, the Department of Communication Studies, the Office of University Relations and Begley Jr.

Ecology’s Executive Producer for The Ecology Webinar Series™, Layne McClanahan, said the webinar series will cover a broad range of vital topics presented in ways students and teachers will find compelling and thought-provoking.

“These university partnerships are extremely powerful for education, and we could not be more pleased or fortunate to be able to collaborate with such an esteemed and robust educational partner as UNCW,” added McClanahan, Chairman of the Board for Ecology Communications Group Inc.

Future topics will include such themes as life expectancy, global collaboration between regions, global energy, fossil fuels and life, ecosystems and the balance of life, Earth as seen from space and more. The upcoming webinars will originate from different locations such as universities, educational conferences and other strategic locations around the world, including India, China, Cuba, the Arabic Region, Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Media contact: Office of University Relations, 910-962-2092, or our@uncw.edu. 

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