Dean & Director Jennifer Schlueter recently named Ohio State Marion Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Anna Willow to a new role as Faculty Director of Environmental Learning Labs at The Ohio State University at Marion. Willow will oversee an exciting year in 2027 for environmental learning on campus.
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Willow to oversee environmental learning on campus
Dean & Director Jennifer Schlueter recently named Ohio State Marion Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Anna Willow to a new role as Faculty Director of Environmental Learning Labs at The Ohio State University at Marion. Willow will oversee an exciting year in 2027 for environmental learning on campus.
Ohio State Marion’s Environmental Learning Laboratories currently consist of the Larry R. Yoder Prairie Learning Laboratory, the Veteran’s Garden, and the campus apiary. Willow shared that she is hopeful other elements, including additional pollinator spaces and orchards—can be added in the future.
“Ultimately, I foresee thinking about the entire campus as an environmental learning lab,” said Willow.
The newly formed position comes at the cusp of a year of celebration in 2027, with the Larry R. Yoder Prairie Learning Laboratory celebrating its 50th anniversary since its 1977 establishment. As a premier 11-acre ‘living laboratory, the prairie serves as a cornerstone of ecological research and community identity in North Central Ohio.
“We have an exciting celebration in the works, with a gallery exhibit on the past, present, and future of the prairie,” said Willow.
Rooted in Stewardship, Sustaining the Future is a year-long initiative that will renew attention to these campus and community natural resources.
“This celebration honors the prairie’s history while ensuring its continued significance as a regional model for sustainability and environmental literacy,” she added.
As part of this initiative, Ohio State Marion will also host an artistic immersion exhibit in the summer of 2027. The Wayne & Geraldine Kuhn Fine Arts Gallery will proudly feature French American artist Cadine Navarro’s It Sounds Like Love, https://www.cadinenavarro.com/it-sounds-like-love. This immersive installation, which utilizes sound recordings of prairie seeds, offers a sensory bridge between the abstract beauty of native ecosystems and the physical reality of prairie ecosystems, drawing in K-12 students, university researchers, and the public.
The yearlong initiative culminates in August of 2027 in a landmark celebration featuring the prairie’s founder, Larry R. Yoder, as the keynote speaker. This event will serve as a homecoming for the regional conservation community, fostering dialogue between generations of environmental stewards.
Willow is an engaged environmental anthropologist who has devoted her career to studying human-environment relationships in contexts of anthropogenic environmental transformation, with a specific emphasis on how diverse groups of people experience and respond to externally imposed resource extractive industrial development. Her most recent work explores the transition movement for climate resilience and other local visions of a sustainable and resilient world.
Willow earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to her doctoral training and career in anthropology, Willow has a Master of Science degree in Natural Resources and Environment with a focus on environmental behavior and education. Upon completing her doctorate, she began her career at Ohio State Marion in 2009 after serving many years as a teaching assistant and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin.
“I worked as a natural resource educator for several years,” said Willow. “I’ve always wanted to do work that makes a tangible difference in the world by improving individuals’ connections to the natural world. I’ve done that through my research for nearly 2 decades. This is another way to accomplish the same ultimate goal,” said Willow.
