Wednesday, Sept. 18 | 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. CST | Zoom ID: 977 5557 6923 | YouTube Recording

During the first webinar, join experts for a discussion about the history of industrial agriculture and confined animal feed operations in Iowa, their impacts on our health and our communities.

Dean Hines, Moderator & Panelist

N. William Hines joined the faculty at the College of Law in 1962 as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Agricultural Law Clinic. In 1973 he was named the Joseph F. Rosenfield Distinguished Professor of Law, and in 1976 assumed the role of Dean of The College of Law. He served 28 years as Iowa law dean, making him the longest serving dean of a College in the history of the University of Iowa.

While in law school at The University of Kansas (JD 1961), Professor Hines served as Associate Editor and Notes & Comments Editor of the Kansas Law Review. During his senior year he served concurrently as a clerk to Justice Walter A. Huxman of the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Upon graduation he served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School for one year. His scholarship has focused on Property Co-ownership, Estate Planning, and Environmental Law.

He served as President of AALS in 2005. Chair, Presidential Committee on Athletics (PCA) where the main project is revising the PCA Operations Manual to bring it up to date with current policies and practices of the PCA.

Silvia Secchi, Panelist

Silvia Secchi is a professor in the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Science at the University of Iowa. Her work focuses on the interface between agriculture and the environment, particularly water and carbon. She is a natural resource economist by training, and her work typically combines methodologies from the social sciences, the natural sciences and engineering. She has published on the interplay between agricultural, conservation and energy policies, corn belt farmers’ attitudes towards conservation, multifunctional floodplain management and targeted reconnection, invasive species management, and mitigation and adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector.

Sherri White-Williamson, Panelist

Sherri White-Williamson retired from the US EPA in 2015. She began her career there in the Office of Indoor Air. She later served in the Office of Environmental Justice and briefly in the Office of Children’s Health Protection. During her time in the Office of Environmental Justice she served in several roles including Manager of the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (IWG) established under Executive Order 12898 and Designated Federal Officer to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. As Manager of the IWG Ms. White-Williamson facilitated environmental justice tours across the country for federal agencies representatives.

After retiring from the EPA, Ms. White-Williamson matriculated at Vermont Law School, South Royalton, VT, where she graduated in 2018 with her Juris Doctor and a Masters in Energy Regulation and Law. Her environmental focus was environmental justice.

While at VLS Ms. White-Williamson received several awards and scholarships for her work in the environmental justice area including the Marc L. Mihaly Environmental Leadership Award, Equal Justice Foundation Scholarship, the Remy Scholarship for the Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite, and a VLS Environmental Mission Scholar Scholarship. She also represented the school’s Institute on Energy and the Environment at the National Environmental Justice Conference and Training Program.

She co-chaired the school’s first environmental justice conference, “Bridging the Gap Between the Promise and the Reality of Environmental Justice.” The event brought together many of the pioneers of the environmental justice movement. In addition, she served as President and Founding Member of the Environmental Justice Law Society and Vice-President for the Energy Law Society. She continues to use every opportunity to raise the importance of issues of low-income and minority communities.

Since returning to North Carolina she has been involved with several local events including the 2019 Duke Environmental Justice Symposium and the North Carolina Truth and Poverty Tour sponsored by the Poor People’s Campaign. She currently resides in Sampson County and serves as a board member of the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH) in Duplin County, North Carolina, whose goal is to educate and empower citizens to learn.

Ms. White-Williamson received her Master of Public Administration from American University, Washington, DC, and Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Howard University, Washington, DC. She has worked in federal and state government, as well in the non-profit sector and academia.